Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

When the Pursuit of “Equity” Cheats High Achievers

—

by

Bob Rayner
in ,

by Kerry Dougherty

Imagine for a moment that you’re a top student in a highly competitive science and technology high school.

In your junior year you take the PSATs and enter the prestigious National Merit Scholarship Program competing against the elite students in high schools from coast to coast. Imagine that in mid-October of your senior year your school principal is notified that you are a “Commended Student” in that competition, meaning that out of roughly 1.5 million entrants, you scored in the top 3%.

Applications for early decision to the most selective colleges and universities close on October 31 and this sort of distinction could be the difference between an acceptance or a rejection.

Now imagine that your school sat on your award and didn’t bother informing you that you are a Commended Student until mid-November, when it was too late to add that to your resume.

Oh, and instead of announcing your name over the school’s public address system or holding a ceremony to honor you, your teacher simply slapped your certificate on your desk.

You see, school administrators in your high school are apparently more concerned with “equity” and equal outcomes for all kids than in singling out high achievers.

Sucks to be you.

This really happened. At Fairfax County’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, perhaps the most prestigious public high school in the country.

The National Review reports that a story that ran in the New York Post and City Journal documents a series of events that resulted in students not being notified of their Commended Student status until November 14th of this year.

Leaders of Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology waited for about a month to distribute certificates to National Merit commended students and semi-finalists, past the October 31 deadline for students to note the awards on their applications for early acceptance to select colleges, according to a report in City Journal and the New York Post…

The report by journalist and activist Asra Nomani links the delay of National Merit awards to Thomas Jefferson high’s equity efforts, and its new “equal outcomes for every student, without exception” strategy. Most of the students who had their award notification delayed were Asian, Nomani reported…

Nomani also released a series of redacted emails from concerned parents to Thomas Jefferson high administrators, which reveal growing frustration over Fairfax County’s school policies.

Unsurprisingly, TJ parents are livid. Turns out some students in recent years claim they were never informed of their honors.

One parent, Shawna Yashar, whose son was notified of his National Merit commendation on Nov. 14th, characterized the careless behavior of TJ administrators as “theft by the state.”

The author of the news story, Nomani, claims her own son graduated from Jefferson in 2021 and only learned of his status recently.

If that is true, heads should roll.

Stay tuned. I smell lawsuits.

This column was first published in Kerry: Unemployed and Unedited and is republished with permission.

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38 responses to “When the Pursuit of “Equity” Cheats High Achievers”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Something else in Fairfax that does not sound good:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/70518d04b6f144ab378424f4c561644dbe84cedce458f34cc9c5c81b0892a26f.jpg

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/27/phonics-reading-virginia-naacp/

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Given the acceptance rate at TJ for the economically disadvantaged, it appears that the Fairfax School system itself was complicit in not helping the disadvantaged learn to read which then sets the course for their subsequent failures.

      Do a build-a-table retrieve for Fairfax for disadvantaged and minority kids 3rd grade reading scores.

      1. Matt Hurt Avatar
        Matt Hurt

        Unfortunately, this problem is not isolated to Fairfax. Also, I don’t think that teaching methodologies can fix this problem as it runs deeper than that. Those gaps have persisted for many years, and most folks are conditioned to believe that’s how it works. When the actual outcomes align with what is expected, why would you do anything any different. The problem is not with teaching methodology, but with expectations for students and educators.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          I hear you but there’s a “gap” that indicates that some kids perhaps don’t learn the same ways as other kids?

          does “expectations” explain the gap?

          I’d be curious to hear your opinion about the situation described in this article:

          “How Black activists in Northern Virginia transformed the way children learn to read”

          https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/27/phonics-reading-virginia-naacp/

          1. Matt Hurt Avatar
            Matt Hurt

            I’m going to answer this in a new comment so that I can add a graphic- for some reason I can’t here.

          2. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            yep. Something has changed in Disqus so that a thread of so many (not many) no longer presents the icon for adding graphics so have to start a new one.

  2. Teddy007 Avatar
    Teddy007

    TJ students do not apply to the type of universities where being a National Merit semi-finalist or finalist means anything for admission or scholarships. Remember, to a TJ student, UVA is their safety school.

  3. VaPragamtist Avatar
    VaPragamtist

    Yesterday’s article on a similar topic showed us that quantitative measures like SAT scores are becoming less and less important for admissions decisions, especially at highly competitive institutions.

    So what makes the author think that a PSAT score (or the connected “National Merit” award. . .more-or-less another way to lure students into spending money on the PSAT), matter for admissions?

    1. Not Today Avatar
      Not Today

      Yep. The tests devalued themselves in part because the ceiling on SAT and ACT is so low. They’re a lot less reliable and useful for top tier schools. Significantly more students today have perfect scores, more than 10%. Forty years ago it was less than 3%. Much of this analysis is based on old tests that more reliably stratified the test takers. There were also far fewer test takers because only ‘college-bound’ students, especially in the South, were encouraged to take them.

  4. Eric the half a troll Avatar
    Eric the half a troll

    Ummmm…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/675548391677edc72bed3332ea1035faae318384286d6cbc31845a71788b8e0d.jpg

    So if you are not paying attention at all and must wait on some “certificate” from your school before realizing you scored in the top 3% nationally (information which is available in December), you know that you can always supplement your early decision application with later arriving grades or test scores (something any parent of any child who has submitted a college application knows).

    Just another Naomi bullsh*t story… picked up (unsurprisingly) by Kerry … birds of a feather…

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Hell, enough time for a redo and still make an April deadline.

    2. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      ya, it appears the angst is not that they did not know but they were not recognized publicly?

      Sounds like yet another liar-liar, made-up controversy.

      funny, how these things “flow” through the echo chamber…. and get rehashed and rehased.

    3. Randy Huffman Avatar
      Randy Huffman

      It’s Nomani, not Naomi.

      You may be correct on the sending of information later (its been well over a decade since my sons went through the process), but not sure how that works with early decision. UVA makes their early decisions mid December, so not much time.

      But if you read the article, it is clear that the award of National Merit is made to the school, and TJ withheld it from the students. Here is the key quote:

      “In a call with Yashar, Kosatka admitted that the decision to withhold the information from parents and inform the students in a low-key way was intentional. “We want to recognize students for who they are as individuals, not focus on their achievements,” he told her, claiming that he and the principal didn’t want to “hurt” the feelings of students who didn’t get the award. A National Merit spokeswoman said that the organization’s officials “leave this honor exclusively to the high school officials” to announce. ”

      The underlying point of the story is NOT bullsh*t.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        IF they did withhold that info, and that was the only way that students would know, it’s unconscionable and people ought to get fired.

        1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
          Eric the half a troll

          SATs not PSATs are what is used for college admissions. My semi-finalist son never got a big “announcement” and that specific achievement only impacted his ability to qualify for certain financial aid awards. That process occurs in the spring. Still typical bs from a predictable attack dog.

          1. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
            James Wyatt Whitehead

            It doesn’t bother you that TJ buried acknowledgment of the award to students and parents? Somehow this is bs or bullsh*&*T^&*^t? Such a powerful argument. I just don’t get get your position Eric. Maybe you can explain it to me better so that I might understand?

          2. Eric the half a troll Avatar
            Eric the half a troll

            It is the boy who cried wolf syndrome when it comes to Nomani and TJ. She works for an anti-public school 501C3 and routinely gins up faux scandals against the best public school Virginia has to offer (one of the best in the country). In every case, imo, the benefit of the doubt goes to TJ – this is no different. Kerry and TBE carrying her water just adds icing to that cake. As to this particular scandal, all NMS Semi-finalists were announced and celebrated in the attached newsletter – more than what my son got back in the day. Fully 1/3 of TJ 11th graders are semi-finalists, & all but a handful of the rest get commendations (what Nomani says was hidden from students and her own son supposedly for two years). There are reports that students were notified right away by email (I will wait for confirmation of this but, of course, Nomani’s damage is already done). Students have known their PSAT scores since last December and NMS cutoff scores are available online; these vary by state & year. If Nomani cared about her son’s PSAT NMS commendation (not semi-finalist mind you) she sure didn’t put much effort into it. Again another Nomani bs attack. But great fodder for her next Fox&Friends appearance (yes, she has made a showing or two in the past – as is expected of someone in her position).

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5770a9ff197740748ef0d673f8b2de9db7cf5a528b7f7ac54368921eada6743b.jpg

          3. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
            James Wyatt Whitehead

            Every school I have ever worked at holds an assembly to recognize National Merit scholarships. Their names are published in local papers. The local Rotary Club holds a banquet to further recognize them. The Loudoun Education Foundation has a Excellence In Education banquet at the National Conference Center that rivals any prom I have ever been to. Every high achieving student from 18 high schools including the NMS kids is individually recognized. To be in the top 3% is a big deal. Maybe at TJ this is no big deal due to the membership of the student body. I do appreciate your response.

          4. Not Today Avatar
            Not Today

            That’s because at MOST schools National Merit scholars are rare. At TJ that is not the case. I never got an acknowledgement either and that was 30 years ago.

          5. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
            James Wyatt Whitehead

            Dear Mr. Not Today,
            I am writing you 30 years late to salute you and your signal achievement. Your placement in the top 3% of PSAT test takers nationwide. I wish I could have been there for you but alas I was still in college working on the MA degree in education. I wish I could have been there for you pal. Nonetheless your high marks are noteworthy and deserve recognition. I am,
            Yours in service,
            James Whitehead
            Retired Loudoun County High School History Teacher.

          6. Not Today Avatar
            Not Today

            Uh, thanks? Water under the bridge (I still hate that school tho, lol).

          7. Eric the half a troll Avatar
            Eric the half a troll

            It is the boy who cried wolf syndrome when it comes to Nomani and TJ. She works for an anti-public school 501C3 and routinely gins up faux scandals against the best public school Virginia has to offer (one of the best in the country). In every case, imo, the benefit of the doubt goes to TJ – this is no different. Kerry and TBE carrying her water just adds icing to that cake. As to this particular scandal, all NMS Semi-finalists were announced and celebrated in the attached newsletter – more than what my son got back in the day. Fully 1/3 of TJ 11th graders are semi-finalists, & all but a handful of the rest get commendations (what Nomani says was hidden from students and her own son supposedly for two years). There are reports that students were notified right away by email (I will wait for confirmation of this but, of course, Nomani’s damage is already done). Students have known their PSAT scores since last December and NMS cutoff scores are available online; these vary by state & year. If Nomani cared about her son’s PSAT NMS commendation (not semi-finalist mind you) she sure didn’t put much effort into it. Again another Nomani bs attack. But great fodder for her next Fox&Friends appearance (yes, she has made a showing or two in the past – as is expected of someone in her position).

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5770a9ff197740748ef0d673f8b2de9db7cf5a528b7f7ac54368921eada6743b.jpg

          8. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            So how do the students know they are finalists?

            What I read made it sound like it’s the school that notifies not the PSAT folks. Why would it work that way?

            I agree that the usual “attack dog” stuff is going on… just trying to understand the facts which I do not trust will come from the critics.

          9. Eric the half a troll Avatar
            Eric the half a troll

            The finalists and semi-finalists of all FCPS were announced by the administration via their newsletter. I have read that TJ notifies, announces, and celebrates all NMS semi-finalists and above at the school. Semi-finalist (and above) is the only NMS award that matters in scholarships – my son got offered a whole $1500 from UNC Chapel Hill because of it – again this is an April timeframe thing. There are many NMS “commended” qualifiers at TJ – it is the norm. It sounds like they may have been notified by email (if they cared to look) and the cutoff scores are available online (again if they cared to look). The bottom line is that by fall Senior year, if they did not make NMS semi-finalist, the SAT score is all that matters (PSATs are not a college admission criteria). The information is available should students care, Nomani says she didn’t know… as an “investigative reporter” you’d think she could find out if she cared… sorry, just another Nomani faux TJ scandal.

  5. James Kiser Avatar
    James Kiser

    The speak and say crowd deliberately started their crap methods based on supposed inability of black children to learn the phonics way.. Same group pushed ebonics.As usual they were wrong instead they screwed up a decades worth of kids who couldn’t read period.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Not just black kids… economically disadvantaged, at risk – i.e. parents with low education attainment and low income – those kids do not learn the same way that kids of well educated, economically secure parents do.

      1. James Kiser Avatar
        James Kiser

        It is amazing to me that you and others think that just because someone is poor that they are stupid. Try reading about Ben Carson rather than Lebron James you might learn this fact of life.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          Not stupid at all. That’s the POINT. Kids have to “learn” and if they don’t have educated parents to teach and help them with words, they show up less capable.

          This is why there are Pre-K programs and categories called “learning disabled”.

          They’re NOT stupid. THey have IQs the equal of the other kids who don’t have learning issues.

          What is the difference between kids in the 1st grade, what 7 or 8 yrs old and one is very good at reading and the other can’t read?

          1. James Kiser Avatar
            James Kiser

            Wonder how kids like Carson or my brothers or sisters made it? I don’t think you can call educated someone who has a diploma. I know lots of educated idiots with diplomas .

  6. Charlie Potatoe Avatar
    Charlie Potatoe

    All this discussion about the value of the Awards and carping about TJHSST is beside the point in judging the actions of the School Administrators in this case.

    What this event is about is the cruelty of evil People to innocent young Boys and Girls who worked their hearts out to achieve excellence, did so, and then were cheated of the fruits of their successes, likely including admission to prestigious Universities and the garnering of rich Scholarships, all for the worst and base reasons.

    These callous and vindictive People should be fired, prosecuted for Crimes, convicted, and imprisoned. In addition, they should be sued and be required to pay the young People they abused for the damages they inflicted on them.

    All of these awful and despicable acts were done to further the ignoble, destructive, and bigoted cause of eliminating merit and individual achievement and imposing a system based on race, gender, and identity.

    Bad doings!

  7. Charlie Potatoe Avatar
    Charlie Potatoe

    All of this discussion about the value of the Awards and carping about TJHSST is beside the point in judging the actions of the School Administrators in this case.

    What this event is about is the cruelty of evil People to innocent young Boys and Girls who worked their hearts out to achieve excellence, did so, and then were cheated of the fruits of their successes, likely including admission to prestigious Universities and the garnering of rich Scholarships, all for the worst and base reasons.

    These callous and vindictive People should be fired, prosecuted for Crimes, convicted, and imprisoned. In addition, they should be sued and be required to pay the young People they abused for the damages they inflicted on them.

    All of these awful and despicable acts were done to further the ignoble, destructive, and bigoted cause of eliminating merit and individual achievement and imposing a system based on race, gender, and identity.

    Bad Doings!

  8. Matt Hurt Avatar
    Matt Hurt

    (Answer to Larry’s question about expectations)

    Here is how it seems to work out in practice. For as long as we’ve been measuring student achievement, some student groups have underperformed others. For most folks, this sets a very low expectation for those groups of kids. When those kids exhibit under achievement, most folks chalk it up to that’s how the cookie crumbles because that’s how it always worked out in the past, therefore, they don’t lose much sleep over it.

    This is the problem- if kids perform to expectation, why should anyone do anything differently with them? If a kid fails that we expected to fail, didn’t things work out like we had expected? The best words that I know which characterizes this problem is the soft bigotry of low expectations.

    This fall we collected final student course grades from 43 divisions and compared those students’ grades to their SOL proficiencies. What we found was that the relationship between those two statistics (how the final grade compares to the SOL proficiency which we call the expectation index) accounted for 65% of the variation in pass rates among those divisions. That correlation was significantly higher than the other factors that we studied.

    Where we find the outliers in this problem is in those schools and divisions that have higher expectations. They expect their students to be proficient regardless of skin color or socioeconomic status. These folks believe that all kids can meet the basic minimum expectations set forth by the state, and they believe that its their duty to make them successful.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0429893c817e8b7145c525dd7f5c18527aa817324555ed5b5d892a1b8168790.jpg

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Matt, I very much appreciate the dialogue and discussion and your tolerance!

      I very much buy the expectations idea but I don’t think that is the only thing.

      And my example would be something along these lines.

      1. Does an ED kid who gets Pre-K perform better than one that did not?

      2. – If a school does not teach phonics, do some kids fail to learn to read?

      We have a persistent gap across Virginia between economically disadvantaged kids and kids who are
      not.

      Can we attribute this gap more or less to just low expectations?

      When we say say “low expectation”, what is that specifically?

      Is it a teacher who knows Johnny comes from a family with poorly educated parents, who then “accepts”
      his “fate”? What else characterizes “low expectations” specifically?

      Thank you again, as always.

      1. Matt Hurt Avatar
        Matt Hurt

        It’s not the only thing, but it’s probably the biggest thing.

    2. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      I very much accept the premise of the expectations but I do not think expectations alone will suffice for some kids who NEED MORE help. Who need Pre-K or phonics or Title 1 and what disturbs me about the “expectations”-only argument is that it’s not the only things that some kids (ED) NEED to succeed.

      If a child has a “need” for Pre-K or phonics or Title 1 and does not get those things, Expectations alone will not meet that need.

      1. Matt Hurt Avatar
        Matt Hurt

        The expectations are two fold. First, students must be expected to work on grade level. Second, educators must be expected to help those kids who need that extra help. In our successful schools with tons of at-risk students, that’s what happens.

        Implementing this isn’t rocket science. The teacher identifies the gaps the kid has with a particular skill, and then provides extra instruction to fill that gap. This instruction is not in lieu of, it’s in addition to.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          Yes. Having that discussion with my retired teacher wife.

          But this “gap” we speak of is wide and deep across Virginia.

          You say “teacher” above.

          I’m thinking entire schools with multiple teachers and school districts have this “gap”.

          I’m trying to understand why this gap is so widespread to include systems like Fairfax, Henrico that have lots of resources to apply to the problem.

          The implications of a statement ” the soft bigotry of low expectations” implies that it’s not a teacher/school problem but instead a kid/parent problem that teachers just accept , give a grade and move on.

          When I ask further, about the teacher/school side of it then the explanation seems to be that teachers nd schools need to see the problem and apply the resources necessary to mitigate it.

          Clearly, when we say “the soft bigotry of low expectations” , it seems to have a different meaning – at least to me.

          When Fairfax county decides to NOT use phonics for ED kids, is this “the soft bigotry of low expectations”?

          it boggles my mind.

          1. Matt Hurt Avatar
            Matt Hurt

            This is a teacher administrator issue. If the student performs to the low expectation, then the student has achieved what they expected them to achieve, and that was good enough for them.

            Let’s say that we have little Matt who is in a subgroup that has traditionally not done so well in school. Matt hasn’t done well either. This year, Matt didn’t do well again, so that’s just par for the course. We’d like him to do better, but he has performed “according to his ability”, therefore, we’ve “done all we can do”. This is kind of how many folks rationalize this type of thing.

            In a school, there are so many priorities, and those priorities differ among schools. For example, one of the most affluent schools in one of our most successful divisions doesn’t perform as well as other less affluent schools in the same division. The reason for that is that the school culture in that school prioritizes Facebook likes over student achievement. Therefore, that school particularly caters to the parents of the upper crust. They engage in all types of activities that photograph well so they can post it on Facebook. That keeps their upper crust parents engaged with them.

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