Reply to Rigor at TJ compared to regular FCPS high Schools

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Reply to "Rigor at TJ compared to regular FCPS high Schools"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Bottom 10% at TJ will be top 10% at Langley and McLean etc.[/quote]

Bottom 10% at TJ get a B or C in Calc AB, and that's about it with math.  Top 10% at Langley and McLean get an A in Calc BC, and follow it up with Multi Variable, and Linear Alegbra[/quote]

More so now with the essay based admission.  Bottom 10% leave after freshman, the next bottom 10% write five line essays and that's about it[/quote]

Just the opposite. The bottom 10% was worse when people were only getting in because they bought the test answers. At least now it's based on merit.[/quote]

bought test answers from where? I read conspiracy theories being floated here.  But in a real world, buyers can only exist when there is both a seller and a product present in the transaction. Who is the seller? Do they have a site where they sell this product? [/quote]

It was the place that shall not be named.  Continue to disbelieve what happened.  That way you can continue to misunderstand one of the reasons for the admissions change (there were others too). [/quote]

Let me get this. There was a place that cant be named, that sold a product that cant be mentioned, at a location that cannot be disclosed, that caused the admission change?[/quote]

*chuckles* The place is called Curie Learning Centers.

The product is/was their flagship TJ prep course that featured, among many other things, a question bank for the secured Quant-Q exam that was inappropriately derived from their previous students reporting back on the questions they'd seen when they took the exam. While Curie didn't do anything illegal, what they did was unethical, as they used materials given to them by students who had signed an agreement not to disclose any materials from the Quant-Q. It's been confirmed many times by TJ students who attended Curie and the veracity of the story is no longer up for debate among serious people. The flagship course ran about $5,000 per student (not the $20K that has been mentioned here before) and ran for a 16-month period beginning for most students at the star of their 7th grade year and running up through the administration of the Student Information Sheet in January of 8th grade.

Curie has multiple locations in Loudoun and western Fairfax Counties.

To say that the Curie matter "caused" the admissions changes is perhaps not quite appropriate, but it absolutely highlighted the need for reform because of the program's success in securing admission to TJ and the growth of its claims year over year.

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And before anyone comes at me with the snarky "look, another advertisement for Curie" nonsense, understand this:

I don't care at all how much money Dr. R is able to bilk off of insecure families - I only care that the families are not rewarded in admissions processes for having the money to burn.[/quote]

Why the fixation on Curie? have you been through their wringer?[/quote]

I fixate on Curie because TJ kids who went to Curie confirmed that they behaved unethically AND because they published the first and last names of the kids who got in using their services - and in so doing proved that they serve the South Asian community exclusively.[/quote]

How did the kids who went to Curie Learning behave unethically when Curie has a math question bank of 100,000 questions from which they create study material and random weekly, monthly unit tests?  My son went there and we were very happy with their services.  Make sure you ask for festival discounts.  Friday samosas are great too. It's not exclusive for South Asian community, anyone who can handle their samosa spice level is happy there.  I was told they do party catering as well, but never tried though. [/quote]

I too would like to understand what happened. Can someone provide a link to the news article or board docs that talks about the one apparent russian kid who caused fcps to overhaul TJ admissions? 
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There is no news article, and there are no board docs.  The only things that are known are that Curie published a list of kids who were supposedly offered admissions.  The list was not vetted and included some double listed kids, as well as kids who were offered TJ spots and turned them down.  Some kids posted on TJ vents that they had seen similar questions to the Quant Q in their Curie classes.  High Quant Q scores, along with high ACT Aspire scores and good grades let kids become TJ semifinalists.  Only half of those kids would go on to be offered TJ admissions, and they would need the essays, recommendations, and such to support admissions.  Many of these kids were filling the 100-ish seats going to LCPS kids, and the same kids are still, in the new admissions environment, filling the LCPS spots.

People on dcum are spinning this into some huge cheating scandal where kids "bought the test" and where a bunch of unqualified kids got admissions.  This is not the case, and they're determined to keep lying.  It is true that kids were not supposed to have any advanced prep for the Quant Q, and Curie kids had an unfair advantage.  They didn't buy the test or answers, but instead had some practice in how to approach problems that were supposed to be solved without prior warning.  It's also true that the Quant Q needed to be eliminated due to the breaking of the test through prep.  For the most part, the use of the Quant Q and the Curie prep programs just led to the wrong kids filling out the bottom 20% of TJ.

There was no reason at all to remove the ACT Aspire or some other standardized test as a baseline competence check.  There was no reason to remove teacher recommendations, weight given to major achievements, consideration of courses taken, and essays that actually have substance.  [/quote]

Did TJ admission have their own version of Quant Q or is it the third party Quant Q test used by many other stem schools? 
Quant Q and ACT Aspire workbooks are on amazon for less price than a double cheese burger and a nice tall milk shake, and TJ was expecting students to not buy them? 
[/quote]

It was the third party Quant-Q test, engineered by the provider for a high school audience.

Those Quant-Q workbooks did not exist prior to the exam being used for TJ admissions - or at the very least, they were not easily available.[/quote]

First quant-q was stolen by a kid stole, next it changed to quant-q workbook didnt exist, now quant-q is not easily available.

Lie after lie! Your parents must be proud of who they raised.

Quant-q & ACT Aspire is widely used across stem schools, and plenty of workbooks have existed in the market long before TJ ever used them for admissions evaluation.

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