# Selective Magnet School in Virginia moving towards a lottery system **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 6, 2020, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347 "2020-10-06T15:59:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/181 "2020-10-13T18:19:35Z")
How do you selectively state that everyone with a 70 will do fine? That isn’t my experience, nor the experience across the nation? But the difference between a 72 and a 74 isn’t likely all that much. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/182 "2020-10-13T18:23:36Z")
You replied to me but didn’t answer the question. Are the standards there to determine which students can fully utilize the magnet school opportunity, or are they there to determine who deserves the opportunity? If the former, then this isn’t a dumbing down of America, it’s just ensuring that EVERY student who can fully benefit from this opportunity is eligible to do so. If it’s the latter, then appreciate that our schools exist to decide who deserves opportunities. Not simply who is better at this or that right now, but who gets opportunities when they are offered. ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/183 "2020-10-13T18:25:12Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Now I understand. White people get to feel good about helping X minority without their own children having to pay any of the cost of the social engineering. How cynical. There are a lot of places where racial disparities exist. But when they have to identify a target for racial balancing, it tends to be one that would impose minimal costs on white people. I agree that the most important racial disparities exist much earlier in their education. Trying to racially balance the tjhsst admissions process is too little too late. ymmv. > [@DemonTree](#): > > It seems daft to think a culture’s attitude towards education and ambition makes no difference to how hard kids work in school. Some people here think it’s racist to imply that one culture might value education more than another. Culture is absolutely a social construct, it doesn’t mean it’s not real. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > How the hell would you know? > > What a joke. Some folks are content with unequal opportunities for black and Hispanic kids. I’m not. That’s the difference. What you are talking about are equal results, not equal opportunity. Equality of opportunity doesn’t necessarily lead to equality of results. It’s silly to think that it would. FWIW, they have already passedpart of the proposal (eliminating the test, but have not yet implemented the lottery). I suspect that tjhsst will maintain their reputation for a few more years until people realize wtf is going on. Eventually, I expect loudon participation to fall dramatically (who the hell wants commute over an hour each way to go to school with students that are about as competitive as their honors class peers). I expect similar reactions from centreville and anything west of there and probably from anything west of fairfax county parkway. I wouldn’t be surprised to see much lower participation from any districts outside the beltway. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > True or not, this doesn’t remotely suggest that opportunities are equal. What makes you think they are not equal? > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This flawed solution is better than nothing. I think you’re wrong. A bad racist solution is worse than the current objectively fair process. > [@RitterSport](#): > > Obviously, the government can’t do anything about someone’s looks. See Harrison Bergeron. > [@RitterSport](#): > > I know you’re a big fan of equality of opportunity based on your other posts – what are your thoughts? I think that diligence and motivation are important but only if combined with actual ability. If you want to cast a wider net then create another school and apply the more forgiving admissions standards there. Don’t ruin one of the most competitive high schools in america. If I were instructed under penalty of death to create a system with equal opportunity, I would try to create a system from behind Rawls’ veil of ignorance. Of course that is impossible to actually do but I think it would involve access to boarding schools, busing, the elimination of private schools (or at least eliminating their tax exempt status), but it would almost certainly not involve trying to balance things as late as the 8th grade level. > [@DemonTree](#): > > This sounds racist as fuck, as well as wrongheaded, and yet people are supporting it. People support racist stuff all the time. Are things so different in the UK? > [@RitterSport](#): > > **damuriajashi** claims to be a fan of equality of opportunity, and I put the question to him, whether this moves the needle a little further in that direction. I don’t think he’s responded to that, but his responses tend to be VERY long, so I don’t always read every word. I don’t think this moves the needle in any appreciable sense. Based on the gpa distribution at some of the local middle schools, it appears that about 30% of the students have gpas of 3.5 or higher. This is not very selective and if you simply want to cast a wider but more random net, then this is a good way to achieve it. I suspect the reform will mostly serve to make the school less attractive to kids that have to take long bus rides to get there. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Still better, and less racist, than the status quo. How is replacing 40 asian kids with 40 white kids less racist? Because you are also replacing 50 asian kids with 25 black kids and 25 hispanic kids? The primary effect is reducing the asian population. The second biggest effect is increasing the white population. This is the projected and intended effect of the proposal. This seems at least somewhat racist to me. The current system has no racist element that you can identify. > [@urbanredneck2](#): > > I think if a high school is large enough, say 1200 students, they will have enough students (ex. 100 of those 1200) so they can support an AP program I suspect that if they go to a lottery, the best students will stay at their local high schools. There is really no reason to engage in an hour+ commute at that point. > [@MandaJo](#): > > A 3.5 middle school GPA is one. In my district, we use your location: all comprehensive school zones get a number of slots proportional to their population. You could keep the TJ admissions test, but have a lottery for everyone who passed a threshold. 90% of the applicants meet the 3.5 GPA threshhold. > [@MandaJo](#): > > You can’t have a 9th grade class that goes from Alg 2 to Calculus in a year in a regular school. You can’t offer 3 years of computer science or AP Physics. You can’t have a dedicated lab class for AP Chemistry. You can’t have post-Calculus math. Local high schools offer most of that stuff. The schools are pretty large and after tjhsst implodes there will be more local demand for these sort of classes. > [@DemonTree](#): > > Wrong. It’s exactly as racist as the status quo, since neither method selects based on race. I think this is only true in a vaccuum. But when considered in the context of the intent of the proposed change and the fact that they know that this will lead to higher white admissions at the expense of asian admissions, i don’t think the status quo is exactly as racist as the proposed change. > [@MandaJo](#): > > Sure. But that’s super complicated and expensive. Plus, it will likely be opposed by the people currently in the school and alums, because they will see it as diluting their own accomplishment I think that only happens if you actually dilute tjhsst. You can accomplish your goal of casting a wider net witho7ut compromising the standards at tjhsst. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Your assertions otherwise are unconvincing. Neither are yours. > [@RitterSport](#): > > So, will this lottery system improve, however slightly, the equality of opportunity across racial and social groups? I think it will. Through racist policies and attitudes. > [@DemonTree](#): > > I wish some of the people who believe racism is behind everything would explain why they think Asian kids are doing better than white kids in school. Or has there already been a thread on that? The arguments are: (i) Asians are rich and can afford test prep (this is racist bullshit) (ii) Asians are largely immigrants and their parents are well educated (this is frequently because EVERYONE from that country is fairly well educated For example, about half of koreans in korea are college educated, it stands to reason that half the korean immigrants are also college educated. This is not privilege, it is a consequence of culture. Koreans are not particularly rich, with median incomes at about the national median. The two wealthiest asian populations are indians (the brown asians that everyone forgets about when they think skin color is what drives everything) and filipinos (the hispanic asians everyone forgets about when they talk about how unfair everything is for hispanics. (iii) White adjacency (asians are basically basking in the peripheral glow of white privilege) (iv) Asians are cheating (this is not something you hear much on this board but the more mainstream racists pull this one out a lot) (v) etc. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/184 "2020-10-13T18:29:57Z")
A 70 here isn’t a C. It’s a number that represents a weighted score based on a battery of assessments: some we write and administer in house, some we pull from state tests and grades. We know they are qualified because we’ve been doing this for 30 years and we know which skills we need to be successful in our program. But the core idea remains: if you have a pool of highly qualified applicants, do you think the ones that score at the top of that pool are being done wrong when less qualified (but still qualified) applicants get a spot ahead of them? ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/185 "2020-10-13T18:31:50Z")
> [@damuriajashi](#): > > Local high schools offer most of that stuff. The schools are pretty large and after tjhsst implodes there will be more local demand for these sort of classes. There are no local high schools in my district that offer anything like a dedicated freshman calculus class, or really any of that. ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/186 "2020-10-13T18:58:34Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > The programs you offer are vastly more important than the magical synergy of kids. I don’t recall using the word synergy. Perhaps you have me confused with another poster. Ranked 1st in nation. Part of that is the result of the selectivity of the admissions process. > **[How Does Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Rank Among...](https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/virginia/districts/fairfax-county-public-schools/thomas-jefferson-high-school-for-science-and-technology-20461)** > > See how Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA ranks among America's best high schools. > [@MandaJo](#): > > Our assessment goes up to 110 points. Cutoff is 70. We often have a kid get in with a 72 from one zipcode when a kid in another zip code gets waitlisted with a 74. Does this strike you as unjust? Unless there is an income/wealth gap between the students (not the zip codes), it seems unjust. > [@MandaJo](#): > > There are no local high schools in my district that offer anything like a dedicated freshman calculus class, or really any of that. To be fair, tjhsst doesn’t have a freshman only calculus class. About 20 kids get in with only algebra and they all take geometry. About 300 (out of 480) have geometry and can choose from algebra2, pre-calc, trig, statistics, computer science, data analysis, IB pathway, or some combination thereof. About 150 of them have algebra 2 or trigonometry and they can similarly take any of those electives but most will take pre-calc. About 10 kids have pre-calc can take calc with the mostly sophomore class. There are sometimes a few kids (apparently mostly home-schooled) that have already taken calc and they can choose post calc electives. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/187 "2020-10-13T19:06:28Z")
> [@damuriajashi](#): > > Unless there is an income/wealth gap between the students (not the zip codes), it seems unjust. TJ is first in the nation, right now. We bounce around the top 20–as do many schools. Basis dominated those lists for about 5 years, before they changed the methodology (again). We were ahead of TJ at least once in those years. We are all on the Post’s “Elite Public Schools” list. But really, if you feel like basically, any measurable difference is significant and that it’s about who deserves the slot, who earned it, there’s not a lot more discussion to be had. I tend to agree with you that a 3.5 GPA in MS is a pretty meaningless number. But I don’t reject the concept of identifying a “highly qualified group” and choosing among them. If you object to the principle of ever doing that, the whole concept, it seems like a red herring to harp on this particular criteria. There’s no criteria they could use you would think was better. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/188 "2020-10-13T19:09:57Z")
> [@damuriajashi](#): > > To be fair, tjhsst doesn’t have a freshman only calculus class. About 20 kids get in with only algebra and they all take geometry. About 300 (out of 480) have geometry and can choose from algebra2, pre-calc, trig, statistics, computer science, data analysis, IB pathway, or some combination thereof. About 150 of them have algebra 2 or trigonometry and they can similarly take any of those electives but most will take pre-calc. About 10 kids have pre-calc can take calc with the mostly sophomore class. There are sometimes a few kids (apparently mostly home-schooled) that have already taken calc and they can choose post calc electives. For what it’s worth, almost none of our kids have had Alg 2: a quarter take ALG2/Pre-Cal/Cal in a year. Half take Alg2/Pre-cal in a year. The last quarter take just Alg 2. But that means by sophomore year, 75% are in AB or BC, and we have a 100% pass rate on AB ( and 100% for sophomores and juniors in BC). On paper, our Freshman class looks a lot less qualified that TJ’s. But by sophomore year, they are in the same place. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/189 "2020-10-13T19:22:15Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > And neither do you. It’s on you to show this is an issue if you want to use it as an argument. Ah, but YOU are the one who confidently asserted that my personal experience with schools that don’t offer early algebra “is (always) irrelevant and your point is moot because the feeder districts to TJ offer algebra starting in 7th grade.” Implicit in your assertion is that every student in the feeder districts had the opportunity to take algebra in 7th grade. If that is your argument, show your evidence. Otherwise, admit that not every student had that opportunity, so kids only taking algebra 1 in 8th grade may represent a lack of opportunity rather than a failure to excel. The argument here is about whether TJHSST should be limited only to those students who have already had opportunity, or should be open to those who have the ability and could catch up if given a chance. For the former, you ARE saying that kids who lost out at an earlier stage through no fault of their own don’t deserve the resources the public is spending at this school. The student may have the intellectual ability and drive, but because they received a mismatched education before, we need to continue to give them a mismatched education, because … why, exactly? > [@damuriajashi](#): > > Why does this matter? Are you saying that fairfax has to make sure every school district in the whole country meets its standards before it can apply it’s standards to itself? That seems like a tall order. No, I’m saying that the public school district needs to be sure its standards are useful, and not just used to perpetuate existing prejudices and injustices. That’s why the district needs to know that the admissions criteria discriminate on a meaningful basis (such as ability to benefit from the special programs at TJHSST) and not discriminate for purely arbitrary reasons. Is a minor difference in GPA (say, 3.9 vs 4.0) actually translate to a statistically significant in outcome? Your cite doesn’t even attempt to answer that question. > [@damuriajashi](#): > > By any reasonable definition. You have yet to give ANY definition, reasonable or otherwise. > [@damuriajashi](#): > > Regardless of your definition, a random lottery will result in ~50% of the admitted students being below average (within the pool of students eligible for the lottery) on whatever scale you use. Um, by whatever measure you use, including the existing system, you are going to end up with ~50% of the admitted students being below average by that metric. That’s kind of what an average is. > [@damuriajashi](#): > > Yes it translates to better outcomes. What it mostly does is concentrates the best students in a single place where they can interact with one another. if you don’t see any value in that then places like tjhsst serve no useful purpose. I certainly see value in having very good students in a single place and interacting. The question here is whether you are actually choosing “the best” students, or merely the ones who excel at the metric you’ve chosen, which isn’t the same thing at all. > [@damuriajashi](#): > > The county has sole discretion on which teachers work where. They can assign the “best” teachers to whichever school they want without destroying tjhsst. Are you sure? Typically, teacher union contracts allow teachers substantial discretion in requesting assignments, and seniority often matters. (There is also research showing that even within a single school, teachers and classes tend to sort, with more experienced teachers being assigned students/classes perceived as “better” [higher achieving, fewer minorities, etc.].) > [@damuriajashi](#): > > And asians have proportionally higher concentrations of immigrants with a foreign language spoken at home. Try looking specifically at Northern Virginia versus the US as a whole. [As of 2012 in Fairfax County](https://nationalequityatlas.org/sites/default/files/Fairfax-Profile-6June2015-final.pdf) (see p. 20 of PDF), 36% of Latino immigrants reported speaking English not well or not at all; the comparable figure for Asian/Pacific Islander immigrants was 19%. Median hourly wage for Latinos was $15/hour, versus $28 for Asians. (see p. 26). Twenty-five percent of Latino immigrants of working age had at least an associate’s degree (p. 43); 66% of Asian immigrants did. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/190 "2020-10-13T19:27:03Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > The argument here is about whether TJHSST should be limited only to those students who have already had opportunity, or should be open to those who have the ability and could catch up if given a chance. For the former, you ARE saying that kids who lost out at an earlier stage through no fault of their own don’t deserve the resources the public is spending at this school. The student may have the intellectual ability and drive, but because they received a mismatched education before, we need to continue to give them a mismatched education, because … why, exactly? The issue isn’t really catching up, it’s more going to a school that allows you to progress. If you haven’t had algebra until 9th grade, a school that has a calculus program will be able to keep you moving forward–and a person who “only” gets through calculus in HS is not disadvantaged. It’s not “every kid should have a path to take Real Analysis in HS”, it’s “every kid should have a chance to take at least 4 years of math in HS”. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/191 "2020-10-13T20:00:32Z")
I’d argue the issue is being able to progress to the best of your abilities. If you have the talent to take ALG2/Pre-Cal/Cal in a single year, and then go to calc2 and real analysis by your senior year, why not? You won’t be disadvantaged, exactly, if you don’t, but if you do, you will have advantages. A place like TJHSST will also have some other programs besides just advanced math, such as the robotics stuff that is unlikely to exist at every high school in the county, and other advanced sciences and CS and so forth, that will further give you a boost up into college and/or career. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/192 "2020-10-13T20:07:18Z")
That’s our program–and it’s great, but you have a critical mass of kids to do it. You can’t have just one kid do that sequence. We have to have at least 20% to justify the teacher. We can take a kid who hasn’t had Algebra, if they will come to our summer camp. But we couldn’t take a kid, however talented, however “justified” who needed another year of math before he was ready for Algebra. We don’t have any remediation program in place for that. No class for him to take. Is that a problem in our program? Is that unjust? ---
**Author:** ![urbanredneck2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/5f8ce5/32.png) [@urbanredneck2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urbanredneck2)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/193 "2020-10-13T20:34:00Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > How is that relevant? I’ve seen middle school programs that are designed to be “feeders” for the AP programs. So they take certain courses in say 7th and 8th grade (middle school here) which prepare them for the courses your describing in high school. Its mostly just more math. ---
**Author:** ![urbanredneck2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/5f8ce5/32.png) [@urbanredneck2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urbanredneck2)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/194 "2020-10-13T20:36:19Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > The issue isn’t really catching up, it’s more going to a school that allows you to progress. If you haven’t had algebra until 9th grade, a school that has a calculus program will be able to keep you moving forward–and a person who “only” gets through calculus in HS is not disadvantaged. It’s not “every kid should have a path to take Real Analysis in HS”, it’s “every kid should have a chance to take at least 4 years of math in HS”. I agree and some of those 4 years of math can be like math courses to teach things like home finances. Every kid doesnt need calculus. ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/195 "2020-10-13T20:46:44Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > TJ is first in the nation, right now. For what it’s worth, I think you can skin this cat several different ways but a lottery among 90% of all applicants is nucking futz. > [@MandaJo](#): > > But really, if you feel like basically, any measurable difference is significant and that it’s about who deserves the slot, who earned it, there’s not a lot more discussion to be had. I think this is mostly true. I think there is some wiggle room at the margins but 3.5 gpa is an extraordinarily loose standard. > [@MandaJo](#): > > But I don’t reject the concept of identifying a “highly qualified group” and choosing among them. If you object to the principle of ever doing that, the whole concept, it seems like a red herring to harp on this particular criteria. There’s no criteria they could use you would think was better. I prefer a clear objective admissions process that excludes subjectivity as much as possible to select the best candidates. I don’t particularly care what that criteria is as long as it is objective and as long as you tell people ahead of time so they know what the standards are. The second phase of the tjhsst admissions process does not meet this standard but the first phase which is based exclusively on test scores and gpa does. The first phase creates a pool of 1000 students from which the selection committee selects 480 students. Under the proposed method, over 30% of the district is eligible for the lottery. This seems way too inclusive. > [@MandaJo](#): > > On paper, our Freshman class looks a lot less qualified that TJ’s. But by sophomore year, they are in the same place. I am more concerned with objective standards that focus on academic merit. I might have a preference for freshmen that have already had geometry (even if they take it again as a freshman) but otherwise, I am most interested in eliminating subjectivity and maintaining selectivity (once again, with a little wiggle room at the margins). > [@slash2k](#): > > No, I’m saying that the public school district needs to be sure its standards are useful, and not just used to perpetuate existing prejudices and injustices. Wait, is there some sort of existing prejudice and injustice against people that move into the area that we need to stamp out? This proposal is aimed at increasing the population of kids that have on average had the exact same access to the same classes as everyone else. How does the fact that some kid might be moving in from an area that doesn’t offer these classes matter? Academic merit is not a meaningless basis for making academic selections. > [@slash2k](#): > > Is a minor difference in GPA (say, 3.9 vs 4.0) actually translate to a statistically significant in outcome? Your cite doesn’t even attempt to answer that question. No, but if you have to choose between 2 students for an academic slot and one has higher academic achievement than the other, you have to present pretty convincing evidence to choose the less accomplished student over the more accomplished student. Otherwise I coudl argue what difference there is between a 3.9 student and a 3.8 student. If there is no difference there, then what difference between a 3.8 student and a 3.7 student and so on until I am asking what difference there is between a 2.1 student and a 2.2 student. > [@slash2k](#): > > You have yet to give ANY definition, reasonable or otherwise. I think the use of test scores is a reasonable measure of academic merit. But I am open to any other reasonable measuring stick you would propose as long as it is objective and selects the best students using its own critieria. > [@slash2k](#): > > Um, by whatever measure you use, including the existing system, you are going to end up with ~50% of the admitted students being below average by that metric. That’s kind of what an average is. You misunderstand me. I am saying that half the admitted students will be below the average of the pool of qualified applicants. The current admitted students can justifiably be called the best 480 students among 3000 applicants. The next batch will justifiably be called a roughly random sampling of all applicants. > [@slash2k](#): > > I certainly see value in having very good students in a single place and interacting. The question here is whether you are actually choosing “the best” students, or merely the ones who excel at the metric you’ve chosen, which isn’t the same thing at all. I believe that the current system at least attempts to do so and probably gets very close. The proposed method attempts to achieve racial balance and that is what it seems to be successful at. Do you honestly think that 500 students randomly selected from the top 30% of the entire school system is as good at selecting the “best students” as the one that makes all the students compete along academic criteria and selects the best applicants along those academic criteria? > [@slash2k](#): > > Are you sure? Typically, teacher union contracts allow teachers substantial discretion in requesting assignments, and seniority often matters. (There is also research showing that even within a single school, teachers and classes tend to sort, with more experienced teachers being assigned students/classes perceived as “better” [higher achieving, fewer minorities, etc.].) If union contracts are causing or promoting racism, should the solution be to explain the racist effects of their demands and then addressing the race issue at that level, or to try to correct for the racism by discriminating against asians? You are pointing to racism in other places by other people elsewhere to justify discrimination against asians. Maybe that’s not clear to everyone but almost everything that people are pointing to is justifying discrimination against asians is actually racism by other (mostly white) people. > [@slash2k](#): > > Try looking specifically at Northern Virginia versus the US as a whole. [As of 2012 in Fairfax County](https://nationalequityatlas.org/sites/default/files/Fairfax-Profile-6June2015-final.pdf) (see p. 20 of PDF), 36% of Latino immigrants reported speaking English not well or not at all; the comparable figure for Asian/Pacific Islander immigrants was 19%. Median hourly wage for Latinos was $15/hour, versus $28 for Asians. (see p. 26). Twenty-five percent of Latino immigrants of working age had at least an associate’s degree (p. 43); 66% of Asian immigrants did. Thanks for this. The presentation by national equity atlas seems to be using a different metric, limited english proficiency. And using their metric, latino immigrants have 60% limited english proficiency while 44% of asian immigrants have limited english proficiency. But that’s just immigrants. Asians have a significantly higher immigrant population (at 73%) than latinos (at 57%). 34% of all latinos have low english proficiency while 32% of all asians have low english proficiency. This does not seem like a big difference. As for income, I am perfectly happy to have a set aside for kids that are eligible for free adn reduced lunch. At least I can justify giving a poor kid (of whatever skin color) a break at the expense of a more affluent kid (who is likely to be asian). But chasing out an unlucky asian kid (that might be poor) to make room for a lucky white kid (that might be rich), in the interests of admitting more black and hispanic kids seems bad to me. Maintain high standards and give poor kids a break and based on the income distribution in your cite, I bet we see the at least some race balancing that some people seem to desire to the exclusion of almost all other considerations. > [@slash2k](#): > > I’d argue the issue is being able to progress to the best of your abilities. If you have the talent to take ALG2/Pre-Cal/Cal in a single year, and then go to calc2 and real analysis by your senior year, why not? You won’t be disadvantaged, exactly, if you don’t, but if you do, you will have advantages. A place like TJHSST will also have some other programs besides just advanced math, such as the robotics stuff that is unlikely to exist at every high school in the county, and other advanced sciences and CS and so forth, that will further give you a boost up into college and/or career. That is a fairly corner case, don’t you think? And you want to discriminate against busloads of asians in order to accommodate this hypothetical kid that might be able to get through 3 years of math in a single year? > [@urbanredneck2](#): > > I agree and some of those 4 years of math can be like math courses to teach things like home finances. Every kid doesnt need calculus. How many kids actually need calculus. I needed it for engineering courses but I think most people wouldn’t miss out on a thing if they stopped at geometry and statistics. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/196 "2020-10-13T20:51:16Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Are you sure? Typically, teacher union contracts allow teachers substantial discretion in requesting assignments, and seniority often matters. (There is also research showing that even within a single school, teachers and classes tend to sort, with more experienced teachers being assigned students/classes perceived as “better” [higher achieving, fewer minorities, etc.].) There’s always a certain minority of teachers who want to teach advanced students and classes, and there’s some competition for those slots. But the median teacher really doesn’t like the idea that their students may know more than them, or the accountability of involved parents who demand that they get their kids ready to ace the BC Calculus exam. Most people who go into teaching love the idea of joining a union, becoming unfirable, and teaching a bunch of people whose families couldn’t care less about outcomes while making $60k for working 30 hour weeks 9 months a year and complaining about being underpaid. The competition to teach the C-students’ English class at Ordinary High School is way greater than the competition to teach math at TJ. ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/197 "2020-10-13T20:54:47Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > There’s always a certain minority of teachers who want to teach advanced students and classes, and there’s some competition for those slots. But the median teacher really doesn’t like the idea that their students may know more than them, or the accountability of involved parents who demand that they get their kids ready to ace the BC Calculus exam. Most people who go into teaching love the idea of joining a union, becoming unfirable, and teaching a bunch of people whose families couldn’t care less about outcomes while making $60k for working 30 hour weeks 9 months a year and complaining about being underpaid. The competition to teach the C-students’ English class at Ordinary High School is way greater than the competition to teach math at TJ. The question isn’t whether there is more competition for tjhsst spots, the questions is the quality of the teachers. slash2k is saying that the best teachers will want to teach at tjhsst and the union contract gives them the ability to force the county to accede to their demands regardless of where the county thinks they might do the most good. I am saying that if the union contract is the source of structural racism, then fix that union contract, don’t discriminate against asian kids because you don’t want to stand up to a teacher’s union that is insisting on perpetuating racism. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/198 "2020-10-13T22:12:50Z")
> [@damuriajashi](#): > > People support racist stuff all the time. Are things so different in the UK? Results in England would be much more to @iiandyiiii’s liking - poor white kids get the worst GCSE grades. (And Chinese kids do best, for us Asian is South Asian.) > **[Poor white boys get 'a worse start in life' says equality report](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-34667100)** > > A report into fairness by the Equality and Human Rights Commission has says white boys from poor backgrounds "suffer the toughest start in life". We don’t have special publicly funded schools for the brightest pupils; most kids go to comprehensives which are ‘segregated’ based on house prices. Rich parents send their children to private schools where they get a much better education, as well as help with applications and networking opportunities, and the top universities and jobs are overwhelmingly dominated by former private school kids. It sucks and it’s crappy for social mobility. Don’t copy us. > [@damuriajashi](#): > > The arguments are… Perhaps what’s really going on is a mentality that divides the world into victim and oppressor. If you mess up this system by working hard and doing well, you can’t qualify as a victim anymore and therefore must be treated as an oppressor by having opportunities taken away from you. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/199 "2020-10-13T22:18:28Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > There’s always a certain minority of teachers who want to teach advanced students and classes, and there’s some competition for those slots. I’m not really talking about who is teaching at TJHSST, though; I’m talking about the teachers these students have had along the way, when they were still in the feeder schools. Schools serving significant minority and low-income populations tend to have difficulty attracting the highly experienced and credentialed teachers, at least in part because of the perception that such students are “difficult” or more likely to be disciplinary problems. Hispanic and African-American students are disproportionately likely to have been in such schools and had less qualified teachers, which is why I argue such students have not had the same opportunities as students with more access to more experienced educators. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2020, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347/200 "2020-10-13T23:04:14Z")
As always, it’s amusing to watch people who hate progressives pontificate on how they imagine progressives think. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selective-magnet-school-in-virginia-moving-towards-a-lottery-system/922347.md?page=11)