we need more schools like TJ - Gifted Issues Discussion Forum

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/09/19/number-1-high-school-america-offers-real-head-start-268693.html

Excerpts:

�They take charge of their learning. They want more, and they ask for it, and we give it to them.� She thinks for a minute, looking for words. �It�s a school that allows us to try different things. A public school allows us to try new things!

Why can't we have TJ in every city?

Originally Posted by Peter

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/09/19/number-1-high-school-america-offers-real-head-start-268693.html

Excerpts:

�They take charge of their learning. They want more, and they ask for it, and we give it to them.� She thinks for a minute, looking for words. �It�s a school that allows us to try different things. A public school allows us to try new things!

Why can't we have TJ in every city?

I'd like to see more, but creating selective schools in which some groups are very underrepresented is a tough sell in the current political environment. Thomas Jefferson High School has even been sued by the federal government over diversity.

Demographics shift at Thomas Jefferson High as Asians make up 66 percent of new class
By T. Rees Shapiro
Washington Post
April 8, 2014

Quote

The demographic makeup of Fairfax County�s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology continues to shift. More than 66 percent of the students in next fall�s incoming class are of Asian descent, with just 10 black and eight Hispanic students admitted to the magnet school�s Class of 2018.

The public school, which is open to students in Fairfax and neighboring Northern Virginia jurisdictions, received 2,900 applications for admission in the fall, the lowest number since 2009. The school accepted 487 students, an admission rate of 17 percent, akin to a selective college.

TJ�s student population has shifted significantly in the past decade as rising numbers of immigrants have moved to Northern Virginia. An overwhelming majority of those admitted now are Asian students, and the school accepted the fewest number of white students since at least 2004 � 117 this year � making up 24 percent of the class. In 2004, 54 percent of the admitted students were white and 32 percent were Asian.

Admission rates also vary considerably by race. Asian students had a 23 percent admission rate while 12 percent of white applicants and 6 percent of black applicants gained spots at the school. And this year, male students make up 60 percent of those admitted to TJ, up from 52 percent in 2005.

County school officials have faced criticism in recent years for the lack of diversity at the flagship high school, annually ranked as one of the best in the country. In 2012, the school system faced a complaint, filed with the U.S. Education Department�s Office for Civil Rights, alleging that the school discriminates against minority and poor students.

Shriek!

OMG - a public high school nurturing minds selected for their passion to learn, academic achievements and outstanding cognitively abilities? A place where education is truly discovery/inquiry driven has been allowed to slip through the cracks?

Burn it down quick and plough its fields with salt before it catches on.

An example must be set!

My DS15 applied to Maggie L. Walker Governor's School in Richmond, VA two years ago but was not admitted. His standardized test scores were well above the average of all admitted students. He received max scores recommendations and writing sample. He scored lower for grades and program rigor causing him to miss the cut-off. I argued about the rigor points because his independent school does not offer middle school students the opportunity to enroll in high school credit classes. So he missed rigor points even though he enrolled in the most difficult available classes. His grades were not straight A+'s out of sheer boredom so I couldn't argue this point.

The county we live in felt pressure because some middle schools were consistently under-represented at MLWGS. So, in order to make it "more fair" for everyone the county altered the admission criteria from the highest scoring students as a whole to the highest scoring student from each middle school (12 of the 42 slots last year) with the remaining slots filled from the remaining overall pool of applicants. Independent school kids are lumped into phase two to compete for one of the remaining 30 slots.

So, MLWGS missed out on a kid 3 standard deviations above the mean who maxed out on his standardized test because the county decide to admit lower ability applicants. I expect the same scenario for our DD12 next year.

Henrico County Schools doesn't care about our kids because they attend an independent school and our independent school has zero incentive to help get our kids admitted to MLWGS.

~Rant over~

I looked up that high school; the senior class pictured on the site looked like it had something like 150 kids. Why only 42 slots?

Does the answer have something to do with sibling/teacher/district employee preferences?

I think 12 school systems feed into MLWGS with each paying for the number of slots they can afford. So, it was 42 available out of 178 total.

Here's the HCPS FAQ - http://blogs.henrico.k12.va.us/mlwgs/files/2014/08/FAQs-MLWGS-Fall-2014.pdf

Originally Posted by Bostonian

Originally Posted by Peter

TJ�s student population has shifted significantly in the past decade as rising numbers of immigrants have moved to Northern Virginia. An overwhelming majority of those admitted now are Asian students, and the school accepted the fewest number of white students since at least 2004 � 117 this year � making up 24 percent of the class. In 2004, 54 percent of the admitted students were white and 32 percent were Asian.

The interesting thing is that Asian families move to Fairfax County in droves, specifically with the ambition of getting their kids into TJ. Fairfax County also has many gifted magnets at the elementary level, so you will see (predominantly white) families move into that area for the opportunity to put their gifted kids into public school. In other words, gifted white and Asian students are concentrated in Fairfax County on purpose. (Hardworking, MG students are a dime a dozen in that school system.)

Of course, this phenomenon wouldn't happen to such an extent, if there were schools like this in other areas.

Quote

Of course, this phenomenon wouldn't happen to such an extent, if there were schools like this in other areas.

Bingo!

TAG school in DALLAS, LASA in Austin, Styvesant, Bronx Science, Staten Island Tech in NYC, just to name a few...

Originally Posted by Peter

TAG school in DALLAS, LASA in Austin, Styvesant, Bronx Science, Staten Island Tech in NYC, just to name a few...

So, we have about 50+ million kids in grades k through 12 and that's really it?

I think that really illustrates this country's indifference to TAG right there.

2% would give us ~1 million, right?

So reasonably, I would expect to see orders of magnitude more schools...

Not that world is anything like reasonable but just saying...

That's why I posted that we need more schools like that.

They may not be as successful as TJ but better than what we have in the nation as a whole.

Our region has full time self contained gifted classes, but for political/numerical reasons they are contained in regular schools in high crime areas. So gifted education is available to all who qualify, but the "deal" is that you have to put your child in danger to get it.