{"id":1786591,"date":"2022-12-26T06:03:05","date_gmt":"2022-12-26T11:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1786591"},"modified":"2022-12-26T06:48:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-26T11:48:48","slug":"school-hides-national-merit-awards-from-students-in-the-name-of-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/school-hides-national-merit-awards-from-students-in-the-name-of-equity\/","title":{"rendered":"School Hides National Merit Awards From Students in the Name of Equity"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fschool-hides-national-merit-awards-from-students-in-the-name-of-equity%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1786591&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/ec8ab524-5990-4005-b95e-63d5d86cf930-1110x740-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\"   style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>Located in Fairfax County, Virginia, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology has long been ranked as one of the premiere high schools in the nation. It\u2019s a \u201cmagnet\u201d charter school that focuses on the sciences and STEM curricula. But for several years now you wouldn\u2019t have guessed that based on the school\u2019s record of students receiving National Merit awards. That\u2019s because none of the students reportedly received those honors. Except that\u2019s not true at all. The top students in the school did indeed receive National Merit awards, but two administrators at TJ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/war-on-merit-takes-bizarre-turn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">have been withholding notifications of the awards<\/a> from students. They reportedly did this as part of their \u201cequitable grading policy.\u201d And the parents of students who were not credited with those achievements are seeing red.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>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\u2019s 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\u2019s new\u00a0<a id=\"reader.external-link.num-0\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FFXParentsAssoc\/status\/1599057460605513728?s=20&#038;t=kBEVD0bRS129gk_9ZPyUmQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">strategy<\/a>\u00a0of \u201c<a id=\"reader.external-link.num-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ujpcvIsMZBU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">equal outcomes for every student, without exception<\/a>.\u201d School administrators, for instance, have implemented an\u00a0<a id=\"reader.external-link.num-2\" href=\"https:\/\/southcountyms.fcps.edu\/academics\/grading-policy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201cequitable grading\u201d policy<\/a>\u00a0that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of \u201cNTI\u201d for assignments not turned in. It\u2019s a race to the bottom.<\/p>\n<p>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, which\u00a0<a id=\"reader.external-link.num-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/education\/best-high-schools\/virginia\/districts\/fairfax-county-public-schools\/thomas-jefferson-high-school-for-science-and-technology-20461\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. News &#038; World Report<\/a>\u00a0ranks as America\u2019s top school.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This isn\u2019t just a matter of some students not receiving a certificate to hang on their walls or not being cited during a school assembly. Those National Merit awards look very good on a college application and can help the highest-performing students get accepted to the nation\u2019s top universities.<\/p>\n<p>The student mentioned in the excerpt above took the PSAT and achieved a score that placed him in the top three percent of students in the nation, along with winning a National Merit award. But he couldn\u2019t list that on his college applications because he was never informed that he received it. This year, after being caught, the school did eventually distribute the awards, but they waited until after the early college admission deadline had passed.<\/p>\n<p>The principal of the school and the director of student services reportedly conspired to withhold the awards for years, impacting as many as 1,200 students. Under their \u201cequitable grading policy\u201d described above, almost no student will ever fail and they get a 50% grade just for showing up. This is being described as a \u201crace to the bottom,\u201d which definitely sounds accurate.<\/p>\n<p>As we\u2019ve seen with other charter schools in California, efforts have been underway to eliminate merit-based achievements. In the opinion of the progressives pushing such \u201creforms,\u201d too many of the \u201cwrong\u201d types of students were getting the awards, most commonly students from Asian families. To correct what they see as an \u201cunfair\u201d system, they keep lowering the standards until everyone reaches equality. Tragically, it\u2019s an equality of poor performance. This barely disguised racism should not be tolerated and it\u2019s a mystery why Thomas Jefferson High School continues to employ the administrators who were responsible for this plot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Located in Fairfax County, Virginia, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology has long been ranked as one of the premiere high schools in the nation. It\u2019s a \u201cmagnet\u201d charter school that focuses on the sciences and STEM curricula. But for several years now you wouldn\u2019t have guessed that based on the school\u2019s record &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1786594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[6962,9497,5458,10708,3668,11783,11784,6225,4107,3819,3924,4072],"class_list":["post-1786591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-the","tag-awards","tag-bongino","tag-equity","tag-from","tag-hides","tag-merit","tag-name","tag-national","tag-report","tag-school","tag-students"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1786591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1786594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1786591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1786591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1786591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}