Mary Kimm's editorial ("What's Wrong with This Picture?" - Connection, Jan. 24) about the demographics of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (commonly known as TJ) leaves out an important statistic, and that is that 70 percent of its students are Asian, many of whom are first generation Americans. Many of the remaining 30 percent are also first-generation, and have family backgrounds from Iran, Arab and African countries, Russia, and Eastern Europe, or are biracial.
Is the heavily immigrant nature of TJ what's "wrong with this picture"? State Sen. Scott Surovell's SB787 bill's method to increasing enrollment of black and Hispanic students is to impose quotas on middle schools and by economic background. This is a resentment and punishment approach to trying to achieve that goal, and should be rejected as such.
Cindy Gersony
Great Falls