Again: Two More Virginia High Schools Admit They Hid Students' National Merit Awards From Them, So That They Would Not Have Advantages In College Applications, and So Other Students Wouldn't Feel Bad About Not Winning The Awards

The National Merit Awards are given to the top academic performers who also score in the top 3% on the Pre-SATs (PSATs). The award can help on college applications.

The National Merit Corporation's procedure was to notify the principle of schools of the winners, who would then -- presumably, and in all previous years-- personally notify the students themselves.

But the principle and teachers of Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia decided to withhold the awards from the students receiving them.

The reason? Racial equity. The principle didn't want these students to have an advantage in getting into college based upon the irrelevant, racial factors of, um, academic performance and blindly-graded potential.

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.

But these little "fixes" are spread around the DEI/CRT community at their conferences and email chains. And it turns out that two other Virginia schools -- that we know about so far -- are also now admitting that they too hid National Merit awards from students, to hurt certain races.

The race most affected is Asians, as Asians do best on standardized testing.

This is explicitly government discrimination against a disfavored race -- and it's all justified as "anti-racist 'equity'"!

The revelations are emerging after school district principals scrambled to a meeting Wednesday afternoon with the superintendent, after Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares announced a civil rights investigation into the controversy. Just like at TJHSST, the new revelations appear to impact many Asian American students -- one focus of the investigation.

In an email, obtained by the Fairfax County Times, Langley High School Principal Kim Greer pressed send on a mea culpa at 9:29:30 p.m. on Friday night, confusing, agitating and angering parents and students already on edge during the tumultuous college admissions season.

Greer told parents that she was "delighted" to let them know that "your student was designated a Commended Student by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation." She then immediately followed up by saying, "I must apologize that certificates were not distributed to these Langley High School students in the usual way this past fall."

Tonight, another email shared with the Fairfax County Times went out to parents at 8:39 p.m. This time, Tony DiBari, the "Proud Principal" at Westfield High School in Chantilly, told parents that "it has come to light that Westfield High School students designated as Commended Students this past fall were also not notified by the school."

As news spread in the community about the new revelations, parents are livid, particularly in light of a new contract that Fairfax County Public Schools signed this fall with a sole-source contractor who preaches an "equity" strategy of "equal outcomes for every student," urging school district officials to "have the courage and the willingness to be purposefully unequal when it comes to opportunities and access."

"The TJ rot spreads...," one local parent said in an email. In McLean, down Georgetown Pike from CIA headquarters, Langley is a school, like TJHSST, with many high-achieving students.

Youngkin has tasked AG Miyares with investigating this corruption and discrimination as a civil rights violation.

National coverage of the TJ story got the attention of Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears and Governor Glenn Youngkin. Youngkin sent a letter on Jan. 3 to Miyares asking him to conduct an investigation into the issue. The next day, on Jan. 4, the attorney general held a press conference at the Korean Community Center in Annandale, announcing he had opened two civil rights investigations, one into the withheld National Merit awards notifications and another into admissions changes to the school. With about 70 percent of students at TJHSST Asian American, Miyares raised the specter of anti-Asian discrimination in both policies.

posted by Ace at 03:25 PM

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