Posted on 12/25/2022 6:29:44 PM PST by chuckee
For years, two administrators at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) have been withholding notifications of National Merit awards from the school’s families, most of them Asian, thus denying students the right to use those awards to boost their college-admission prospects and earn scholarships. This episode has emerged amid the school district’s new strategy of “equal outcomes for every student, without exception.” School administrators, for instance, have implemented an “equitable grading” policy that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of “NTI” for assignments not turned in. It’s a race to the bottom.
An intrepid Thomas Jefferson parent, Shawna Yashar, a lawyer, uncovered the withholding of National Merit awards. Since starting as a freshman at the school in September 2019, her son, who is part Arab American, studied statistical analysis, literature reviews, and college-level science late into the night. This workload was necessary to keep him up to speed with the advanced studies at TJ... Last fall, along with about 1.5 million US high school juniors, the Yashar teen took the PSAT, which determines whether a student qualifies as a prestigious National Merit scholar. When it came time to submit his college applications this fall, he didn’t have a National Merit honor to report — but it wasn’t because he hadn’t earned the award...
But TJ School officials had decided to withhold announcement of the award. Indeed, it turns out that the principal, Ann Bonitatibus, and the director of student services, Brandon Kosatka, have been withholding this information from families and the public for years, affecting the lives of at least 1,200 students...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Yep, those students are due reparations from the administrators...and not the school district. The taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for it.
Coddling slow minded people isn’t equity.
Reverse evolution.
Indeed it’s a trend now
The writer claims, "On September 16 of this year, National Merit sent a letter to Bonitatibus listing 240 students recognized as Commended Students or Semi-Finalists. . . . But homeroom teachers didn’t distribute the awards until Monday, November 14..."
Yet, my last post links to the list of 2023 Semifinalists on the school's website back in September. (Names of semifinalists are also published in newspapers.)
The writer claims the school has been withholding notification from the Commended Students so that lower scorers won't feel bad.
But... that can't be the reason. Semifinalists have higher scores than Commended Students. And the school proudly announced the Semifinalists.
The school system also posted the names of its 2022 Semifinalists, 2022 Winners, 2021 Scholarship Recipients, and so on. If this story were about hurt feelings, why would the school hide notifications from the Commended Students but proudly announce the names of students who scored even higher or won scholarships?
Someone dropped the ball with the paperwork, that's all, and the writer wants to make it sound political. Just noticed these emails show the principal signed the certificates in time. But, the department charged with distributing the large number of certificates delayed handing them out.
Now, this story has gone viral, and people are having a kneejerk reaction to it.
You are giving it much more attention than I would. My only point was that the National Merit scholarship was a great thing for my daughter in one post, and that anything can be backdated, in another post.
Yeah, I really did. (lol) I guess I was bored yesterday.
I wasn't arguing with anything you posted. Sometimes, I just reply to a post with more information for the thread, partly so that I don't forget what I found out about a story.
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