Nothing wrong with that. There are and can be private schools for parents with the financial means and desire to give it to their kids. Because, to be clear, these are largely the kids today who are going to TJ. Their parents have spent enormous resources already to get them accepted.
But TJ is a public school and I think it should better serve the public and provide more opportunities to those who don’t have the resources. There are so many brilliant, hard working kids in the school district who would excel at TJ and beyond but their parents didn’t start early enough. Reliance only on the test for admissions values resources and preparation too much.
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I am sure there are plenty of kids smart enough to succeed but I still doubt more than a few will ever put in the time/effort to get to the same level as the ones that started early.
I think is that a kid that has worked through the AoPS curriculum (or equivalent) by 8th or 9th grade will not enjoy being in the same class as the kid that was excelling in Math 1 or 2 but never spent extra time on math. It is a waste of time. Math and many STEM subjects have little to do with age from what I have seen and to the extent Fairfax can fill schools with kids advanced enough then it seems it is a great investment to group those uber accelerated kids.
Kids develop at different speeds and have different interests, I just think that kids should be challenged and TJ had spectacular results in the past. I think as a country we need to do more to have opportunities for advanced kids and it is a shame TJ will not be at the level it was with their new admissions approach. In any case, this will be interesting to watch.
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And likewise, there are many aspiring athletes or musicians who would be performing at a much higher level had their parents started earlier with their training or had the resources to provide those opportunities.
This isn’t specific to academics.
Likewise, it’s not cheap to send your kid to a tennis clinic or a music preparatory school. Money always brings advantages. Again, not an issue specific to competitive admissions.
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Look beyond race and ethnicity and it is likely that the Asian population there includes a large number of parents who immigrated to the US on visas for PhD students and highly skilled workers. It is likely that this subset of the Asian population is the main producer of kids aiming for and getting into TJ.
(And how many of the White, Black, and Hispanic / Latino kids at TJ have similar high-education parents?)
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It is not specific to Asian culture, but the culture of the highly educated, as selected for by immigration. You can see it in European and African immigrants, but they are less noticeable because they are smaller percentages of the White and Black populations than Asian immigrants are of the Asian population.
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Well said and great observation @ucbalumnus
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That’s true. Should Fairfax county have a dedicated public school that caters to children of the highly educated? I would much rather see every public school in the county have the resources to provide challenging, advanced STEM classes and opportunities to all the kids in every school. Just like every school is required to provide athletics for boys and girls, and special ed services for those who need it.
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You’re probably right but there are also ample working-class Asian parents whose kids get into TJ (and equivalent schools in other states). If they can do it, what can we learn from their experience to help Black, Latino and White students achieve similar results?
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I agree with you that it would be amazing if every public school had those resources and hopefully we can get there, but I do not think we should wait for that. Given global competition and technological advancements the US must continue to have top kids and schools similar to TJ are where we are developing those kids. It is concerning if that goes away and parents have to do everything to develop the talent needed.
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Not all students are interested in or capable of mathematical excellence. Rewarding those that are with specialized education shouldn’t be a controversial idea ( even if some posters dont like the ethnicity of those rewarded). The percentage of Jewish students at elite schools is higher than the proportionate percentage of the population. Do you wish to limit by religion, too? What’s the difference?
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For every TJ student who is supposedly being exposed to math she or he can’t find at a typical well-resourced NoVa high school, there is at least one other who for the sake of college placement would have been better off in the smaller pond. Not sure what the net effect is on national security.
How ample are the kids with less educated parents in TJ?
If Asian kids with less educated parents followed the stereotype of high academic achievement, why aren’t most schools (K-12 (including ordinary public ones) and college) in Hawaii considered academically elite?
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You said "a large number of parents who immigrated to the US on visas for PhD students and highly skilled workers" (but didn’t provide firm figures) so that means others don’t fit this description. So, what can we learn from these folks?
2% of the children at TJHSST qualify for free or reduced price lunch, which suggests there are few “working class” students attending.
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For goodness sake, no one is claiming that all Asians are producing academically elite children, and can we please remember that “Asian” is not a monolithic group with identical values and experiences? As an overall ethnic designation, Asian Americans are more likely to graduate high school, attend college, and graduate college, than other ethnicities in the same age cohort. That doesnt mean that every Asian is a sterotypical math genius or that any school with Asians must be elite.
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Then why does the stereotype of high (or otherwise) academic achievement stick to race or ethnicity rather than parental educational attainment, as evidenced by most of this thread as well as the motivations for policy making and lawsuits that this thread is about?
(The likely answer is that race or ethnicity is more visible than parental educational attainment, but simply going by the most visible characteristics can mean missing the real reasons behind the observed phenomenon.)
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Can you elaborate please? What’s the link between TJ and national security?
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The sterotype sticks, as you say, Because a higher proportion of Asians value academic achievement than other ethnic groups, regardless of parental education level or income. That doesnt mean all of them so value, but for example far fewer Asians drop out of high school than other ethnic groups, per the US census.
TJ probably has a disproportionate number of Democrats as well. We could start quotas by political affiliation too.
Let’s try to stick to actual facts, and not make-up data that leads us to confirmation bias. (AP Stats)
If this decision is challenged, and the case makes its way to the Supreme Court, we could see the “equitable” admissions tactic of simply allotting most of the seats at a highly selective public U to the top X% of every in-state high school class, thrown out. That would really be the end of race-sensitive admissions, and Black acceptances to highly selective public institutions in states that use this tactic would drop like a stone.
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