Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These accusations of cheating is just copium for people who can't admit that Asians (and to a lesser extent ask immigrants) are outperforming pretty much everyone else.

Or, more accurately, they're just calling it like it is. Some of the behaviors of certain prep companies were unethical (in particular asking students to memorize and report back Quant Q questions for their in-house test bank), a statement which is true regardless of the predominant race of the students who take/took those same companies courses.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These accusations of cheating is just copium for people who can't admit that Asians (and to a lesser extent ask immigrants) are outperforming pretty much everyone else.

Or, more accurately, they're just calling it like it is. Some of the behaviors of certain prep companies were unethical (in particular asking students to memorize and report back Quant Q questions for their in-house test bank), a statement which is true regardless of the predominant race of the students who take/took those same companies courses.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These accusations of cheating is just copium for people who can't admit that Asians (and to a lesser extent ask immigrants) are outperforming pretty much everyone else.

Or, more accurately, they're just calling it like it is. Some of the behaviors of certain prep companies were unethical (in particular asking students to memorize and report back Quant Q questions for their in-house test bank), a statement which is true regardless of the predominant race of the students who take/took those same companies courses.

Anonymous wrote:These accusations of cheating is just copium for people who can't admit that Asians (and to a lesser extent ask immigrants) are outperforming pretty much everyone else.

Anonymous wrote:These accusations of cheating is just copium for people who can't admit that Asians (and to a lesser extent ask immigrants) are outperforming pretty much everyone else.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it more favors the middle class. TJ can't light a candle to top private schools when you look holistically - even wealthy Asian parents know this and the rule is still true - if you can afford it, go private. If you can't do the best public you can.

This means across all demographics- wealthy kids go to private; MC kids go to public - and if you can't afford the house you fight for the top application schools like TJ - which are still pretty crap.

I would argue that wealthy privates don't hold a candle to TJ. Just look at SAT averages, Regeneron Awards, Math Olympiad team members. It's not even close.

Anonymous wrote:I think it more favors the middle class. TJ can't light a candle to top private schools when you look holistically - even wealthy Asian parents know this and the rule is still true - if you can afford it, go private. If you can't do the best public you can.

This means across all demographics- wealthy kids go to private; MC kids go to public - and if you can't afford the house you fight for the top application schools like TJ - which are still pretty crap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they weren't for sale but if you repeat the lie often enough, some portion of the population that are looking for a reason to believe the low will believe that lie. It's how MAGA and Trump operate and the anti merit racists are really no different.

The two sides are not equally bad but they both use the same tactics and are equally dishonest. The consequences are different.

The left wants to ignore the parts of the constitution that prevents them from enforcing equal results and the right wants to ignore all the other parts.

“Equal results”. GMAFB.

The community thought that having TJ only be accessible to wealthy kids from handful of feeders was unacceptable.

Less than 1% of the class of 2024 came from economically disadvantaged families. In a community with 1/3rd ED families.

The process had to change.

You can have explicit preferences for poverty, you cannot have explicit preferences for race. That is why they got rid of the merit filter, to achieve racial diversity not to achieve economic diversity.

The school board thought that there was a problem because TJ didn't racially reflect the community, not because it didn't economically reflect the community. They could have selected students based on income, but they couldn't select students based on race so they tried to change it to a lottery but that was illegal so they went with eliminating objective measures of merit. During the hearings, the board members focused almost exclusively on race and diversity. The testimony was focused almost exclusively on race and diversity.

Liberals used to strive for equality of opportunity with the notion that this would lead to equality of results. But, when the increasing equality of opportunity didn't lead to a corresponding equality of results for some groups, they kept blaming racism anyway and concluded that any disparity in results was proof of racism. The goal shifted from equality of opportunity to equality of results. I'm not saying we have achieved equality of opportunity but when you see immigrants (mostly but not only asians) from a bunch of different countries can now outperform whites as a group, then the argument that white supremacy is an impenetrable barrier to success by any non-white racial group looks pretty stupid.

You mean, wealthy Asian immigrants. The former TJ admissions process almost exclusively shut out Asian students from low-income families.

The community was concerned about far more than racial disparity. The lack of URMs has always been a concern, but it wasn't the only concern.

2017:
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.”

2018:
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.”

2020:
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. ”


Equity isn't solely focused on race. Just like diversity/DEI isn't just about race.

Equity is focuses on equality of results and assumes equality of merit.

The admissions changes focused on race.

DEI in theory can be a lot of things. I'm practice, it's about race.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are free to believe there wasn't a test bank that was used at some prep programs, but there was. Students in the program admitted it. Students admitted to providing the questions for the test bank.

Did anyone buy the test? No.

Did people pay for access to past test questions? Yes.

Was it criminal activity? No

Was it an advantage to the kids who paid to take those classes? Yes.

Is it part of the reason the Quant test was removed? Yes.

This. And some TJ students who benefited were the ones who publicized this.

Anonymous wrote:You are free to believe there wasn't a test bank that was used at some prep programs, but there was. Students in the program admitted it. Students admitted to providing the questions for the test bank.

Did anyone buy the test? No.

Did people pay for access to past test questions? Yes.

Was it criminal activity? No

Was it an advantage to the kids who paid to take those classes? Yes.

Is it part of the reason the Quant test was removed? Yes.

Anonymous wrote:I think it more favors the middle class. TJ can't light a candle to top private schools when you look holistically - even wealthy Asian parents know this and the rule is still true - if you can afford it, go private. If you can't do the best public you can.

This means across all demographics- wealthy kids go to private; MC kids go to public - and if you can't afford the house you fight for the top application schools like TJ - which are still pretty crap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course they weren't for sale but if you repeat the lie often enough, some portion of the population that are looking for a reason to believe the low will believe that lie. It's how MAGA and Trump operate and the anti merit racists are really no different.

The two sides are not equally bad but they both use the same tactics and are equally dishonest. The consequences are different.

The left wants to ignore the parts of the constitution that prevents them from enforcing equal results and the right wants to ignore all the other parts.

“Equal results”. GMAFB.

The community thought that having TJ only be accessible to wealthy kids from handful of feeders was unacceptable.

Less than 1% of the class of 2024 came from economically disadvantaged families. In a community with 1/3rd ED families.

The process had to change.

You can have explicit preferences for poverty, you cannot have explicit preferences for race. That is why they got rid of the merit filter, to achieve racial diversity not to achieve economic diversity.

The school board thought that there was a problem because TJ didn't racially reflect the community, not because it didn't economically reflect the community. They could have selected students based on income, but they couldn't select students based on race so they tried to change it to a lottery but that was illegal so they went with eliminating objective measures of merit. During the hearings, the board members focused almost exclusively on race and diversity. The testimony was focused almost exclusively on race and diversity.

Liberals used to strive for equality of opportunity with the notion that this would lead to equality of results. But, when the increasing equality of opportunity didn't lead to a corresponding equality of results for some groups, they kept blaming racism anyway and concluded that any disparity in results was proof of racism. The goal shifted from equality of opportunity to equality of results. I'm not saying we have achieved equality of opportunity but when you see immigrants (mostly but not only asians) from a bunch of different countries can now outperform whites as a group, then the argument that white supremacy is an impenetrable barrier to success by any non-white racial group looks pretty stupid.

You mean, wealthy Asian immigrants. The former TJ admissions process almost exclusively shut out Asian students from low-income families.

The community was concerned about far more than racial disparity. The lack of URMs has always been a concern, but it wasn't the only concern.

2017:
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.”

2018:
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.”

2020:
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. ”


Equity isn't solely focused on race. Just like diversity/DEI isn't just about race.