Anonymous wrote:
Frequently these two solutions:

1) improving admissions standards to account for imbalances in opportunities and resources
2) "fixing the pipeline" by providing additional resources and attention to areas of need prior to the admissions process

... are posed as a binary choice - we should do one or the other. Worse yet, frequently advocates of focusing all of our attention on choice #2 don't actually do anything or advocate for any actual attention to be paid to those areas - and indeed sometimes go on to advocate AGAINST those resources being diverted once they realize that they're being diverted from areas of privilege.

PP here. I agree. The best choice is adjusting the admissions now so they can't just continue kicking the can down the road, but also be mindful of the resources needed to lift the lower performing schools.

I usually assume that the administration will take the laziest, easiest approach that will obfuscate the issue and not make meaningful changes. In this case, I'm worried that they with think that changing the admissions standards is enough in and of itself, and thus not address any of the underlying issues. Fixing the pipeline costs money, and I doubt that FCPS has the will to allocate the money that would be needed. It's much easier for them tweak the admissions process and then declare the equity issues fixed.

If they had embraced the pipeline choice as the main option, then my worry is that they would make a few superficial changes, but mostly just kick the can down the road.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Do *you* think the demographics at TJ were an issue before?

Still waiting to hear from PP...

PP here. I think it's complicated. Demographics in and of themselves shouldn't be an issue that needs to be solved by artificially changing admissions standards. These demographics pretty strongly reveal that the academic pipeline for URM and lower income students needs to be fixed. I hope FCPS does something to improve the lower performing ES and MS schools and provide more enrichment and mentorship to these students, so they could get admitted on their own merit and not from "experience factors" or a very pared down application.

Frequently these two solutions:

1) improving admissions standards to account for imbalances in opportunities and resources
2) "fixing the pipeline" by providing additional resources and attention to areas of need prior to the admissions process

... are posed as a binary choice - we should do one or the other. Worse yet, frequently advocates of focusing all of our attention on choice #2 don't actually do anything or advocate for any actual attention to be paid to those areas - and indeed sometimes go on to advocate AGAINST those resources being diverted once they realize that they're being diverted from areas of privilege.

It's not a binary choice. We should do both things, recognizing - as other elite institutions have - that standardized testing is an extremely flawed metric with which to select an incoming class and that legitimate diversity is a worthwhile aim that significantly improves the academic environment....

... while simultaneously recognizing that investments need to be made to ensure that all groups have access, if they so desire, to genuinely enriching educational opportunities to further access to desired outcomes.

The zero-sum attitude that many folks have with respect to opportunities like TJ makes comprehending this idea impossible - which is how you get a lot of the nonsense that you see on this forum pretending to advocate for equity but actually kicking the can as far down the road as possible so that their own children and their opportunities are unaffected. Understandable, but still disgusting and disingenuous.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Do *you* think the demographics at TJ were an issue before?

Still waiting to hear from PP...

PP here. I think it's complicated. Demographics in and of themselves shouldn't be an issue that needs to be solved by artificially changing admissions standards. These demographics pretty strongly reveal that the academic pipeline for URM and lower income students needs to be fixed. I hope FCPS does something to improve the lower performing ES and MS schools and provide more enrichment and mentorship to these students, so they could get admitted on their own merit and not from "experience factors" or a very pared down application.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My TJ student is happy with the changes, and prefers a more diverse group of friends and classmates. That's what matters and not some mom or dad on DCUM. Just move to private school, but you will see more diversity admissions there than anywhere else. I hope you can make peace with it. And more importantly, who cares about some random ranking or prestige factor? TJ families are smart enough to know that it doesn't matter.

Then, be true to yourself and send your kids to NOVA.

NOVA wouldn't be the right school for a lot of those families.... The fact that a family is not going to care about ranking doesn't mean they are going to send their kids to the lowest-ranked area option.

For folks who claim to be interested in TJ - since you're posting on this thread - a lot of you don't understand how logic works. Explains a lot, actually.

Anonymous wrote:My TJ student is happy with the changes, and prefers a more diverse group of friends and classmates. That's what matters and not some mom or dad on DCUM. Just move to private school, but you will see more diversity admissions there than anywhere else. I hope you can make peace with it. And more importantly, who cares about some random ranking or prestige factor? TJ families are smart enough to know that it doesn't matter.

Then, be true to yourself and send your kids to NOVA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why do you think they are less qualified? FCPS thinks they are more qualified.

FCPS doesn't think they are more qualified or less qualified. The only thing that FCPS cared about is that the demographics of TJ looked problematic. So, they took steps to change the demographics. The sticky part of that it that it's illegal to make the changes specifically for the purpose of reducing Asians and increasing the representation from other races. But, since there were so very few URMs and/or poor kids getting admitted, one could make the argument that the entire process, including the K-8 pipeline, was both racist and classist.

Do *you* think the demographics at TJ were an issue before?

Still waiting to hear from PP...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More inclusive, less prestigious. That’s the choice they made.

More inclusive makes it more prestigious. When schools are more inclusive they rank much higher. Bet the matriculation looks better in about 5 years than it has in the recent years.

You can have the best STEM high school in the country or you can impose quotas to make it “look more like Fairfax County”, but you can’t have both. FCPS chose the latter.

I think the college acceptances will improve, since the top colleges are eager to give seats to high performing blacks and Hispanics.

You may be right. So was this whole exercise intended to make TJ's college admissions profile look better? I guess it's icky when the alumni from the Class of 2000 hear about more recent TJ kids going to Virginia Tech.

While it may be an ancillary benefit that will probably help students of all races, there's no way that was the motivating factor for the School Board.

Even bigger than the imbalanced demographics at the school, I think, was the plummeting interest in even APPLYING to the school from non-Asian students and families - especially relative to a rapidly growing population in the catchment areas.

TJ's reputation within Northern Virginia has been suffering for some time and the proof is in the application numbers. There should be 4-5K applicants at this point and for the class of 2024 there were ~2,500.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ becoming more "inclusive" with the recent changes just INCREASES inequality in Fairfax County. Which schools do you think benefit the most from TJ being more inclusive? That's right, Langley, McLean, Oakton and Madison...where even more of the top kids who are "near misses" under the new system are going to go. And the worst schools are going to lose even more kids to TJ. The gulf between the good and bad schools is just going to grow more.

Langley, McLean, Oakton and Madison are not in big TJ feeder pyramids. This change will help those students too, although not those schools.

I mean.... Longfellow and Cooper are two of the top 6 feeders at this point. And Carson is the biggest - while only a small portion of their AAP kids are zoned to Oakton, there are certainly some.

Carson is a split feeder even without AAP. The kids are zoned for south lakes, Westfields, and Oakton.

Anonymous wrote:I don't think a high school that creates an atmosphere that pressures families into spending a ton of time and money on prep and classes outside of school (so is it really the school anyway?) and eventually causes many to submit to cheating is "best" anything.

Maybe they can start living up the reputation now.

Amen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ becoming more "inclusive" with the recent changes just INCREASES inequality in Fairfax County. Which schools do you think benefit the most from TJ being more inclusive? That's right, Langley, McLean, Oakton and Madison...where even more of the top kids who are "near misses" under the new system are going to go. And the worst schools are going to lose even more kids to TJ. The gulf between the good and bad schools is just going to grow more.

Langley, McLean, Oakton and Madison are not in big TJ feeder pyramids. This change will help those students too, although not those schools.

DD says the new kids this year seem much smarter than in years past too!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TJ becoming more "inclusive" with the recent changes just INCREASES inequality in Fairfax County. Which schools do you think benefit the most from TJ being more inclusive? That's right, Langley, McLean, Oakton and Madison...where even more of the top kids who are "near misses" under the new system are going to go. And the worst schools are going to lose even more kids to TJ. The gulf between the good and bad schools is just going to grow more.

Langley, McLean, Oakton and Madison are not in big TJ feeder pyramids. This change will help those students too, although not those schools.

I mean.... Longfellow and Cooper are two of the top 6 feeders at this point. And Carson is the biggest - while only a small portion of their AAP kids are zoned to Oakton, there are certainly some.

Anonymous wrote:TJ becoming more "inclusive" with the recent changes just INCREASES inequality in Fairfax County. Which schools do you think benefit the most from TJ being more inclusive? That's right, Langley, McLean, Oakton and Madison...where even more of the top kids who are "near misses" under the new system are going to go. And the worst schools are going to lose even more kids to TJ. The gulf between the good and bad schools is just going to grow more.

Langley, McLean, Oakton and Madison are not in big TJ feeder pyramids. This change will help those students too, although not those schools.

Anonymous wrote:TJ becoming more "inclusive" with the recent changes just INCREASES inequality in Fairfax County. Which schools do you think benefit the most from TJ being more inclusive? That's right, Langley, McLean, Oakton and Madison...where even more of the top kids who are "near misses" under the new system are going to go. And the worst schools are going to lose even more kids to TJ. The gulf between the good and bad schools is just going to grow more.

So the ‘good’ kids in s..t schools should sacrifice themselves and stay put so they can become role models. I think what we need is mandatory bussing of the top mclean and Langley students to justice and it’s Kukes so they can be role models there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More inclusive, less prestigious. That’s the choice they made.

More inclusive makes it more prestigious. When schools are more inclusive they rank much higher. Bet the matriculation looks better in about 5 years than it has in the recent years.

You can have the best STEM high school in the country or you can impose quotas to make it “look more like Fairfax County”, but you can’t have both. FCPS chose the latter.

I think the college acceptances will improve, since the top colleges are eager to give seats to high performing blacks and Hispanics.

You may be right. So was this whole exercise intended to make TJ's college admissions profile look better? I guess it's icky when the alumni from the Class of 2000 hear about more recent TJ kids going to Virginia Tech.

For purposes of context, back in those days Virginia Tech got about the same level of respect at TJ as a place like VCU gets now. You'd see maybe 15-20 kids go there year over year as opposed to over 100 to UVA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More inclusive, less prestigious. That’s the choice they made.

More inclusive makes it more prestigious. When schools are more inclusive they rank much higher. Bet the matriculation looks better in about 5 years than it has in the recent years.

You can have the best STEM high school in the country or you can impose quotas to make it “look more like Fairfax County”, but you can’t have both. FCPS chose the latter.

I think the college acceptances will improve, since the top colleges are eager to give seats to high performing blacks and Hispanics.

You may be right. So was this whole exercise intended to make TJ's college admissions profile look better? I guess it's icky when the alumni from the Class of 2000 hear about more recent TJ kids going to Virginia Tech.