Merit on the Ropes

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Saturday, September 26. 2020

The campaign against educational excellence spreads to the suburbs.

Last year, students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, one of the nation’s most prestigious public schools, marked a map hanging in a hallway with their families’ far-flung places of origin: from Seoul to Beijing to Hyderabad. Twenty years ago, 70 percent of TJ students were white; today, 79 percent are minority, most from Asian immigrant families.

TJ is a testament to American meritocracy’s melting pot—but last week, Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Brabrand announced a plan to reduce the number of Asian students at this selective high school. In a four-hour online “work session” alongside the district’s all-Democratic school board, Brabrand laid out an initiative to eliminate TJ’s race-blind, merit-based admissions test and replace it with a “merit lottery” open to all eighth-graders with a minimum GPA of 3.5 in order to increase “equity of opportunity.”

Posted by The Barrister in Education at 16:07 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

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I live in Fairfax, VA, and TJ high school has been in the diversitycrats crosshairs for years. It has to many Asiatic and Caucasian males and not enough females and people of color. Oh, the horror. I'm surprised they didn't institute quotas for blacks like the Yale law school in the 1960s.

#1 Ray on 2020-09-26 18:50 (Reply)

Fairfax Cty public schools admin just spent $20,000 to hear Abram X Kendi lecture them on their white supremacy. So it isn’t going to get any better

#2 Lhfry on 2020-09-26 21:35 (Reply)

I don't mind marginally gifted students getting a break.
I very much mind seriously gifted students getting left out. You can't have one without the other.

Fortunately, the quality of the high school doesn't matter much above a certain minimum of not being in physical danger and having reasonably good courses.

#3 Assistant Village Idiot on 2020-09-26 22:02 (Reply)

And that will fail too to get more black pupils, so next is establishing quota for the required racial mix of pupils, throwing any other qualifications out the window entirely.

And after that racial mix required per grade.

#4 JTW on 2020-09-27 01:17 (Reply)

Silver lining is that this issue may finally goad Asian Americans into political action. They seem to refrain from political activity.

#5 Ben david on 2020-09-27 04:21 (Reply)

It's that dastardly 105 average IQ of Asians again.

#6 rhhardin on 2020-09-27 06:01 (Reply)

It is important to understands two things about this:
1. IQ can be increased. The test is a test of what you learned based on what you were taught. It isn't magic it simply tests results.

2. It is unlikely that there is any significant difference in actual IQ for jews, Asians and European whites. The differences we measure are nothing more than a reflection on the effort the individuals made in the learning process. That is Jews and Asians have a different family dynamic where the parents push their children to learn and hold them responsible for their efforts. The reason this is more important than simply IQ scores is because the problem is NOT the race or genetics of the individual as much as it is the culture and hard work.

The problem in the white culture is not enough family belief in studying, hard work and parental responsibility. The problem in black culture is basically the same thing but on mega steriods.

#6.1 OneGuy on 2020-09-27 11:14 (Reply)

Meanwhile, millions of Chinese students are learning advanced calculus.

#7 Abelard Lindsey on 2020-09-27 12:20 (Reply)

I have a degree in math. Advanced calculus and a whole lot of other crap. I am now 77 YO spent my entire life working in the computer science field and never once used any of that math. I have programmed a few times using math/algebra but if you can program and never took any algebra you can do it because you simply code the equation you don't need to understand it. Don't get me wrong, math is important in perhaps 1 in a million jobs and perhaps even more importantly the ability to pass college math classes reflects intelligence/determination. But I would consider that hard work, dedication, industry and attitude is more important in any job than calculus is.

#7.1 OneGuy on 2020-09-27 12:40 (Reply)

I always understood Calculus to be a "gateway" subject: if you could do that you could probably handle the rest of the professional training (or at least get a shot at it...).
And the trick is to get the experience in the workplace, which counts for more than the ticket, but you can't get the ticket without going through that gate...

#7.1.1 Jeff Allen on 2020-09-27 16:37 (Reply)

I went to Albuquerque HS in the 1950s and they taught intro to calculus and analytical geometry as a senior course. Calculus is not too difficult for HS students to learn. It follows quite logically after the algebra, geometry and trigonometry courses.

#8 Ray on 2020-09-27 21:02 (Reply)

The campaign against educational excellence spreads to the suburbs.

This school is trying to make the case that a wide variety of immigrants is a good thing. But it's not. Cultural chaos at a school is terrible. An ordered unified culture is comforting and sensible. Children raised within a cohesive environment are much happier than children raised in a confusing mixture of foreign values and languages. The U.S. government is simply trying to drown white people in immigrants. Pretty soon, Americans will be outvoted, and that will be the end of America. In my view as a teacher, American schools are only for white children; who learn how to be good people.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pzupBICOoxaMJ6gYniPpWNBXYyDemZym/view?usp=sharing

#9 Ron Liebermann on 2020-09-29 09:12 (Reply)

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Saturday, September 26. 2020

Merit on the Ropes