There are very few “run of the mill general population high schools” that offer Bionanotechnology or Advanced Microprocessor System Design, and the reason that TJ can offer them is because their required classes in biology, computer science, etc. are so strong. The full slate of available STEM classes at TJ is easily comparable to the first two years of math/science education at an above-average university.
Getting a B average in middle school is basically meaningless for sorting out anything beyond which students have completely checked out of education due to family issues. Since TJ needs to select an entering class of about 350 students from over 6300 graduating eighth-graders who meet the 3.5 GPA criterion, the “lottery” among this number of students is, obviously, not the right way to select the best students. That should be obvious from the fact that it is being pushed by people who despise the notion of “the best” being rewarded, specifically as a plan to get more mediocrity into the student body. The test was a far superior method and the results at TJ spoke for themselves.
There is no way TJ is going to continue to be the country’s #1 high school when it cannot select students based on proven ability. If we could make every high school into TJ that would be great but we all know that most people are not capable of keeping up with that curriculum.
TJ is a public, magnet, non-charter school. One of the reasons that it and similar schools exist is to make sure that students who require a level of instruction so far above the median high school can get it while remaining invested in the public school system. It allows those who cannot afford private school to access that kind of education and keeps many of those who could afford private school from checking out of the public school system and forming a separate educational universe.
It really has no comparison even among private schools because it is the#1 school in the U.S. by most measures and because no area, even Fairfax County, could sustain a school of its size that charged appropriate private tuition. There are of course some very rigorous private schools but they don’t have a student body of 1800 in the high school grades alone and thus they aren’t able to offer the depth of faculty and course catalog that TJ does.
By any reasonable measure, TJ and the Governor’s School program more generally have been a tremendous success at all their goals - serving the needs of a class of students that weren’t being met by the advanced programs at ordinary high schools, creating the sort of high-level innovators that drive American success, providing education comparable to or in fact exceeding that available in the private school system for free, being a major engine of social integration and economic boosting for the children of first-generation immigrants, and leading a general push for educational excellence in Virginia that has benefitted students at all levels. The problem is that some radical progressives in the Democratic Party don’t think some or all of those goals are good things or worth worrying about and furthermore aren’t beholden to the fact that reasoned, centrist policies have allowed the VA Dems to become the default party of governance in the state. They want to make an example by destroying TJ and they don’t care if it makes them look like a bunch of nutty, out-of-touch AOC types and hands the state to the Republicans at the next election.
Meh. Somehow this morphed into a Right-Left, Republican-Democrat thing? Can’t we argue the merits of something without demagoguery?
I hardly think a school full of 3.5+ GPA kids would “destroy” anything. If it makes you happier if the criterion were 3.6 or 3.7, I wouldn’t quibble, but a ‘lottery’ for the spots isn’t inherently bad. What I see are more students who could benefit and excel at TJ and not enough spots. The difference in opinion is some think TJ must have the absolute top students to be ‘successful.’ Others think there is some minimum standard that would work for TJ and drawing from students that meet that standard would work for TJ as well.
The Secretary of Education in the Democratic administration of Virginia is the one pushing it, and they have not hesitated to use the whole playbook of progressive critical race theory tactics (including libelously accusing the Indian-American Muslim woman who is leading the parents’ group opposed to changes of being a “white supremacist” who “is in a hate group”) to try to make this into “all good liberals must go along with this and anyone who disagrees is a right-winger.” They don’t get to claim it isn’t about politics.
How hard do you think it is to get a B average in middle school? This is the most rigorous high school in the country and it requires people who are capable of benefitting from that rigor to avoid diluting its standards. Letting in people literally at random among a pool of 6300 people (the actual number of middle school graduates in Fairfax with a 3.5 GPA each year) isn’t going to work and everybody knows it - this is about destroying the school by either forcing it to lower standards or by pointing to all the people who will fail out of the 9th grade if standards are not lowered and blaming in on “racism” instead of on forcing them to admit unqualified applicants.
TJ is not designed to be a “minimum standard” school, it’s designed to be a best of the best school. It sounds like you agree with the Virginia Democrats that excellence is a bad thing and should be punished.
Is 3.5 a B average? I thought 3.0 was a B average.
Like I said, I wouldn’t quibble if it were 3.6 or 3.7. But I don’t think a lottery is inherently unfair.
I don’t believe anyone is being ‘punished’ for ‘excellence’. To the contrary, Students achieving the necessary GPA are rewarded for their achievement with a chance to attend TJ.
Not going to TJ isn’t a punishment. Literally millions of students don’t go to TJ. They will survive.
Seriously, making TJ out to be a make you or break you sort of thing is probably counter-productive.
That’s right - so why is it so important to blow up TJ to make sure people who can’t get in under the current system have the same “lottery” shot as anyone else?
If you are going to use loaded words like “blow up” it is hard to discuss this with you. That kind of overstatement makes me want to dismiss you completely.
Personally, I’d be fine with status quo too. But I’m not against a lottery either. There are merits to such an approach, especially for young kids. How old are we talking? 13 right? I mean, my god.
OK, but they are trying to totally destroy merit-based admissions, that’s what this thread is about. And the list of “loaded words” from the anti-TJ people would run many hundreds of pages. They have mobilized everyone from high-ranking state government officials to the NAACP to go after a high school for daring to practice race-neutral admissions. They’ve called parents racists, hate group leaders, and “motherfuckers,” they’ve held illegal secret summits in violation of public meetings laws, they’ve sent BLM activists to physically invade demonstrations and tussle with children, etc. It’s a big deal and you announcing “I refuse to take seriously anyone who observes that this big deal is a big deal” doesn’t change anything about what’s actually going on.
So if you don’t have a strong position about this that’s fine. You’re not obligated to. What is it that you would like to argue for, debate, point out to us, etc.?
A lottery to pick 100 from 200 well qualified applicants is one thing. There probably won’t be a massive difference over taking the top 100. Picking 100 from 2000 is quite different. There will be a drastic difference between the top 100 and 100 taken at random. Think about your own school and a reasonably smart person vs whoever came top of the class.
As for choosing a higher GPA, I suspect if they set it too high they won’t solve the diversity problem, in which case why not stick with the test, which is fairer and more objective?
The actual numbers are 350 spots for Fairfax for each entering class and over 6300 students who graduate from middle schools in Fairfax with a 3.5 GPA or better each year. About 5.5% will get in, as they do now. About 18 students from the top 350 will get in, as opposed to 350 who do now. 332 of the 350 freshmen who enter each year will be students who couldn’t qualify based on the test and a huge majority of them won’t be people who just missed the cutoff but people who would have been in the bottom 2/3 of the ranking. There’s no way the school can keep being what it is under those circumstances.
Well, I think you know the answer - because the whole purpose of the exercise is to eliminate fairness and objectivity in favor of racial quotas and the progressive educational philosophy of grinding everyone into mediocrity.
The UK doesn’t even have the same racial issues and they love love love mediocrity in education. Why give resources to help smart kids? They don’t need any support. It’s the progressive curse of thinking they can make everyone equal, and doing their best to accomplish it, no matter how many kids they have to hold back in the process. 0/10 do not recommend.
Read in context. Harvard has nothing to do with it.
ZS said “totally destroy merit-based admissions.”
Lottery based on GPA is still merit-based, so the charge that this totally destroys merit-based admissions is wrong.
Oh. And if Harvard decided to do that, I’d be like, Okay Harvard you do what you want.
I know Harvard has nothing to do with it. I’m wondering if you would still consider this admission scheme merit based, and if you believe it would have any significant impact on the university?
It sorts out people who probably need some sort of non-academic intervention from those who don’t. If you can’t maintain a B average in middle school then you have some sort of psychiatric or emotional problem that needs treatment, a totally chaotic family system, a need to address some fundamental tool in learning (reading disability, glasses to see the whiteboard, etc.) or, if none of those apply and you really can’t handle math and English at that level, it would just be better for everyone if you were started on a vocational training path in 9th grade.
That’s the only cut that’s being made. Anyone who is trying at all in school and not hampered by the above can get a 3.5 GPA in the 8th grade. The standards for “the best school in America” obviously need to be more selective than that and I think you are well aware of this.
The majority (vast majority under a lottery system) of the kids will be unqualified by last years’ standards.
Almost the whole school is taking advanced science and math.
The toughest math classes are probably complex variables analysis and differential equations. There are a lot of post calculus classes there. These two are probably the end of the sequence.
A recent entering classes at tjhsst took the following class in 8th grade:
21 algebra
305 geometry
150 algebra II/trigonometry/pre-calc (this comes immediately after geometry)
10 calculus and other
Most FCPS students take 3 years of algebra and geometry and then one of trig/pre-calc/algebra2 in their senior year.
The percentage of kids without geometry before starting at tjhsst will increase significantly. It will change instruction at the school.
I can’t venture to guess which science and technology classes are the toughest but here are some of the course offerings.