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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I'd improve funding for Young Scholars and update the selection criteria to identify kids who need the help.  Kids who are FARMS, are lower middle class but not FARMS, have parents who do not have college degrees, have only one parent figure in their lives, or are part of a historically repressed group (people of Native American or Native Central/South American ancestry and people of African American ancestry - not including white Hispanics or Black Immigrants) would be the kids I would target for extra programming.  I'd probably include refugees in the repressed people group.  Free after school tutoring, summer programs, and ECs would be a part of the program.

The only true solution, though, is to lift people out of poverty.  Our country lacks the will to do so, and instead would rather slap a band-aid on this gaping wound.  Letting a handful more black kids into elite magnet programs gives people the warm fuzzies, but it doesn't do anything to address the deep problems causing the achievement gap.[/quote]

We can improve funding and programs all we want, but the schools that these kids attend will continue to be the schools that everyone else is desperate to avoid. And as history has shown in these kinds of schools, like the case of DCPS, no amount of funding seems to be enough to lift those kids out of their poverty when they continue to be isolated into highly concentrated, very low-performing schools.[/quote]

Financial support can help them but cannot change their life if they don’t have the self motivation and execution. Sending them to TJ also cannot change their life. Staying at the bottom of TJ is nothing good for them. [/quote]

So glad you know what’s best for them.  Yes, don’t waste a precious spot at TJ on them since you in all of your almighty knowledge say they don’t have the “self motivation and execution”.  How would you know this for each individual child???  Hmmm.  A stereotype.  Kind of like the Asian parenting stereotypes. Interesting . . .

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PP who suggested improving Young Scholars and trying to lift people out of poverty, here.  I honestly don't think a precious spot at TJ should be wasted on a kid who has not demonstrated any particular self motivation or execution.  Admitting kids to TJ who do not have the academic capacity for TJ is just setting them up for failure.  But that's precisely why I want to improve Young Scholars, improve the lower SES middle schools, and try to lift people out of poverty.  At least if the funding and programming is there for the lower SES kids, they have a much more fair chance to develop the academic skills they need and demonstrate their self motivation.  Whether or not any individual kids rise to the occasion is up to them, but at least we're giving them a chance.  [/quote]

They already do this.  TJ current students already do tutoring and support specifically focused on schools/areas that are less represented

Here is what I would do

Eliminate AAP from the top 1/3 of schools.  Those kids have a high enough cohort at their base to be challenged.
Have AAP be an elite program for kids in the bottom 2/3 of schools.  Less than 5% of kids total ideally more like 1%

TJ Admissions would be anyone in the AAP program and then kids who have the best scores after that.
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These ideas are pretty awful.    I mean, I want to be polite, but they're quite frankly idiotic.  I honestly can't believe that anyone thought this was reasonable and put it out there.  You should feel embarrassed.

-The top 1/3 of schools may have a large cohort of 90th percentile plus kids.  But they also have a sizable cohort of 99.9th percentile kids.  The top 1-2% at any school will have needs that cannot be met in a general cohort.  You're basically suggesting that the IQ 120 kids at low SES schools need an extra special program, but the IQ 145+ kids would be finehe face of all gifted research, but hey.  Who cares about the kids who are actually gifted when they ruin your political agenda, right?  AAP should be reduced in size to the top 5% at each school.  Those are the kids who will be outliers in regular classrooms even in the high SES schools.

-Virginia has a gifted mandate.  The state requires that gifted kids be given gifted services.  Your solution is in violation of the law.

-AAP is also an advanced curriculum.  Are you suggesting that the top kids at the high SES schools should not have access to a curriculum appropriate to their academic level?  Are you going to keep them out of advanced math or 7th grade Algebra, which are largely accessed through AAP, while you're at it?

-Making it nearly impossible for kids from high SES schools to attend TJ is idiotic, especially since the most highly gifted kids tend to come from such schools.  It's also blatantly racist and unfair.  Did you really think people wouldn't notice that the schools you're denying AAP and a fair shot at TJ are the ones with high concentrations of Asian kids?  All kids across FCPS should have equal opportunity to demonstrate their abilities and access the magnet program based on those demonstrated abilities, especially when the magnet program is the only way in FCPS to access many advanced math and science classes, and especially when there are at least some gifted kids in the "TJ feeder" schools who literally cannot have their needs met without access to those advanced classes.

-Since TJ is a governor's school, it must admit certain numbers of kids from LCPS, APS, PW Schools, etc.  Those schools don't have AAP and thus can't be admitted based on AAP status.  In light of this, you would most likely drive educated, affluent people out of Fairfax.

-If you water down TJ the way you propose, it will soon become just like any regular high school.  The advanced course offerings will disappear when there isn't a sufficient enough cohort to take them.  The expensive labs will be pointless if the kids are topping out at the same Honors and AP classes that would have been available at their local schools.  
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With all due respect you are a moron

Kids at the 99.9th percentile should be skipping multiple grades including going to college early.  The majority of students aren't actually gifted they are just smart and will be served in a regular classroom at a top school surrounded by other smart kids.  [b]My proposal identifies gifted kids attending poor home school environments which is the best bang for the buck and society at large[/b]

The kids at the 1/3 best schools can have the AAP curriculum be the general classroom curriculum

Can you do math at all moron, I'm proposing actually gifted levels for AP for the bottom 2/3 of school.  The majority of the TJ class will be filled by smart (but not gifted) kids attending the better schools while also including gifted kids from the lower 2/3 schools best of both worlds.

Try and think before you post next time 
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Wow.  You're really, truly dumb.  Kids at the 99.9th percentile should NOT be skipping multiple grades.  It's horrible for socialization, and you would be setting those kids up for not really having any friends.  Also, skipping grades is skipping material, playing catch up, getting bored again from learning faster than peers, skipping again, etc.  It is not nearly as good as an actual gifted level class moving at an appropriate pace, skipping nothing, and having similar ability peers.  Aside from that, FCPS is not willing to skip kids ahead more than a grade level.  Your solution is something that FCPS categorically just will not do, probably because they also understand that it's socially a poor fit for almost all kids.

FCPS is enormous.  It would be quite easy to have a few AAP centers in the western part of the county catering to kids at the 140+ level.  It certainly makes 1000x more sense to actually teach the highly gifted than deny them the appropriate gifted programming that they're entitled to by VA law.

Can you even math, bro?  You suggested filling TJ from an AAP system that only exists in the bottom 2/3 of FCPS, and then backfilling from the higher SES schools only when there's space.  TJ has around 350-400 FCPS spots, with the remainder going to LCPS, APS, etc.  There are around 14,000 kids per grade level.  The bottom 2/3 of schools would serve around 9332 of these kids.  The top 5% of that would represent 467 kids, which is larger than the FCPS allotment would even be.

If you went with your top 1% idea, you'd have only 93 kids per grade level in the top 1% of the lower 2/3 of FCPS ES.  This would be completely insufficient for running an elementary ES program.  The CogAT and NNAT ceilings are also not sufficiently high for that level of granularity.  And this is putting a ton of weight on somewhat dubious tests taken in 2nd grade.  Kids with undiagnosed LDs would be effectively shut out of the process.

Regarding the bolded, it's possible to do that without stripping away gifted services from the kids at higher SES schools.  Providing gifted services to poor kids at lower SES schools is completely independent from providing gifted programming to higher SES kids.  The only thing your proposal does is stick it to the Asian kids, which was almost certainly your point.

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