Posted on 12/24/2022 10:39:50 AM PST by lowbridge
Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) deprived students of National Merit awards apparently in the name of “equal outcomes for every student, without exception,” a strategy adopted recently by the Fairfax County public-school district.
One local parent, Shawna Yashar, unearthed the school’s policy of withholding such awards after she learned that her son was recognized as a “commended student” for being among the nation’s top 3 percent of students. Yashar’s son could not include the National Merit distinction on his college applications because TJ senior administrators didn’t distribute the letters of commendation from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to students, notifying them of their accomplishments, until later in the year.
“We want to recognize students for who they are as individuals, not focus on their achievements,” TJ’s director of student services, Brandon Kosatka, reportedly told a parent concerned about the delayed distribution of the awards.
Although TJ principal Ann Bonitatibus received the National Merit–award list at the end of October, two weeks before the early-acceptance deadline for many selective colleges, the school didn’t distribute the award letters to students until mid November.
“Keeping these certificates from students is theft by the state,” Yashar told Asra Nomani, who broke the story in the New York Post. Nomani’s own son graduated from TJ in 2021 and only learned “two years after the fact” that he was a National Merit recipient.
Bonitatibus has lobbied extensively to incorporate equity-based policies at TJ.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Their achievements ARE who they are as an individual.
Disgusting.
Any more would get this post removed.
Equal outcomes will never work. People with equal opportunity will always achieve different results. People are different.
I’m surprised it’s still TJHS! Evil white man. It’ll change though. Guaranteed.
Liberals only understand force. In this case, lawsuits. One could even make a case for deprivation of rights under color of law.
On a slightly different topic:
This equity B$ started in Fairfax schools, shortly after MLK was killed.
Fortunately, we moved and got our sons out of there into good California Schools, before the California schools started their equity B$.
Our grandkids had good California schools until their 7th grade. Our total family got them out of those California schools into excellent private schools. The last one will be graduated with a real degree and has a real job when he finishes next May/June.
Yashar
Kosatka
Bonitatibus
Nomani
It is BEYOND disgusting.
You’re a National Merit Scholar and the SOB’s didn’t TELL you?
You’re whole life is affected by that.
HANG these jerks.
No merit awards for merit.
All bow down to the honorable poor and disadvantaged. They are far better than the rest of us. Because.
Participation trophy in academics to ensure “American Exceptionalism” is as dead as the Constitution.
Yashar (Bulgarian surname): Parent of wronged student
Kosatka (Polish surname): TJ employee defending dumb policy
Bonitatibus (Italian surname): TJ employee defending dumb policy
Nomani (Indian surname): Reporter who broke story; parent of wronged student
==
It’s woke Westerners who are applying this stupid policy on non-Western victims.
““We want to recognize students for who they are as individuals, not focus on their achievements,” TJ’s director of student services, Brandon Kosatka, reportedly told a parent concerned about the delayed distribution of the awards.
If they are going to establish a new criteria for the awards then they need to make it where everyone plays by the same game. And that would have to include not only an equal determination using the same criteria but they cannot change it from the original stepping stones. The adding in of race, religion, gender, sexual persuasion, wealth, or relatives cannot be a part of the mix in any way. And if you do that, the only thing that they can determine out of that is individual achievement. So their whole theory on the awards is both warped, condescending, and egotistical.
Educators? In learning how to do everything they learn nothing. So they start out underqualified to determine an award they are not able to receive themselves due to ineligibility unless they are misjudged for reasons not applied to others. And as they are inable to understand that so much for qualified teachers and administrators.
wy69
I got a direct letter from the SAT board with my scores as I recall. I was able to refer to it in my applications to colleges—and many colleges somehow got access to the scores and sent me unsolicited offers of scholarships.
Basically, equality of outcomes, is a flawed policy that probably falls of its own weight in the long run. The first time my mother would have heard that my scores notification was being hidden by the school is the day she would have crawled over the Principal’s desk to strangle him. Don’t mess with Mama Bears’ children and the opportunities they earn.
Sue the officials involved in their individual capacity. Make their lives as difficult as possible.
Its all falling apart.
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