Is the article wrong on the facts? That is the only thing that matters.
Many Hacker News readers are in the same demographic that would be in contention for National Merit honors, so it seems pretty “on brand” for HN.
Many Hacker News readers are in the same demographic that would be in contention for National Merit honors, so it seems pretty “on brand” for HN.
> with most TJ students in a protected class of “gifted” students, most of them racial minorities, many with disabilities, and most coming from immigrant families whose parents speak English as a second language.
That is, at best, incredibly misleading, if not outright wrong. The "racial minority" here is Asian, which makes up ~70% of the school population (whereas the school district as a whole is 30% Asian; the population of blacks and Latino are collectively ~4%, whereas the school district is 30%). This aren't disadvantaged poor families--at least some of the Asians come from families specifically moving to the high-cost-of-living area to try to place their kids at TJ, and I suspect a household income of $200k would put you in the bottom socioeconomic half at TJ. Note that none of the students are in ESL classes, and only ~2% are on reduced-price lunches, whereas the school district as a whole skews more like 20% and I think 30% for the latter.
So, in short, the student body at TJ largely isn't comprised of poor people who need every leg up they can get; it's comprised largely of people at the top of the socioeconomic ladder who are already walking on water.
(Disclosure: I did in fact attend this school.)