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"Giftedness" does not discriminate and happens in every race or origin equally, therefore AAP IV demographics should be very similar to the demographics of the student body. You take subjectiveness out of the process of choosing kids for that program and you found the solution to TJ admission differences.
ChessMom
If you take all subjective measures out of the admissions process, there would be fewer blacks, Hispanics, and whites at TJ and far more Asians. While it may be true that "giftedness" in general is randomly distributed among all racial groups, it is clear that much higher percentages of Asian and white applicants score in the top percentile on the admissions test than do other applicants.
There was never a time when you had to get 100% correct on the TJ test. Never. Your parents may have told you that, but it is not true. On which section of the test did you miss one question? You may have excluded because of your grades in middle school, poor teacher recommendations, or something else. Your rejection was not because you missed one question. The vast majority of the top TJ students missed one or two questions on one part of the test. That includes the 25 a year who score a perfect SAT.
I have known only ONE TJ student who didn't miss any of the questions on either part of the test. That student went on to be captain of the math team, captain of the physics team, with a perfect PSAT score, perfect SAT, and 3 perfect SAT II scores.
You're asking me to remember something that happened back in 1993, and that's what I remember being told. I don't remember the sections of the test, I just remember that I got something like a 98 on it. The same as that I remember my SAT score because I did well on that, but not the individual sections. I also remember nailing pretty much everything on that Stanford test and then being reamed out by my guidance counselor for not having better grades.
Understand of course, that I had no intention of going to TJ regardless; I just wanted to see how well I could do on their test. And I remember that I missed one question, and I got somewhere around a 98, and I was told that wasn't enough. I don't remember who told me that, if it was BS, or what. I just assumed it was the first step and I missed out. If indeed grades and teacher recommendations were a part of it, then that's definitely where I would have been derailed; my grades were average and my teachers weren't pleased with my high test/no homework approach.
Regardless of the steps to get in, the point is that despite my test taking ability, I would have failed miserably there, and I disagree with making exceptions to the admissions process to cater to one or more specific groups.
There are plenty of low-income Asian Americans who get into TJ. Refugees, even--people who come here with nothing.
Going back a few decades, many Jews were poor or middle-class--and yet their kids did well in school and got into the best universities. The same has happened with Indian Americans in the last 30 years.
Why? Because those cultures emphasize academic achievement. And in particular, I think Asians gravitate to the sciences as a realm where the good-old-boy network doesn't hold sway, where the rewards go to those with the superior combination of raw intellect and hard work. With math and science, it's not who you know, but what you can prove in a study. Chirpy personalities, good looks, family connections, and butt-kissing don't help much. When you show up in a country as the low group on the totem pole, the promise of such an un-rigged, merit-based profession is obvious.
White Gentiles--we're still the largest ethnic group, with a lot more economic diversity than other groups. It's a small subset of the white Gentile population that puts the same emphasis on learning that Asians and Jews do. Even among many wealthy whites, it's more about getting rich than intellectual achievement. I think that's the natural consequence of being the dominant group for so long. In 100 years, maybe the Chinese and Indians will be as lazy as us.
African Americans are also not monolithic, and there are, obviously, plenty of black families who emphasize education. But just like white culture, black culture in general doesn't hold education above all else, the way Asian culture does.
This complaint is the most asinine thing I've ever heard of. "Coalition of the Silence"--if you're gonna form a coalition to complain about academic matters, at least make sure the name of the coalition is gramatically correct. But even "Coalition of the Silent" would make no sense, in that they're supposedly against some silent cabal bent on keeping blacks out of TJ.
Charles Murray'a latest book about "the state of white America" paints a devastating picture of cultural changes among lower and lower middle class white families -- divorce, educational underperformance, substance abuse, etc. One of the most shocking changes in "white America" is the precipitous decline in educational aspiration -- whereas in the 50's poor white children went on to attended universities at the roughly the same rate as rich white children, that number has fallen dramatically in the recent years. In other words, lower class whites are increasingly resembling blacks in this regard... only without any benefits of the so-called affirmative action. This, by the way, is one of the reasons I prefer an affirmative action system based on income over race -- white kids in Appalachia in extreme poverty (or any kids in extreme poverty) are far more deserving of a leg up than children of affluent professionals in NoVA, whether the latter are black, white, Asian or Hispanic.
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Originally Posted by JEB77
However, a competing myth is that TJ is full of low-income Asian Americans whose culture simply values education. That does not seem to be true, either. TJ is majority Asian now, and it appears that the vast majority of the families of TJ students are middle and upper-income families. The reported percentage of low-income students at TJ is very low, more so than at any HS in Arlington or Loudoun and any HS in Fairfax except for Langley. The only thing that might call that into question is whether there are "plenty" of Asian-American students at TJ who are, in fact, low-income, but whose families do not acknowledge their income status or seek assistance.
Yes, that is absolutely the case -- Asian population in this area is highly affluent, even compared to other Asian populations in the United States (and Asians, in general, are the most highly educated and income-earning among all major ethnic groups in the US per the latest Pew study). Indeed, we are saddled in this region with some seriously affluent Asians!
However, even after controlling for income, Asians do have the highest educational attainment rate. This is also consistent with national IQ tests -- most countries' IQ numbers, including that of Israel, tend to fluctuate depending on economic development status EXCEPT East Asian countries which have high average IQs regardless of the state of the economy, e.g. the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans showed high IQ test numbers even when these countries were considerably poorer. And this trend is carried over to the United States when people from these areas migrate. Theoretically, one is then left with few other alternative explanations, the two most prominent are 1) Asians have higher average IQs genetically (esp. quantiative-spatial IQ) and 2) Asian cultures have a high degree of propensity for learning and education, an ingrained trait that goes back historically for a couple of thousands of years, as these societies utilized civil service exams to staff their governments since the very ancient times.
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Originally Posted by kevbros
Another dirty little secret is how few girls are at TJ. TJ's demographics shouldn't have to match the county's population exactly, but the evidence suggests it's seriously out of whack. Here are the numbers:
Why is this a "dirty little secret"? It's not a secret that far more men attain Ph.D.s in hard sciences and engineering then women do. It's also not a secret that the IQ bell curve (esp. for quantitative-spatial) tends to be flatter with men than with women. In other words, a vast majority of women tend to be average whereas among men, there is a greater distribution of geniuses (the gifted) as well as dunces than is the case with women.
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Originally Posted by chessmom
How to solve it? Fix the under representation of minorities at the elementary levels. "Giftedness" does not discriminate and happens in every race or origin equally, therefore AAP IV demographics should be very similar to the demographics of the student body. You take subjectiveness out of the process of choosing kids for that program and you found the solution to TJ admission differences.
ChessMom
Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case and "giftedness" does seem to discriminate. Scientists are in great dispute as to what causes the uneven distribution (explanations range from genetics to testing biases, etc.), but the IQ distribution is what is -- diaspora Jews and Asians generally have high average IQs, with Jews excelling in verbal IQ and Asian in quantitative-spatial IQ.
Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case and "giftedness" does seem to discriminate. Scientists are in great dispute as to what causes the uneven distribution (explanations range from genetics to testing biases, etc.), but the IQ distribution is what is -- diaspora Jews and Asians generally have high average IQs, with Jews excelling in verbal IQ and Asian in quantitative-spatial IQ.
That is generalizing WAY too much. There is no such a thing as a Jew race... am I wrong?. Also, when you talk about Asians. I am not sure how reliable this information is but when you look in google for average IQ by country, South Korea usually ranks in the top 5 while North Korea always ranks at the bottom. These two countries are right next to each other and they come from the same "gene pool" right?. So why is there a difference?. Have in mind that those are average and it has to be because of educational opportunities... definitely not because "genes" are better. And just because a child is truly gifted does not mean that he or she will do better in life just because he or she was born gifted, but that alteration in people's brain is truly random and has nothing to do with someone's race. If a gifted children are given the opportunity to learn at their own (accelerated) pace, and AAPIV screenings start being as objective as possible... TJ is going to have to make the admissions test harder and every form of representation (race, economic, etc) will be shown in the statistics... and we will be one step closer to stop worrying about which race someone is... my two cents on the subject...
Isn't the percentage of AA kids supposed to increase there due to the recent influx of African immigrants? I read somewhere that that group is expected to surpass Asian Americans academically.
Perhaps if people perceived TJ as Cal Tech rather than Harvard or Cal Berkeley this wouldn't be quite as big an issue. Maybe what FCPS needs to do is build a Harvard/Berkeley equivalent, an elite school with a broader scope, possibly in a different part of the county.
If there is going to be a new elite school with a broader scope, I think it makes sense to reserve 50% of the seats to Asian students, because they are under-represented anything NOT science/technology focused. Maybe a quota for them in sport teams as well...
There is no such a thing as a Jew[ish] race... am I wrong?
No, there is such a thing! Remember that Seinfeld episode where Jerry had a rematch with the guy he raced in junior high, who had accused him of cheating?
Sigh...
There are stupid and smart people in every ethnic group. Within the same family, even. (You should meet my brother.)
No, there is such a thing! Remember that Seinfeld episode where Jerry had a rematch with the guy he raced in junior high, who had accused him of cheating?
Sigh...
There are stupid and smart people in every ethnic group. Within the same family, even. (You should meet my brother.)
Asian culture values education greatly. I grew up in an Asian country. In my middle school and high school, the "hottest" boys were those that had the highest GPAs. Jocks were never, ever considered hot.
For the same reason, Asian parents in US don't care for team sports much. They know the chances of their children becoming professional athletes are very slim. But becoming a docor or lawyer is very achievable.
Income is not correlated with GPA in the country I came from. It is well known that kids from poor families have higher GPAs because they try harder. Academic achievement can get their families out of poverty faster. My high school was highly ranked and we had as many children coming from the most powerful families in the country as those who came from blue collar families. This is unthinkable in USA. Can you imagine that George Bush's children sitting in the same classroom with someone whose parents work in Walmart? But this was true in both my high school and my college. And the students who had the highest GPAs were almost always from the poorer families.
That is generalizing WAY too much. There is no such a thing as a Jew race... am I wrong?.
A "Jew race"? What is this, the 19th Century? The Jewish people are a distinct ethnic group. No, they do not form a "race" as defined by the US Census Bureau, but neither do "Hispanics" who are also an ethnic group, not a race.
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Also, when you talk about Asians. I am not sure how reliable this information is but when you look in google for average IQ by country, South Korea usually ranks in the top 5 while North Korea always ranks at the bottom. These two countries are right next to each other and they come from the same "gene pool" right?. So why is there a difference?.
The difference is called starvation -- and I don't mean "we don't get good breakfast" American variety -- I mean kids desperately trying to subsist on grass and tree while trying to avoid getting shot by political commissars variety. That kind of starvation has a nasty habit of drastically reducing even the brightest children into stunted, extremely maladjusted human beings no matter what their gene pool.
In “Race, IQ, and Wealth,” I examined the pattern of IQ scores for various European peoples as presented by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen in IQ and the Wealth of Nations and noted the considerable evidence for a large socio-economic influence. In nearly all cases, impoverished, rural populations seemed to exhibit far lower IQ scores than affluent, urban ones, even when the populations compared are genetically indistinguishable. Furthermore, these lower IQs often rise rapidly once conditions improve, in what might be called a “Super-Flynn Effect.”
However, this strong relationship between wealth and nominal IQ seems to disappear when we examine East Asian populations. [snip]
Indeed, the most obvious aspect of the East Asian IQs shown in the table below is that they bear almost no relationship to the wealth of the countries at the time the testing was performed. For example, Japan in 1951 was desperately poor, and its real per capita GDP rose tenfold during the 40 years that followed, but its IQ rose just a couple of points. Similar huge rises in income without significant rises in IQ occurred in South Korea, Taiwan, and other countries. The 2006 sequel by Lynn and Vanhanen provides numerous additional IQ reports from East Asian countries, but they all continue to fall into this same general range of scores. Furthermore, Asian-Americans living in the United States these days are generally affluent, but although they perform very well in school, their tested IQs do not have a mean anywhere near 120.
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Have in mind that those are average and it has to be because of educational opportunities... definitely not because "genes" are better.
See above. Genes do play a significant, measurable role in a child's intelligence and his subsequent academic performance. What we have here is a term popularized by Jared Diamond -- an autocatalytic effect of high intelligence people marrying each other, earning high income, devoting time and resources on their already likely-to-be high intelligence offspring whereby multiple factors mutually reinforce each other.
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And just because a child is truly gifted does not mean that he or she will do better in life just because he or she was born gifted, but that alteration in people's brain is truly random and has nothing to do with someone's race.
No one -- certainly not I -- suggested that a gifted child will do better in life "just because," but one must acknowledge that children with high intelligence born to high intelligence parents have an advantage. Furthermore, an aggregate of such people are more likely to produce academic super stars (or TJ graduates) than those who are not.
Ever notice how kids with two athletic parents seem to be pretty athletic themselves? There is a reason that the Chinese government frequently "mines" children of athlete parents for their national sports programs. Yao Ming was one such product. His parents were 6'7" and 6'3" and both pro basketball players.
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Originally Posted by newnewsmama
Asian culture values education greatly. I grew up in an Asian country. In my middle school and high school, the "hottest" boys were those that had the highest GPAs. Jocks were never, ever considered hot.
That's odd. I lived in Asia for some years and sports stars sure seemed to be mobbed by screaming women, just like everywhere else.
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My high school was highly ranked and we had as many children coming from the most powerful families in the country as those who came from blue collar families. This is unthinkable in USA. Can you imagine that George Bush's children sitting in the same classroom with someone whose parents work in Walmart? But this was true in both my high school and my college. And the students who had the highest GPAs were almost always from the poorer families.
It's wonderful that you had an egalitarian educational environment, but children of elites in most Asian countries often go to highly inaccessible private schools. Especially popular are international schools where the children of local elites get to mingle with those of foreign diplomats and investment bankers.
While I agree that most Asian cultures highly value education, I think you go too far in portraying some sort of an egalitarian educational paradise.
By the way, it's funny you should mention Goerge Bush. George W. Bush once said that the difference between his father and him was that his father went to Greenwich Country Day school in CT while he went to San Jacinto Junior High in Midland, TX (of course, they both went to Andover and Yale, but still early life experiences do count). I'm pretty sure San Jacinto JH had some pretty low income folks, maybe even some in poverty.
No, there is such a thing! Remember that Seinfeld episode where Jerry had a rematch with the guy he raced in junior high, who had accused him of cheating?
Sigh...
Why would someone from a pony country immigrate to a non-pony country!!!???
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There are stupid and smart people in every ethnic group. Within the same family, even. (You should meet my brother.)
Very true that, but unfortunately that does not change the fact that the frequency with which such people exist in groupings of populations differ markedly. I personally do not subscribe to single variable theories, but evidence seems to indicate genetics play a role as well as a variety of environmental factors. Then there are certain variables that seem to be autocatalytic/mutually reinforcing whereby the inborn factors shape precisely the kind of environment that in turn help produce those very inborn factors.
The more salient question related to the original post should be this: what do we make of this complex reality? Simply throwing money at the problem of underperformance of certain populations groups has not worked, which means those resources were simply wasted. My own take on it is that 1) we put resources into things that can make significant differences and certainly not into things that create disincentives (which I believe affirmative actions programs are) and 2) we put resources into "harvesting" people of natural talent -- instead of forcing gifted students to study at the pace of the not-so-gifted, shape their educational environment so that their talents are reinforced, not suppressed. I have my own problems with schools like TJ (not enough emphasis on teaching philosophical and moral foundations befitting of future leaders in their fields), but I am categorically opposed to diluting the original reason why schools like TJ were built -- to create a challenging environment for the already gifted so that our society can benefit from the combination of genius + resources.
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You are funny and right 
