http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...6771be-d7de-11e4-ba28-f2a685dc7f89_story.html
Asian American students will make up 70 percent of the incoming freshman class at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the highest percentage ever for the elite magnet school in Northern Virginia.
Next year’s freshman class reflects a widening demographic divide at TJ, as the Fairfax County school is known.
A decade ago, white students made up 53 percent of the teens admitted to the school offering courses in differential equations, artificial intelligence and neuroscience. Thirty-two percent of the admitted students were Asian.
Now, amid a similar transition happening around the county, six out of 10 students at the school are Asian, while white students make up 29 percent.
According to admissions data posted online, Asian students were admitted at a higher rate than their peers. The data also shows that for the fifth year in a row, 10 or fewer black students were admitted to TJ.
Fairfax leaders have faced criticism in recent years for TJ’s historical lack of diversity, particularly among black, Hispanic and low-income students.
In 2012, an activist group representing those students filed a complaint against Fairfax County with the U.S Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging that the admission process discriminates against black, Hispanic and poor students. That complaint is ongoing.
Bob Frye, one of the longest serving black members of the Fairfax County School Board, who voted to establish TJ as a magnet school in 1985, said that the administration should take a closer look at the school’s admissions process.
“I have no interest in lowering the standards at TJ,” said Frye, 78, who served as chairman in 1999 and 2000. “I believe even now with the proper amount of preparation and interest the numbers [of black students] could surely be higher than they are now.”
Asian American students will make up 70 percent of the incoming freshman class at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the highest percentage ever for the elite magnet school in Northern Virginia.
Next year’s freshman class reflects a widening demographic divide at TJ, as the Fairfax County school is known.
A decade ago, white students made up 53 percent of the teens admitted to the school offering courses in differential equations, artificial intelligence and neuroscience. Thirty-two percent of the admitted students were Asian.
Now, amid a similar transition happening around the county, six out of 10 students at the school are Asian, while white students make up 29 percent.
According to admissions data posted online, Asian students were admitted at a higher rate than their peers. The data also shows that for the fifth year in a row, 10 or fewer black students were admitted to TJ.
Fairfax leaders have faced criticism in recent years for TJ’s historical lack of diversity, particularly among black, Hispanic and low-income students.
In 2012, an activist group representing those students filed a complaint against Fairfax County with the U.S Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging that the admission process discriminates against black, Hispanic and poor students. That complaint is ongoing.
Bob Frye, one of the longest serving black members of the Fairfax County School Board, who voted to establish TJ as a magnet school in 1985, said that the administration should take a closer look at the school’s admissions process.
“I have no interest in lowering the standards at TJ,” said Frye, 78, who served as chairman in 1999 and 2000. “I believe even now with the proper amount of preparation and interest the numbers [of black students] could surely be higher than they are now.”
