Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asian Indian Americans are making sure we get from point A to point me when I drop my DD at her playdate with Google maps provided by Google CEO, who is Indian. I run my family as a technical support analyst due to Microsoft software, provided by Microsoft CEO, who is Indian, etc. Most of our America runs on technologies that are either managed or created by American Indians.

Okay? Not seeing any relationship to anything on this thread here…

Welp, a lot of people here seem to be implying that indian americans are dishonest and the only reason they were so over-represented is because they cheat and buy test answers.
The poster you are responding to is saying that if that were true, then how would we explain all the contributions of indian american to the technological revolution we are going through.

Nope, people are not talking about Indian Americans as a group.

They are talking about specific posters who appear to be making excuses for adults who may have convinced tweens/young teens to violate the terms of a NDA that the young people signed. They may have convinced young people to reveal copyrighted information that they had only been allowed to access because they agreed to not reveal the information to any outsider. The people making excuses and rationalizations appear to be admitting that these things happened and they are explaining why there’s nothing wrong with it in their minds.

Sure, children sometimes lie and/cheat, but generally adults aren’t telling them that it’s perfectly fine to do so. Any adult who does that is very lacking in character and integrity.

None is here is saying it's perfectly fine for kid to do something they promised not to do. People are saying that relying on 3000 kids to keep a secret for your admissions process to work is like relying on abstinence for teen birth control.

Once again, if you can just buy your way into TJ, why aren't there more white kids there?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asian Indian Americans are making sure we get from point A to point me when I drop my DD at her playdate with Google maps provided by Google CEO, who is Indian. I run my family as a technical support analyst due to Microsoft software, provided by Microsoft CEO, who is Indian, etc. Most of our America runs on technologies that are either managed or created by American Indians.

Okay? Not seeing any relationship to anything on this thread here…

Welp, a lot of people here seem to be implying that indian americans are dishonest and the only reason they were so over-represented is because they cheat and buy test answers.
The poster you are responding to is saying that if that were true, then how would we explain all the contributions of indian american to the technological revolution we are going through.

Nope. No one is implying that. DP.

There has been discussion about test prep centers (not just curie) that have unethically obtained questions and shared with paying customers.

Those people don’t represent all Indian-Americans.

Of course they are. All the dog whistles and belled references to "cultural differences" are pretty transparent. You're saying that there are a lot of Indians at tj because they cheat. You equate test prep to cheating and point out how "some communities" do a lot of test prep and basically but their way into TJ.

You never respond to the question about why they're aren't more white kids at tj if you can just buy your way in.

No, I’m saying any of that.

It was well known in my affluent area that you could greatly improve chances of admissions by paying $$$ for prep classes. This was common knowledge to most MC/UMC families.

TJ students who took prep classes acknowledged this gave them an unfair advantage.

AND Asian kids from low-income families benefited the most from these changes.


1. CHANGES TO TJ ADMISSIONS PROCESS
FCPS has changed the TJ admissions process multiple times over the years to address systemic inequalities.

https://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/8W9QET68F25B/$file/Changes%20to%20TJHSST%20Admissions%20Since%202004.pdf

https://www.fcag.org/tjadmissions.shtml

https://virginiamercury.com/2024/02/20/supreme-court-wont-hear-thomas-jefferson-admissions-case/

Before the most recent change, the class of 2024 had less than 1% (0.6%) of the students came from economically-disadvantaged families. There was also very little representation from the less affluent schools.



2. CONCERN ABOUT TJ PREP INDUSTRY
There was also public concern about the TJ test prep industry that led, in part, to changes in the admissions process. By reverse engineering the admissions criteria/process, prep companies offered kids an unfair advantage in admissions. In fact, back in 2017 the SB switched to quant-q, which intentionally didn’t share prep, in an effort to reduce this unfair advantage.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“ “Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

This has all been discussed countless times on DCUM. Feel free to go read old threads for more details.


4. TJ STUDENTS ACKNOWLEDGED UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
TH students and others have acknowledged the unfair advantage that money can buy.

https://www.tjtoday.org/29411/features/students-divided-on-proposed-changes-to-admissions-process/
“ “Personally, TJ admissions was not a challenge to navigate. I had a sibling who attended before me. However, a lot of resources needed to navigate admissions cost money. That is an unfair advantage given to more economically advantaged students,” junior Vivi Rao said. ”



5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING QUANT-Q QUESTIONS
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents
Thread started July 11, 2020

I have screenshots but won’t share because they have student names on them.

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”


8. LOW-INCOME ASIAN STUDENTS BENEFITED THE MOST FROM CHANGES
https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/221280.P.pdf
page 16
"Nevertheless, in the 2021 application cycle, Asian American students attending middle schools historically underrepresented at TJ saw a sixfold increase in offers, and the number of low-income Asian American admittees to TJ increased to 51 — from a mere one in 2020."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asian Indian Americans are making sure we get from point A to point me when I drop my DD at her playdate with Google maps provided by Google CEO, who is Indian. I run my family as a technical support analyst due to Microsoft software, provided by Microsoft CEO, who is Indian, etc. Most of our America runs on technologies that are either managed or created by American Indians.

Okay? Not seeing any relationship to anything on this thread here…

Welp, a lot of people here seem to be implying that indian americans are dishonest and the only reason they were so over-represented is because they cheat and buy test answers.
The poster you are responding to is saying that if that were true, then how would we explain all the contributions of indian american to the technological revolution we are going through.

Nope, people are not talking about Indian Americans as a group.

They are talking about specific posters who appear to be making excuses for adults who may have convinced tweens/young teens to violate the terms of a NDA that the young people signed. They may have convinced young people to reveal copyrighted information that they had only been allowed to access because they agreed to not reveal the information to any outsider. The people making excuses and rationalizations appear to be admitting that these things happened and they are explaining why there’s nothing wrong with it in their minds.

Sure, children sometimes lie and/cheat, but generally adults aren’t telling them that it’s perfectly fine to do so. Any adult who does that is very lacking in character and integrity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asian Indian Americans are making sure we get from point A to point me when I drop my DD at her playdate with Google maps provided by Google CEO, who is Indian. I run my family as a technical support analyst due to Microsoft software, provided by Microsoft CEO, who is Indian, etc. Most of our America runs on technologies that are either managed or created by American Indians.

Okay? Not seeing any relationship to anything on this thread here…

Welp, a lot of people here seem to be implying that indian americans are dishonest and the only reason they were so over-represented is because they cheat and buy test answers.
The poster you are responding to is saying that if that were true, then how would we explain all the contributions of indian american to the technological revolution we are going through.

Nope. No one is implying that. DP.

There has been discussion about test prep centers (not just curie) that have unethically obtained questions and shared with paying customers.

Those people don’t represent all Indian-Americans.

Of course they are. All the dog whistles and belled references to "cultural differences" are pretty transparent. You're saying that there are a lot of Indians at tj because they cheat. You equate test prep to cheating and point out how "some communities" do a lot of test prep and basically but their way into TJ.

You never respond to the question about why they're aren't more white kids at tj if you can just buy your way in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asian Indian Americans are making sure we get from point A to point me when I drop my DD at her playdate with Google maps provided by Google CEO, who is Indian. I run my family as a technical support analyst due to Microsoft software, provided by Microsoft CEO, who is Indian, etc. Most of our America runs on technologies that are either managed or created by American Indians.

Okay? Not seeing any relationship to anything on this thread here…

Welp, a lot of people here seem to be implying that indian americans are dishonest and the only reason they were so over-represented is because they cheat and buy test answers.
The poster you are responding to is saying that if that were true, then how would we explain all the contributions of indian american to the technological revolution we are going through.

Nope, people are not talking about Indian Americans as a group.

They are talking about specific posters who appear to be making excuses for adults who may have convinced tweens/young teens to violate the terms of a NDA that the young people signed. They may have convinced young people to reveal copyrighted information that they had only been allowed to access because they agreed to not reveal the information to any outsider. The people making excuses and rationalizations appear to be admitting that these things happened and they are explaining why there’s nothing wrong with it in their minds.

Sure, children sometimes lie and/cheat, but generally adults aren’t telling them that it’s perfectly fine to do so. Any adult who does that is very lacking in character and integrity.

While it has been posted that kids said they saw questions and answers at Curie, and some terms of service for Quant Q clients, it has not been established that kids signed an NDA.
And if they did, how? Did the proctors explain this, or is this like the user license agreements and waivers that people don't read?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asian Indian Americans are making sure we get from point A to point me when I drop my DD at her playdate with Google maps provided by Google CEO, who is Indian. I run my family as a technical support analyst due to Microsoft software, provided by Microsoft CEO, who is Indian, etc. Most of our America runs on technologies that are either managed or created by American Indians.

Okay? Not seeing any relationship to anything on this thread here…

Welp, a lot of people here seem to be implying that indian americans are dishonest and the only reason they were so over-represented is because they cheat and buy test answers.
The poster you are responding to is saying that if that were true, then how would we explain all the contributions of indian american to the technological revolution we are going through.

Nope. No one is implying that. DP.

There has been discussion about test prep centers (not just curie) that have unethically obtained questions and shared with paying customers.

Those people don’t represent all Indian-Americans.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asian Indian Americans are making sure we get from point A to point me when I drop my DD at her playdate with Google maps provided by Google CEO, who is Indian. I run my family as a technical support analyst due to Microsoft software, provided by Microsoft CEO, who is Indian, etc. Most of our America runs on technologies that are either managed or created by American Indians.

Okay? Not seeing any relationship to anything on this thread here…

Welp, a lot of people here seem to be implying that indian americans are dishonest and the only reason they were so over-represented is because they cheat and buy test answers.
The poster you are responding to is saying that if that were true, then how would we explain all the contributions of indian american to the technological revolution we are going through.

Nope, people are not talking about Indian Americans as a group.

They are talking about specific posters who appear to be making excuses for adults who may have convinced tweens/young teens to violate the terms of a NDA that the young people signed. They may have convinced young people to reveal copyrighted information that they had only been allowed to access because they agreed to not reveal the information to any outsider. The people making excuses and rationalizations appear to be admitting that these things happened and they are explaining why there’s nothing wrong with it in their minds.

Sure, children sometimes lie and/cheat, but generally adults aren’t telling them that it’s perfectly fine to do so. Any adult who does that is very lacking in character and integrity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amazing that people bought into the idea that a question and answer test for kids was uncrackable.

Ultimately the majority of the changes made to the admission process don't reflect a reaction to test prep for the QQ (1 of 3 tests in a multi-round process). This is just a distraction based on a handful of Facebook posts.

But, why crack the test? Is it to give an unfair advantage to kids whose parents can pay these businesses?

There is a market, and there will be solutions. Capitalism. Same way why people smuggle drugs or sell socks.

Some say Capitalism is immoral, that sounds like they are against capitalism. Instead, we should say Capitalism is devoid of morality. Supply and demand, like a machine.

So obtaining information by unethical means and selling it to families that can afford it so that their children will have an unfairly obtained advantage over other children from less well off and/or well educated families is okay because… capitalism.

All righty then. We now know what we need to know about the situation here.

it's unethical only because an ill-worded NDA that students have no choice but to sign. It's unethical because the company boasted the exam is un-preppable. HOLD MY BEER.

No, they didn’t “boast” that it was unpreppable. They produced an exam that was meant to be secure and took actions to make and keep it secure. It was an exam that gave the admissions office more information about the students because it showed how the students handled types of questions that they were unlikely to have seen before.

Apparently there are people in this world with no integrity who can’t stand the idea of their kids having to take a test on an even playing field with other kids so they figured out a way to “crack” the test so kids from well off families wouldn’t have to worry about competing with less well off kids who may be more intelligent than they are.

Adults should stay out of this process and let the school do its job.

This is exactly correct except for one thing - "let the school do its job". TJ doesn't have any say in either the development or the execution of the admissions process. FCPS does. And I'll repeat what I said earlier - the Quant-Q did its job for one year and we saw a significant increase in the number of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students in the first year of its implementation.

Its entire purpose what exactly what PP said - to evaluate how students would approach problems that they were unlikely to have seen before. I have seen several versions of the exam, and I can tell you that it is wonderful for achieving this purpose - but also that it would be a staggeringly easy exam for students who had been shown how to do the problems beforehand.

Most exams evaluate how well you can apply a method for solving a problem and the idea behind the QQ was to evaluate your ability to generate a method to solving a problem - that's the reason why it was intended to be secured. And Curie (and the books that are available on Amazon, and probably some other prep companies) destroyed what should have been an ideal exam for sussing out which students actually belong at TJ. I wish there were a way to go back to it - I was that impressed by it.

But we can't, because the golden goose has been slaughtered.

A bit of advice for TJ-aspirant families: the harder you work to crack the process for your kid, the more you incentivize FCPS to increase the apparent randomness and opacity of the process.

It didn't really have the desired effect. QuantQ made an impact but probably not a big enough impact to satisfy folks that wanted more equity. Before QuantQ 3% of the entering class was URM. The first year of QuantQ pushed that number up to 7%.

What you call "cracking the process" is usually referred to as studying in most places where effort is rewarded. I do think you have to be cautious about pushing your kid into the most competitive environment you can possibly squeak them into.

“Cracking the test” so that kids could know what the questions would be like in advance is in no way the same as “studying.”
Test takers are not supposed to have access to the types of questions in advance because part of the usefulness of the test is seeing how students handle new to them problems.

Having access to the types of problems in advance when the test is meant to be a secure instrument is unethical. In no way is it the same as “studying.”

Having access to the question format and question types is absolutely the same thing as studying.

Advertising a test as non-preppable is dishonest if it relies on noone ever discussing what the format of the test is. I mean every standardized test would be unpreppable if noone ever knew what the test looked like. How effective would an SAT class be if they didn't know reading comprehension, and analogies were going to be on the test?

Believing that a test's format remaining secret is naive. The test had a mild effect the first year it was administered but that was about it. Even if they came up witgh a new format every year, FCPS would have changed the admissions process because they were not concerned about the prepping, there is prepping going on right now. They were concerned about the race of the students.

The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc.

1. They want to “measure your natural ability”.
"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically"

2. Test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.
"Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose."

3. Quant-Q was selected because FCPS was looking for ways to level the playing field - so kids who can't afford expensive test prep programs would have a chance:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

That stance walks on cultural thin ice:

1. Some will believe that it is unethical to reward "natural ability" independent of one's dedication to self-improvement through studying. The idea that there is a notion of independent "natural ability" that should be rewarded will be viewed as inherently supremicist thinking by some.

2. Requiring school kids to sign an NDA to take a test would be considered unethical by some, given than academia is inherently dedicated to the principle of sharing of information. Some might prefer to refuse to sign such an NDA on principle, but to do so would be impossible if the student values admission to TJ.

3. To someone who has studied psychology, it might seem a bit gauche that FCPS's response to feeling inadequate due to due an increasingly competitive applicant pool would be to start empathizing with supposed merit-based limitations of Blacks and Hispanics.

1. When you have doctors peppering the American medical field who can ace the MCATs but can't listen to a patient and accept that the way that their body is responding to treatment doesn't match what they learned in books... you start to understand why native problem-solving ability is so important in STEM.

2. Any person who genuinely deserves to go to TJ should be able to understand the concept of "this test will be less than worthless if kids come in already knowing how to do the problems, so don't share it". That's not the same as "Hey, the solution to this problem will help solve other problems for people, so you should share the solution!"

3. This statement is one of hundreds that ascribe this nebulous concept of "merit" exclusively to test-taking ability. When I am seeking to ascribe merit, I ask one simple question: What did you do with the resources you were provided? If child A gets a 90 on an admissions exam and benefited from boutique prep and a stable, economically sound home situation, and child B gets an 88 with no such supports, I'm selecting child B 100 times out of 100, as is proper. But the moment you use a standardized exam as a data point, you invite bad actors to manipulate that data to suggest that "the bar for Asian students is unfairly higher", when in fact, the overwhelming majority of Asian applicants to TJ are not in disadvantaged economic situations and the preponderance of Black and Hispanic applicants are.

When you misuse data, you incentivize selective schools to take it away from you as a weapon to use.

Cracking the test? You mean studying?
If a test relies on ignorance to be valid it is an invalid test.
If the test was a measure of affluence, there would be a lot more white kids making the cut. They literally had to move towards a lottery to increase the white population.

Yes, they mean studying the ill-gotten test answers.

Noone had access to the answers, just the questions.
Just understanding the types of questions being asked helps people prepare the the exam.
But prep only goes so far without academic ability and knowledge.
The fact of the matter is that affluence correlates with many things including parents education level; Parent's education level correlates to focus on education within the home, etc.
If we want to pretend that these things don't result in very real and measurable improvements in academic activity because it would be racist, then we will never get at the issue.

Any system that requires 3000 teenagers to keep a secret is a system doomed to failure.
If you want a lottery for equal access to education, make the lottery a lot sooner. Have a lottery for charter schools that start at pre-K.

It was an ethics test. You failed.

And that’s why we no longer have quant-q.

Clearly it was the test that failed, otherwise we would still have quant q.

A test that relies on 3000 teenagers keeping a secret is dumb AF.

You keep trying to make excuses for people lying and cheating. Now it’s the fault of the test company because they should have expected teenagers to lie? Come on.

Most of these kids probably wouldn’t have lied were it not for adults asking them to describe the copyrighted material. They wouldn’t have had any reason to if adults in their lives hadn’t fed them some of this twisted reasoning for why it’s fine to lie about promising not to disclose copyrighted information.

The test isn’t used anymore because it was compromised. And the fault for the compromising lies with the adults who convinced young teens that they didn’t need to honor the promise they signed when they sat down to take the test. It is not the fault of FCPS, the testing company, or the “culture.”

I feel sorry for kids who have families with plenty of money to spend on education but apparently not enough time to give thought what it means to be a person of integrity.

Yes. I blame the testing company for not forseeing that teenagers might not be reliable. It is the dumbest ducking business plan that requires 3000 teenagers to keep a secret.

Tests were pretty much fine exactly the way they were, quant q had pretty small effects on the admitted population. It is disingenuous to argue that this change in the admissions process was about combatting test prep and not race.

If you don't like the advantage affluence has then give the less affluent kids a preference. There is absolutely no 14th amendment issue with helping poor kids.

If kids don’t see honesty practiced at home, they don’t learn how to be an honest person.

What are you trying to say? Are Indians dishonest?

Of course not. We are only referring here specifically to people who have posted giving excuses why it is okay for people who have signed a NDA to go ahead and disclose the copyrighted material they promised not to disclose. Only those particular posters are being referred to here as being less than honest.

Really? So you're not talking about the actual sharing of the questions at an almost exclusively indian prep center, you are talking about the people who laugh at your naivete in thinking that 3000 teenagers would be able to keep a secret? You sound like one of those people who think that abstinence is an effective form of birth control for teenagers.

DP. Saying that some individuals at a learning center that essentially exclusively Indian-American were dishonest does not equate to "Indians are dishonest".

There wouldn't really be a racial component to this entire conversation if Curie Learning Centers didn't appear to exclusively cater to South Asians. And the only reason we know that they do is because they elected to post the first and last names of their successful TJ/AOS/AET applicants for several years. If they hadn't done that, it would be entirely unreasonable to presume that the individual/s responsible for Curie having word-for-word longform questions from a secured exam were of Indian/South Asian descent.

But because they do, it is. That's their problem, not anyone else's. They hold all of the responsibility for any presumption that the people who behaved unethically in this matter are of South Asian descent.

How popular are enrichment programs at Curie Learning Centers? How do they compare to Kumon?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amazing that people bought into the idea that a question and answer test for kids was uncrackable.

Ultimately the majority of the changes made to the admission process don't reflect a reaction to test prep for the QQ (1 of 3 tests in a multi-round process). This is just a distraction based on a handful of Facebook posts.

But, why crack the test? Is it to give an unfair advantage to kids whose parents can pay these businesses?

There is a market, and there will be solutions. Capitalism. Same way why people smuggle drugs or sell socks.

Some say Capitalism is immoral, that sounds like they are against capitalism. Instead, we should say Capitalism is devoid of morality. Supply and demand, like a machine.

So obtaining information by unethical means and selling it to families that can afford it so that their children will have an unfairly obtained advantage over other children from less well off and/or well educated families is okay because… capitalism.

All righty then. We now know what we need to know about the situation here.

it's unethical only because an ill-worded NDA that students have no choice but to sign. It's unethical because the company boasted the exam is un-preppable. HOLD MY BEER.

No, they didn’t “boast” that it was unpreppable. They produced an exam that was meant to be secure and took actions to make and keep it secure. It was an exam that gave the admissions office more information about the students because it showed how the students handled types of questions that they were unlikely to have seen before.

Apparently there are people in this world with no integrity who can’t stand the idea of their kids having to take a test on an even playing field with other kids so they figured out a way to “crack” the test so kids from well off families wouldn’t have to worry about competing with less well off kids who may be more intelligent than they are.

Adults should stay out of this process and let the school do its job.

This is exactly correct except for one thing - "let the school do its job". TJ doesn't have any say in either the development or the execution of the admissions process. FCPS does. And I'll repeat what I said earlier - the Quant-Q did its job for one year and we saw a significant increase in the number of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students in the first year of its implementation.

Its entire purpose what exactly what PP said - to evaluate how students would approach problems that they were unlikely to have seen before. I have seen several versions of the exam, and I can tell you that it is wonderful for achieving this purpose - but also that it would be a staggeringly easy exam for students who had been shown how to do the problems beforehand.

Most exams evaluate how well you can apply a method for solving a problem and the idea behind the QQ was to evaluate your ability to generate a method to solving a problem - that's the reason why it was intended to be secured. And Curie (and the books that are available on Amazon, and probably some other prep companies) destroyed what should have been an ideal exam for sussing out which students actually belong at TJ. I wish there were a way to go back to it - I was that impressed by it.

But we can't, because the golden goose has been slaughtered.

A bit of advice for TJ-aspirant families: the harder you work to crack the process for your kid, the more you incentivize FCPS to increase the apparent randomness and opacity of the process.

It didn't really have the desired effect. QuantQ made an impact but probably not a big enough impact to satisfy folks that wanted more equity. Before QuantQ 3% of the entering class was URM. The first year of QuantQ pushed that number up to 7%.

What you call "cracking the process" is usually referred to as studying in most places where effort is rewarded. I do think you have to be cautious about pushing your kid into the most competitive environment you can possibly squeak them into.

“Cracking the test” so that kids could know what the questions would be like in advance is in no way the same as “studying.”
Test takers are not supposed to have access to the types of questions in advance because part of the usefulness of the test is seeing how students handle new to them problems.

Having access to the types of problems in advance when the test is meant to be a secure instrument is unethical. In no way is it the same as “studying.”

Having access to the question format and question types is absolutely the same thing as studying.

Advertising a test as non-preppable is dishonest if it relies on noone ever discussing what the format of the test is. I mean every standardized test would be unpreppable if noone ever knew what the test looked like. How effective would an SAT class be if they didn't know reading comprehension, and analogies were going to be on the test?

Believing that a test's format remaining secret is naive. The test had a mild effect the first year it was administered but that was about it. Even if they came up witgh a new format every year, FCPS would have changed the admissions process because they were not concerned about the prepping, there is prepping going on right now. They were concerned about the race of the students.

The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc.

1. They want to “measure your natural ability”.
"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically"

2. Test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.
"Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose."

3. Quant-Q was selected because FCPS was looking for ways to level the playing field - so kids who can't afford expensive test prep programs would have a chance:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

That stance walks on cultural thin ice:

1. Some will believe that it is unethical to reward "natural ability" independent of one's dedication to self-improvement through studying. The idea that there is a notion of independent "natural ability" that should be rewarded will be viewed as inherently supremicist thinking by some.

2. Requiring school kids to sign an NDA to take a test would be considered unethical by some, given than academia is inherently dedicated to the principle of sharing of information. Some might prefer to refuse to sign such an NDA on principle, but to do so would be impossible if the student values admission to TJ.

3. To someone who has studied psychology, it might seem a bit gauche that FCPS's response to feeling inadequate due to due an increasingly competitive applicant pool would be to start empathizing with supposed merit-based limitations of Blacks and Hispanics.

1. When you have doctors peppering the American medical field who can ace the MCATs but can't listen to a patient and accept that the way that their body is responding to treatment doesn't match what they learned in books... you start to understand why native problem-solving ability is so important in STEM.

2. Any person who genuinely deserves to go to TJ should be able to understand the concept of "this test will be less than worthless if kids come in already knowing how to do the problems, so don't share it". That's not the same as "Hey, the solution to this problem will help solve other problems for people, so you should share the solution!"

3. This statement is one of hundreds that ascribe this nebulous concept of "merit" exclusively to test-taking ability. When I am seeking to ascribe merit, I ask one simple question: What did you do with the resources you were provided? If child A gets a 90 on an admissions exam and benefited from boutique prep and a stable, economically sound home situation, and child B gets an 88 with no such supports, I'm selecting child B 100 times out of 100, as is proper. But the moment you use a standardized exam as a data point, you invite bad actors to manipulate that data to suggest that "the bar for Asian students is unfairly higher", when in fact, the overwhelming majority of Asian applicants to TJ are not in disadvantaged economic situations and the preponderance of Black and Hispanic applicants are.

When you misuse data, you incentivize selective schools to take it away from you as a weapon to use.

Cracking the test? You mean studying?
If a test relies on ignorance to be valid it is an invalid test.
If the test was a measure of affluence, there would be a lot more white kids making the cut. They literally had to move towards a lottery to increase the white population.

Yes, they mean studying the ill-gotten test answers.

Noone had access to the answers, just the questions.
Just understanding the types of questions being asked helps people prepare the the exam.
But prep only goes so far without academic ability and knowledge.
The fact of the matter is that affluence correlates with many things including parents education level; Parent's education level correlates to focus on education within the home, etc.
If we want to pretend that these things don't result in very real and measurable improvements in academic activity because it would be racist, then we will never get at the issue.

Any system that requires 3000 teenagers to keep a secret is a system doomed to failure.
If you want a lottery for equal access to education, make the lottery a lot sooner. Have a lottery for charter schools that start at pre-K.

It was an ethics test. You failed.

And that’s why we no longer have quant-q.

Clearly it was the test that failed, otherwise we would still have quant q.

A test that relies on 3000 teenagers keeping a secret is dumb AF.

You keep trying to make excuses for people lying and cheating. Now it’s the fault of the test company because they should have expected teenagers to lie? Come on.

Most of these kids probably wouldn’t have lied were it not for adults asking them to describe the copyrighted material. They wouldn’t have had any reason to if adults in their lives hadn’t fed them some of this twisted reasoning for why it’s fine to lie about promising not to disclose copyrighted information.

The test isn’t used anymore because it was compromised. And the fault for the compromising lies with the adults who convinced young teens that they didn’t need to honor the promise they signed when they sat down to take the test. It is not the fault of FCPS, the testing company, or the “culture.”

I feel sorry for kids who have families with plenty of money to spend on education but apparently not enough time to give thought what it means to be a person of integrity.

Yes. I blame the testing company for not forseeing that teenagers might not be reliable. It is the dumbest ducking business plan that requires 3000 teenagers to keep a secret.

Tests were pretty much fine exactly the way they were, quant q had pretty small effects on the admitted population. It is disingenuous to argue that this change in the admissions process was about combatting test prep and not race.

If you don't like the advantage affluence has then give the less affluent kids a preference. There is absolutely no 14th amendment issue with helping poor kids.

If kids don’t see honesty practiced at home, they don’t learn how to be an honest person.

What are you trying to say? Are Indians dishonest?

Of course not. We are only referring here specifically to people who have posted giving excuses why it is okay for people who have signed a NDA to go ahead and disclose the copyrighted material they promised not to disclose. Only those particular posters are being referred to here as being less than honest.

Really? So you're not talking about the actual sharing of the questions at an almost exclusively indian prep center, you are talking about the people who laugh at your naivete in thinking that 3000 teenagers would be able to keep a secret? You sound like one of those people who think that abstinence is an effective form of birth control for teenagers.

DP. Saying that some individuals at a learning center that essentially exclusively Indian-American were dishonest does not equate to "Indians are dishonest".

There wouldn't really be a racial component to this entire conversation if Curie Learning Centers didn't appear to exclusively cater to South Asians. And the only reason we know that they do is because they elected to post the first and last names of their successful TJ/AOS/AET applicants for several years. If they hadn't done that, it would be entirely unreasonable to presume that the individual/s responsible for Curie having word-for-word longform questions from a secured exam were of Indian/South Asian descent.

But because they do, it is. That's their problem, not anyone else's. They hold all of the responsibility for any presumption that the people who behaved unethically in this matter are of South Asian descent.

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Anonymous wrote:It's amazing that people bought into the idea that a question and answer test for kids was uncrackable.

Ultimately the majority of the changes made to the admission process don't reflect a reaction to test prep for the QQ (1 of 3 tests in a multi-round process). This is just a distraction based on a handful of Facebook posts.

But, why crack the test? Is it to give an unfair advantage to kids whose parents can pay these businesses?

There is a market, and there will be solutions. Capitalism. Same way why people smuggle drugs or sell socks.

Some say Capitalism is immoral, that sounds like they are against capitalism. Instead, we should say Capitalism is devoid of morality. Supply and demand, like a machine.

So obtaining information by unethical means and selling it to families that can afford it so that their children will have an unfairly obtained advantage over other children from less well off and/or well educated families is okay because… capitalism.

All righty then. We now know what we need to know about the situation here.

it's unethical only because an ill-worded NDA that students have no choice but to sign. It's unethical because the company boasted the exam is un-preppable. HOLD MY BEER.

No, they didn’t “boast” that it was unpreppable. They produced an exam that was meant to be secure and took actions to make and keep it secure. It was an exam that gave the admissions office more information about the students because it showed how the students handled types of questions that they were unlikely to have seen before.

Apparently there are people in this world with no integrity who can’t stand the idea of their kids having to take a test on an even playing field with other kids so they figured out a way to “crack” the test so kids from well off families wouldn’t have to worry about competing with less well off kids who may be more intelligent than they are.

Adults should stay out of this process and let the school do its job.

This is exactly correct except for one thing - "let the school do its job". TJ doesn't have any say in either the development or the execution of the admissions process. FCPS does. And I'll repeat what I said earlier - the Quant-Q did its job for one year and we saw a significant increase in the number of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students in the first year of its implementation.

Its entire purpose what exactly what PP said - to evaluate how students would approach problems that they were unlikely to have seen before. I have seen several versions of the exam, and I can tell you that it is wonderful for achieving this purpose - but also that it would be a staggeringly easy exam for students who had been shown how to do the problems beforehand.

Most exams evaluate how well you can apply a method for solving a problem and the idea behind the QQ was to evaluate your ability to generate a method to solving a problem - that's the reason why it was intended to be secured. And Curie (and the books that are available on Amazon, and probably some other prep companies) destroyed what should have been an ideal exam for sussing out which students actually belong at TJ. I wish there were a way to go back to it - I was that impressed by it.

But we can't, because the golden goose has been slaughtered.

A bit of advice for TJ-aspirant families: the harder you work to crack the process for your kid, the more you incentivize FCPS to increase the apparent randomness and opacity of the process.

It didn't really have the desired effect. QuantQ made an impact but probably not a big enough impact to satisfy folks that wanted more equity. Before QuantQ 3% of the entering class was URM. The first year of QuantQ pushed that number up to 7%.

What you call "cracking the process" is usually referred to as studying in most places where effort is rewarded. I do think you have to be cautious about pushing your kid into the most competitive environment you can possibly squeak them into.

“Cracking the test” so that kids could know what the questions would be like in advance is in no way the same as “studying.”
Test takers are not supposed to have access to the types of questions in advance because part of the usefulness of the test is seeing how students handle new to them problems.

Having access to the types of problems in advance when the test is meant to be a secure instrument is unethical. In no way is it the same as “studying.”

Having access to the question format and question types is absolutely the same thing as studying.

Advertising a test as non-preppable is dishonest if it relies on noone ever discussing what the format of the test is. I mean every standardized test would be unpreppable if noone ever knew what the test looked like. How effective would an SAT class be if they didn't know reading comprehension, and analogies were going to be on the test?

Believing that a test's format remaining secret is naive. The test had a mild effect the first year it was administered but that was about it. Even if they came up witgh a new format every year, FCPS would have changed the admissions process because they were not concerned about the prepping, there is prepping going on right now. They were concerned about the race of the students.

The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc.

1. They want to “measure your natural ability”.
"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically"

2. Test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.
"Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose."

3. Quant-Q was selected because FCPS was looking for ways to level the playing field - so kids who can't afford expensive test prep programs would have a chance:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

That stance walks on cultural thin ice:

1. Some will believe that it is unethical to reward "natural ability" independent of one's dedication to self-improvement through studying. The idea that there is a notion of independent "natural ability" that should be rewarded will be viewed as inherently supremicist thinking by some.

2. Requiring school kids to sign an NDA to take a test would be considered unethical by some, given than academia is inherently dedicated to the principle of sharing of information. Some might prefer to refuse to sign such an NDA on principle, but to do so would be impossible if the student values admission to TJ.

3. To someone who has studied psychology, it might seem a bit gauche that FCPS's response to feeling inadequate due to due an increasingly competitive applicant pool would be to start empathizing with supposed merit-based limitations of Blacks and Hispanics.

1. When you have doctors peppering the American medical field who can ace the MCATs but can't listen to a patient and accept that the way that their body is responding to treatment doesn't match what they learned in books... you start to understand why native problem-solving ability is so important in STEM.

2. Any person who genuinely deserves to go to TJ should be able to understand the concept of "this test will be less than worthless if kids come in already knowing how to do the problems, so don't share it". That's not the same as "Hey, the solution to this problem will help solve other problems for people, so you should share the solution!"

3. This statement is one of hundreds that ascribe this nebulous concept of "merit" exclusively to test-taking ability. When I am seeking to ascribe merit, I ask one simple question: What did you do with the resources you were provided? If child A gets a 90 on an admissions exam and benefited from boutique prep and a stable, economically sound home situation, and child B gets an 88 with no such supports, I'm selecting child B 100 times out of 100, as is proper. But the moment you use a standardized exam as a data point, you invite bad actors to manipulate that data to suggest that "the bar for Asian students is unfairly higher", when in fact, the overwhelming majority of Asian applicants to TJ are not in disadvantaged economic situations and the preponderance of Black and Hispanic applicants are.

When you misuse data, you incentivize selective schools to take it away from you as a weapon to use.

Cracking the test? You mean studying?
If a test relies on ignorance to be valid it is an invalid test.
If the test was a measure of affluence, there would be a lot more white kids making the cut. They literally had to move towards a lottery to increase the white population.

Yes, they mean studying the ill-gotten test answers.

Noone had access to the answers, just the questions.
Just understanding the types of questions being asked helps people prepare the the exam.
But prep only goes so far without academic ability and knowledge.
The fact of the matter is that affluence correlates with many things including parents education level; Parent's education level correlates to focus on education within the home, etc.
If we want to pretend that these things don't result in very real and measurable improvements in academic activity because it would be racist, then we will never get at the issue.

Any system that requires 3000 teenagers to keep a secret is a system doomed to failure.
If you want a lottery for equal access to education, make the lottery a lot sooner. Have a lottery for charter schools that start at pre-K.

It was an ethics test. You failed.

And that’s why we no longer have quant-q.

Clearly it was the test that failed, otherwise we would still have quant q.

A test that relies on 3000 teenagers keeping a secret is dumb AF.

You keep trying to make excuses for people lying and cheating. Now it’s the fault of the test company because they should have expected teenagers to lie? Come on.

Most of these kids probably wouldn’t have lied were it not for adults asking them to describe the copyrighted material. They wouldn’t have had any reason to if adults in their lives hadn’t fed them some of this twisted reasoning for why it’s fine to lie about promising not to disclose copyrighted information.

The test isn’t used anymore because it was compromised. And the fault for the compromising lies with the adults who convinced young teens that they didn’t need to honor the promise they signed when they sat down to take the test. It is not the fault of FCPS, the testing company, or the “culture.”

I feel sorry for kids who have families with plenty of money to spend on education but apparently not enough time to give thought what it means to be a person of integrity.

Yes. I blame the testing company for not forseeing that teenagers might not be reliable. It is the dumbest ducking business plan that requires 3000 teenagers to keep a secret.

Tests were pretty much fine exactly the way they were, quant q had pretty small effects on the admitted population. It is disingenuous to argue that this change in the admissions process was about combatting test prep and not race.

If you don't like the advantage affluence has then give the less affluent kids a preference. There is absolutely no 14th amendment issue with helping poor kids.

If kids don’t see honesty practiced at home, they don’t learn how to be an honest person.

What are you trying to say? Are Indians dishonest?

Of course not. We are only referring here specifically to people who have posted giving excuses why it is okay for people who have signed a NDA to go ahead and disclose the copyrighted material they promised not to disclose. Only those particular posters are being referred to here as being less than honest.

Really? So you're not talking about the actual sharing of the questions at an almost exclusively indian prep center, you are talking about the people who laugh at your naivete in thinking that 3000 teenagers would be able to keep a secret? You sound like one of those people who think that abstinence is an effective form of birth control for teenagers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asian Indian Americans are making sure we get from point A to point me when I drop my DD at her playdate with Google maps provided by Google CEO, who is Indian. I run my family as a technical support analyst due to Microsoft software, provided by Microsoft CEO, who is Indian, etc. Most of our America runs on technologies that are either managed or created by American Indians.

Okay? Not seeing any relationship to anything on this thread here…

Welp, a lot of people here seem to be implying that indian americans are dishonest and the only reason they were so over-represented is because they cheat and buy test answers.
The poster you are responding to is saying that if that were true, then how would we explain all the contributions of indian american to the technological revolution we are going through.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asian Indian Americans are making sure we get from point A to point me when I drop my DD at her playdate with Google maps provided by Google CEO, who is Indian. I run my family as a technical support analyst due to Microsoft software, provided by Microsoft CEO, who is Indian, etc. Most of our America runs on technologies that are either managed or created by American Indians.

Okay? Not seeing any relationship to anything on this thread here…

Welp, a lot of people here seem to be implying that indian americans are dishonest and the only reason they were so over-represented is because they cheat and buy test answers.
The poster you are responding to is saying that if that were true, then how would we explain all the contributions of indian american to the technological revolution we are going through.