Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amusing to watch the School Board members like Keys Gamarra who pretend to care about "equity" dance around taking on TJ reform.

The reality is they are scared of angry Asians showing up to protest at a Board meeting or work session.

But until they woman up and do the hard work FCPS will just perpetuate its separate and unequal system. Shameful.

Actually it's a model that ought to be copied elsewhere. Accept students based to a specialized STEM school based on merit. What a novel concept.

Actually it is a copying a model that is used elsewhere, in societies that people often hope to escape.

Not a novel concept at all, but also not one that we should have emulated. It is past time to return TJ to its originally intended use.

Not sure what that was since TJ as a STEM school of national renown has been around as long as I can remember. Sounds like you want to dumb it down. Now that would be a shame. One of the last bastions of true merit left, along with the NBA (which no one ever seems to object to due to its racial composition).

You lose credibility when you compare access to quality education with professional sports. And it's a misnomer that TJ exists purely as a meritocracy - they turn down more talented, more successful, and harder-working students who have greater aptitude for STEM all the time in favor of students who sold out having a well-rounded middle school activities experience in favor of only doing activities that would help their TJ application.

One of the biggest tragedies of TJ's admissions process is the fact that kids give up their passions (arts, sports, writing) at such an early age in order to try to optimize their application to a flawed process. TJ shouldn't be in the market for kids who pretend to be 100% STEM-oriented at such an early age.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amusing to watch the School Board members like Keys Gamarra who pretend to care about "equity" dance around taking on TJ reform.

The reality is they are scared of angry Asians showing up to protest at a Board meeting or work session.

But until they woman up and do the hard work FCPS will just perpetuate its separate and unequal system. Shameful.

Actually it's a model that ought to be copied elsewhere. Accept students based to a specialized STEM school based on merit. What a novel concept.

Actually it is a copying a model that is used elsewhere, in societies that people often hope to escape.

Not a novel concept at all, but also not one that we should have emulated. It is past time to return TJ to its originally intended use.

What was the "originally intended use" ?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that hundreds of cities and towns don’t have magnet programs at all. They survive

Africans survive too. Why don’t you move there?

Holy smokes. That's amazingly racist. Africa is huge and there are tons of terrific places to live on that continent.

Are you moving there then?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amusing to watch the School Board members like Keys Gamarra who pretend to care about "equity" dance around taking on TJ reform.

The reality is they are scared of angry Asians showing up to protest at a Board meeting or work session.

But until they woman up and do the hard work FCPS will just perpetuate its separate and unequal system. Shameful.

Actually it's a model that ought to be copied elsewhere. Accept students based to a specialized STEM school based on merit. What a novel concept.

Actually it is a copying a model that is used elsewhere, in societies that people often hope to escape.

Not a novel concept at all, but also not one that we should have emulated. It is past time to return TJ to its originally intended use.

Not sure what that was since TJ as a STEM school of national renown has been around as long as I can remember. Sounds like you want to dumb it down. Now that would be a shame. One of the last bastions of true merit left, along with the NBA (which no one ever seems to object to due to its racial composition).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amusing to watch the School Board members like Keys Gamarra who pretend to care about "equity" dance around taking on TJ reform.

The reality is they are scared of angry Asians showing up to protest at a Board meeting or work session.

But until they woman up and do the hard work FCPS will just perpetuate its separate and unequal system. Shameful.

Actually it's a model that ought to be copied elsewhere. Accept students based to a specialized STEM school based on merit. What a novel concept.

+100

I don't understand the racism against Asians in many of the above posts (and I'm not Asian). What is wrong with differentiation and having a magnet school focused on STEM? The posters who believe TJ should be shut down have not shown any good reason for doing so, other than "it's not fair to other minorities" which just sounds ludicrous. TJ is not fair to many people who don't get in, including many whites and many other asians who apply. Besides, I am 100% sure that EVERYONE who attends TJ would absolutely LOVE to have more diversity, including the Asians currently attending.

So how does shutting down an excellent STEM school solve this problem? It's completely ridiculous. The above posters who are whining about inequality should first think hard about WHY the system is unequal to minorities and lobby the county (and nation) to actually do something about it. It has nothing to do with TJ. It does have to do with our nation (which is segregated and racist as a whole), with the lack of white collar job opportunities available to Blacks/Hispanics, the lack of resources available to their children at an early age/elementary school level, lack of programs that could help identify talented children EARLY on and support their learning through K-12 (See BEAM https://www.beammath.org/ for a successful example), lack of parenting and/or single parents who are barely making ends meet, cultures that do not value education highly (this is even more prevalent among income class than race), etc, etc. These are problems that are not easy to solve but NEED to be if you want to see many more Blacks/Latinos enter and succeed at places like TJ.

So those of you declaring the system is unfairly admitting only Asians, realize that the kids who apply are already highly self selected and have been working hard since early childhood. Even if the system wanted to change the demographics, (which of course they really, really, want to do), but they cannot because not enough Black/Latinos are even applying! And to be honest, who wants to apply if the perception is that the school has a toxic atmosphere and no diversity? Even whites many who would likely flourish there decide to stay at base schools because they (correctly) perceive that TJ is not worth the effort.

TJ does need to listen to its students and work to fix all the issues the students have repeatedly brought up (this is an administration problem, I believe the seniors wrote a list of 100+ issues they felt needed addressing), some include more support for handling stress, more flexibility with requirements, more collaboration and less competitions to discourage cheating, etc. Essentially make the school a friendlier and more supportive place and have resources available to help counsel for wellness and mental health, etc.

In terms of academics, there is no question that TJ is an amazing place to learn and grow. I can't imagine a better place for kids who can handle the challenge, to be surrounded by like minded peers who want to learn as much as they can and the tremendous STEM opportunities available to them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that hundreds of cities and towns don’t have magnet programs at all. They survive

Africans survive too. Why don’t you move there?

Holy smokes. That's amazingly racist. Africa is huge and there are tons of terrific places to live on that continent.

Anonymous wrote:There isn’t a more racist group of parents and students than at TJ. Poke them in the slightest and it all surfaces.

There's a lot of truth to this. Plenty of students and parents who will tell you that the fact that the population is ONLY 70+% Asian is evidence of affirmative action - they believe it should be closer to 100%. The few Black and Latinx students there get passive-aggressive comments all the time about how they're only there because of their race.

LOL. Good luck convincing the school board to give up their magnet school that was rated number one in the country. Whether you agree with the ranking/culture etc, you would have to be pretty naive to think that elected officials would throw out a school that brings their system national recognition.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amusing to watch the School Board members like Keys Gamarra who pretend to care about "equity" dance around taking on TJ reform.

The reality is they are scared of angry Asians showing up to protest at a Board meeting or work session.

But until they woman up and do the hard work FCPS will just perpetuate its separate and unequal system. Shameful.

Actually it's a model that ought to be copied elsewhere. Accept students based to a specialized STEM school based on merit. What a novel concept.

Actually it is a copying a model that is used elsewhere, in societies that people often hope to escape.

Not a novel concept at all, but also not one that we should have emulated. It is past time to return TJ to its originally intended use.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amusing to watch the School Board members like Keys Gamarra who pretend to care about "equity" dance around taking on TJ reform.

The reality is they are scared of angry Asians showing up to protest at a Board meeting or work session.

But until they woman up and do the hard work FCPS will just perpetuate its separate and unequal system. Shameful.

Actually it's a model that ought to be copied elsewhere. Accept students based to a specialized STEM school based on merit. What a novel concept.

oops. screwed that up a bit: Should be - Accept students to a specialized STEM school based on merit.

Anonymous wrote:It's amusing to watch the School Board members like Keys Gamarra who pretend to care about "equity" dance around taking on TJ reform.

The reality is they are scared of angry Asians showing up to protest at a Board meeting or work session.

But until they woman up and do the hard work FCPS will just perpetuate its separate and unequal system. Shameful.

Actually it's a model that ought to be copied elsewhere. Accept students based to a specialized STEM school based on merit. What a novel concept.

It's amusing to watch the School Board members like Keys Gamarra who pretend to care about "equity" dance around taking on TJ reform.

The reality is they are scared of angry Asians showing up to protest at a Board meeting or work session.

But until they woman up and do the hard work FCPS will just perpetuate its separate and unequal system. Shameful.

Not really. TJ has a more or less fixed enrollment. It takes a certain number of students every year. It is not calibrated at all to which students actually need services beyond those they could currently obtain at their base schools, nor does it accommodate all the students who would simply like access to TJ's resources.

It also creates other inefficiencies within FCPS by capping its enrollment at a lower level than almost any other high school in FCPS and educating hundreds of students who live outside the county. This contributes to overcrowding at other schools, which goes unaddressed in part because parents who otherwise might actively lobby for better conditions sit back as their own kids take advantage of TJ's space and resources.

TJ needs to be returned to use as a neighborhood school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ doesn't provide a real world, diverse education.

This is so silly. My TJ kid is coming out with a strong basis is science research, yes. But also an understanding of basic electronics, a certification in welding, the ability to CAD and 3rd print anything, basic computer programming, an incredibly strong grounding in writing and analysis. Shockingly strong history. 4 years of music. A zillion group projects and grades with an assigned lab partner that forced him to learn to collaborate with all different types of kids. What exactly do you think is missing?

It’s not diverse racially, socio-economically, socially and I’d argue intellectually.

+1000. There are a handful of AA and Latinx students in each class, and those kids get talked about behind their backs on a daily basis (and occasionally to their faces) that they are obviously products of a secret affirmative action program. And the over-emphasis on STEM in the admissions process results in entirely too many kids walking around the school with the same ambitions, same goals, and same interests - making the cutthroat environment of competition inevitable. And the worst part is, most of these kids and families came from middle schools with the same problems because of the competition within the schools to get into TJ - so they don't recognize the poisonous nature of the culture until they get to college.

+1

Well said.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But no one is making a compelling case that FCPS needs to have a TJ in 2020. The main justification seems to be that it used to be dominated by whites so we can't pull the plug on it now if it's dominated by Asians. But that still leaves unresolved whether most TJ students would do just as well at their base schools; whether having TJ degrades all the other high schools; and whether the small # of students who truly need something more than their base schools could offer could get that through dual enrollment at GMU.

We have some fresh thinkers on the new School Board and they should take a hard look at the benefits and costs.

The status quo: TJ is the number one high school in America. The crown jewel of the FCPS system. Now you go ahead and make "a compelling case" that we need to do away with TJ.

That argument assumes that the goal of a school system with 25 high and secondary schools is to have one school that stands out.

If MCPS created a single STEM magnet school that pulled hundreds of kids from Whitman, Churchill, Wootton, Walter Johnson and B-CC, as well as kids from other schools, that school would become the #1 school per US News, likely ahead of TJ. If a bunch of towns in Westchester County like Scarsdale, Chappaqua, Rye and Mamaroneck decided to form a regional magnet, it would become the #1 school.

Basically FCPS outsourced education policy to a Republican Board of Supervisors in the mid-80s, which decided that having a STEM magnet would be good for marketing. Any reputable school system of its size would perform a retrospective review to consider whether the educational and reputational benefits outweigh the costs. And the costs are clear: among other things, turning TJ into a magnet deprived that part of Fairfax County of a neighborhood school; having one magnet school is a brain drain that deprives other schools of some of their best students; and operating a school that is held out as the "crown jewel," yet systematically admits an insignificant number of non-Asian minority students, sends a strong message to black and Hispanic kids that FCPS doesn't see them as deserving access to the same resources as the Asian students and dwindling number of white students at TJ.

Conversely, a School Board consisting of self-interested parties whose own kids have attended TJ or cowards who are afraid to rock the boat would pretend that it has no responsibilities with respect to TJ other than re-up its status as a magnet school every year. That's what we've had recently, and no School Board member who just preserves the status quo should pretend for one minute that anyone thinks he or she really cares about "equity" within Fairfax County.

So what is the point of your argument? You're clearly implying that a magnet school concept is not ok for equality and we shouldn't have them in this country. So pray tell, what is your alternative solution for meeting the needs of the few kids who clearly need more than their neighborhood high school can provide, sometimes much more?

Glad to see you acknowledge it's only a "few kids" who need something more than their base school can provide and, even in those situations, your assessment of what a base school could provide is based on what those schools - currently denied the resources and attention lavished on TJ - are now providing.

People wrap themselves up in the rhetoric of special education advocates to suggest that TJ kids would suffer in abject misery, with their basic needs unmet, unless they are able to attend a special magnet school. It's beyond absurd.

I'll tell you what's absurd, the sheer mediocrity of the area high schools, with their shallow content that pass off as "AP", and their ridiculous amount of incentives and lavish amount of money spent on sports and sport programs... that's special interests right there, when sports are more important than learning. Sure, while there is some cheating at TJ, while there are bad apples who don't belong there, yet on the whole it is a culture of excellence and you cannot even begin to compare it to the other schools.

The assertion that TJ is “excellent” while every other high school (educating well over 96% of county students) is “mediocre” is precisely why TJ needs to be shut down. Why on earth should FCPS operate a school that largely serves a bunch of arrogant, condescending jerks?

Because they are gifted and entitled by state law to be provided with gifted education. Perhaps that could be done back at the home schools, but perhaps more efficient for them to be clustered in an environment among other highly gifted kids. My kid didn't get into TJ, but I do see the logic of this.