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Does that really matter? The objective isn't to win a lawsuit but to force some type of accommodation from the school system. The same tactic was used to win concessions from the banks about purported lending discrimination despite their insistence that lending decisions were based on objective credit scoring. It's a smart move on the NAACP's part as they know the county will bend to political pressure.
Yup. The point is to force more affirmative action for Blacks and Hispanics and fewer Asians at TJ. (Whites are under represented so they want qualified Asians to not be admitted so that the 'right' races can be admitted.
I would love to see TJ admission be just like the best high school in NY, Stuyvesant, where admission is based solely on a test. It is illegal to consider race or gender. Stuyvesant High School - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
FCPS is going to destroy what was the best school in the nation, all because of race... and political correctness. Disgusting.
Last edited by FindingZen; 07-24-2012 at 04:38 PM..
Reason: borderline prejudiced remarks
Didn't they make the admissions process more subjective about 10 years ago in order to increase [non-Asian] minority enrollment? Did that make things worse, or would going back to the old system make things worse?
Oh, and on a semi-related note, I'm still from the old school that thinks if you have to do a lot of prep work and studying to get into TJ, it might not be the best fit for you... but I've been told times have changed so much in the past 10 years that it's necessary to keep from becoming competitively disadvantaged.
Great student make TJ great - not the other way around.
EXACTLY! Very well said. In TJ's never ending effort to get more Blacks in TJ they made the math portion of the test easier and easier and discounted in admissions more and more. Then they decided to randomly admit 1/3 of the students on the bottom of the pool and reject 1/3 of the very top students. That lead to classes where many students were not good at math and needed remedial help. Teachers are not pleased that so many TJ students are not able to do the math required. Teachers are now privately tutoring students. All this for what? This nifty little admission method didn't help their Black numbers at all but it has messed up TJ. Since 1997 they've been desperately trying to practice some kind of affirmation action that won't lead to a lawsuit, as it did then. They've found nothing that has worked, including the many millions of dollars spend on at least 5 different programs for Blacks and Hispanics in elementary and middle school, trying to get them ready for the TJ test. ...
Last edited by FindingZen; 07-24-2012 at 04:39 PM..
Reason: see above
Are the graduation rates also 7% and 5% respectively?
They're pretty close since the graduation rate for AAs is 85% and Hispanics 98%. Still much higher than the admission or graduation rates at TJ. I'm guessing they're lower at TJ vs UVA because TJ is a science and technology school while UVA is much broader than that.
From the linked article:What utter nonsense. Standardized tests are a very reliable predictor of next level academic performance.
In general, those on the political left almost always make arguments that problems in society are due to "imbalance in resource distribution." Hence their solution involves taking from those who have to those who do not.
The problem is, the salient resource in question is actually not money. The most reliable predictor of a child's academic success is not income, but parental involvement (it just happens that the kind of well-educated parents who show a great deal of interest in the education of their children also happen to work hard/smart and have higher income). Unfortunately, this is not a resource that can be created simply by fiat or transferred from the haves to have-nots. Increasing this precious commodity in the "underrepresented" segments of the population requires cultural changes, which can be -- to some extent -- helped by shaping the right incentives. Simply handing such segments of the population extra brownie points is easy to implement, but in no way alters the incentive equation -- in fact, it may be counterproductive.
There was a time when the educational establishment actively sought to prevent worthy ethnic minority students from attaining what they clearly deserved. Thus an "affirmative action" system could be very salutary in shattering the existing barriers. Today the situation is almost the opposite -- school administrators and politicians desperately try to improve the test scores and increase matriculation/graduation rates of such students and keep throwing money at the problem, yet the result does not bear out such policy choices.
Amen! Amazing that a few years ago, the entry tests were revised to give an essay portion - something subjective that supporters of it (read: those who wanted to dillute the pure statistical focused nature) felt would work to the advantage of hispanic an and black students. Surprise! It made things worse. Having seen this, Tina Hone and team want FCPS to go back to the drawing board.
Fact of the matter is that Tina wants a quota - she just won't own up to it...
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.
Well if 7% of the undergrad student body at UVA is African American and 5% is Hispanic while at TJ it's only about 2% for each group I'd say you at least have a perception problem that needs to be addressed. Somehow they've figured out how to make it work out at the elite college level.
UVA has many courses of study that have nothing to do with math and science, though. TJ does not.
Not a good idea, in my opinion. Being able to pass the tests to get in should be a step that is demanded, not diluted. At the very least, they shouldn't make any remedial class accomodations...either swim or go back to your regular school.
Personal anecdote, I was a fairly lazy student who always tested extremely well. When I was in middle school, anyone who wanted to take the "TJ test" was allowed out of class to give it a shot. Of course, we got the lecture about not wasting time if you didn't really want to go, but getting a bunch of 14 year olds to be logical and responsible about missing class is usually wasted.
I went, I took the test, which at the time, you had to get a perfect score on in order to move on for further consideration. I got a 98, missed one question, and that was the best thing that could have happened to me. My style of learning, which basically consisted of zoning out in class and absorbing just enough to do well on the tests, would have never worked there. I had a few friends who went to TJ, and the work they described would have made my head explode.
I'm disappointed to hear that they're watering the curriculum down or making these sorts of accomodations. The whole point of a magnet school is to attract the brightest and hardest working. Again, cut out the remedial classes, they either swim, or they go back to their neighborhood high school; that's how it should be.
I dont think it has grounds as TJs admissions are objective and test based. Also TJ has lots of minorities if you look at ALL races not just typically disenfranchised hispanic and african american populations. TJ also has a wide range of children from low to upper class as they range from MANY parts of the county.
The percentages are shocking, and it shows that in education there is still a lag between areas with money and areas without due to child care availability, early learning programs etc but I think in this case TJ is the symptom, not the cause. Fix the uneven distribution of education resources across the county for the regular schools, and this percentage will improve. I am a immigrant from a lower class, subsidized lunch assistance family who was accepted to TJ as were several of my other friends who also were not at all well off.
I think at the end of the day, they arent in anyway discriminating AGAINST people in the tests and admissions.
That really doesn't have a lot to do with it at all. It's really about what is going on at home. If education is not being stressed, the school system can create all the programs they want, but that doesn't mean that the population will take advantage of it. When you are dealing with a low-income population you are dealing with people who OFTEN (not always) don't see the value of education, who often don't have support of a two-parent household, who often have kids who spend much time home alone unsupervised due to hectic work schedules that their parents may work to maintain where they live, instability of moving from place to place and also abuse. There is some things that the school system can do and be effective, but our education system is set up in such a way that teachers/counselors or whoever are limited to how involved they can become with personal matters.
As far as the situation with TJ, I simply do not agree with the position that the NAACP is taking on this. As a black man, I get tired of organizations like this teaching people entitlement, like these students are supposed to be in this school just because they represent a higher percentage of the school system for the rest of the schools. That type of thinking is backwards. Instead of focusing in on the percentage of kids in FCPS, they should be focusing on if there are individual students who have high academic performance, tested well and still were rejected. Just because this opportunity is out there for students, doesn't mean that any group of people have rights to this institution. The kids who got into this school earned the right to go to this school. It is unfair to them, to see individuals who otherwise may not have worked or performed as well as them get the same opportunities. Going to this school is not a right, it's a privilege. If these students cannot make it to TJ, there are plenty of other schools in FCPS that would put them in line to have similar opportunities.
And if the issue is that minorities do not get the same opportunity of quality education to be eligible for such a school then just like tysonengineer said it is only solving the symptom, not the illness. Just because you fix this situation, doesn't mean you have solved the issues of unequal education in this county. In other words, they are fighting the wrong battle here.
Let's be honest here as well, it's not like the alternatives to not going to TJ are so awful. Sure, FCPS has some high schools that leave a little to be desired in comparison to others in the county, but in general, the school system is far better than most in the country. You can get a good education at any high school in FCPS if you're willing to work.
That really doesn't have a lot to do with it at all. It's really about what is going on at home. If education is not being stressed, the school system can create all the programs they want, but that doesn't mean that the population will take advantage of it. When you are dealing with a low-income population you are dealing with people who OFTEN (not always) don't see the value of education, who often don't have support of a two-parent household, who often have kids who spend much time home alone unsupervised due to hectic work schedules that their parents may work to maintain where they live, instability of moving from place to place and also abuse. There is some things that the school system can do and be effective, but our education system is set up in such a way that teachers/counselors or whoever are limited to how involved they can become with personal matters.
As far as the situation with TJ, I simply do not agree with the position that the NAACP is taking on this. As a black man, I get tired of organizations like this teaching people entitlement, like these students are supposed to be in this school just because they represent a higher percentage of the school system for the rest of the schools. That type of thinking is backwards. Instead of focusing in on the percentage of kids in FCPS, they should be focusing on if there are individual students who have high academic performance, tested well and still were rejected. Just because this opportunity is out there for students, doesn't mean that any group of people have rights to this institution. The kids who got into this school earned the right to go to this school. It is unfair to them, to see individuals who otherwise may not have worked or performed as well as them get the same opportunities. Going to this school is not a right, it's a privilege. If these students cannot make it to TJ, there are plenty of other schools in FCPS that would put them in line to have similar opportunities.
And if the issue is that minorities do not get the same opportunity of quality education to be eligible for such a school then just like tysonengineer said it is only solving the symptom, not the illness. Just because you fix this situation, doesn't mean you have solved the issues of unequal education in this county. In other words, they are fighting the wrong battle here.
So you contragree with me? :P
I said I disagree that more people should simply be admitted by race to TJ. I said that there is a systematic issue starting at kindergarten where the same resources are not available in parts of the county vs other parts in elementary schools. My mother is a substitute teacher in FFX and travels from each school to the next and I have had extensive discussions with her on the differences she sees from region to region. Education starts early, jamming a square peg into a round whole at highschool wont fix this symptomatic issue with the county.
You can call that "wealth distribution" if you want, thats fine, I'd argue that the schools like Westfields which do very well were a far greater distribution of that wealth to more affluent areas via a ridiculously over priced facility while schools like George Marshall went with leaky roofs, mold, broken class room tools for 15 years until finally this year it is being renovated (not a new school, just renovated). Soooooo you can go ahead and say ohhhhh the poor people get so much look lunch for free!! but when you disproportionately create Big A architecture schools for the wealthy area and hire the best of the best from outside the county to populate while at the same time letting older regions and schools gain better operation budgets but absolutely no capital improvements then you are cooking the numbers and lying to yourself.
Either way, I am against all racial discrimination in education, ie if you denote one race over another whether beneficial or detrimental it is WRONG. You say it is important for families to promote education as the top priority, its tough to do any of that when you have to work 2 or 3 jobs and can't afford to have a nanny, opeir, or day school for your child so you have to find the nanny who barely speaks english to take care of them for 10 dollars an hour instead.
Its a systematic issue of haves and have nots and frankly it comes down to jobs, cost of living, cost of day care, and all sorts of issues that are underlying the growing wealth gap of this region. I was a have not, and it took a HELL of a lot more to get out of that cycle than most people that I knew in high school and college who easily breezed through life, got their first job through a connection of their parents and never had to struggle. I think subsidization is not the right way to move forward with this issue, but I think to ignore it and say oh the parents just arent trying hard enough, is also ignorant when you likely have never been in their shoes just trying to get food and medicine and survive.
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