The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

https://www.city-journal.org/war-on-merit-takes-bizarre-turn

by barry-cotter • 4 years ago

71 96 4 years ago

vjulian6• 4 years ago

Interesting this school had or has a controversial admissions policy. I also recognize that Harvard’s at the Supreme Court.

I genuinely do not understand the logic behind what is essentially skin-color diversity.

(https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/04/court-allows-elite-virgin...)

bruce511• 4 years ago

The logic is straight-forward. Whether it is necessary, correct, or advantageous, depends largely on your circumstances and personal put look.

A) historically a number of groups have been disadvantaged.

B) this has lead to those groups "falling behind" advantaged groups from a wealth perspective. [side bar - wealth begets wealth, while poverty begets poverty, and while it is possible to rise up it is hard]

C) since it is easier to get good grades when you have money, it's more impressive to get good, but not necessarily top, grades from a different starting point. Thus the route, not just the result, should be considered when reviewing applications.

D) thus admitence with "just grade scores" tends to favor those groups with money, which would result in a largely hermogenous student body.

E) education extends beyond just knowledge. The goal is to turn out adults who will function well in a society as a whole, get good jobs, add value to the community, and do on.

F) in modern times it is considered poor form, or worse, to exhibit bad speech or behavior patterns. You can no longer behave like your great-grandfather, you can no longer speak like your grandfather. To do so will harm your prospects.

G) thus, in order to become better human beings, its good to rub shoulders with those of different social, financial, gender, ability levels. In the safety of a school environment everyone can better be taught, and practice, the social norms of the day.

H) thus a diverse student body is good for all students. Previously disadvantaged groups get a leg up. Currently advantaged groups get to interact with those dissimilar to themselves, and thus improve those interaction skills.

US society likes to believe that "hard work" is the secret to financial position. But hard work itself is hard to measure, so we measure grades instead. However grades are more a function of current economic status, not work, and if anything reflect the hard work of the parents, not the students. There are various tools used to try and improve the proxy measure, things like diversity quotas and so on.

Of course imperfect improvements to imperfect proxies still result in contraversy since the system is still flawed. And naturally those most disadvantaged by the rules feel the sting the most.

None of this explains or excuses the behaviour of the school in with-holding these results though. The logic behind that is strange. Why would a top quality school, with a diverse student body, look to prejudice the ability of those students to get good college positions?

I can see some logic in not making a public song and dance about it, but surely all students, and their parents, should be notified as soon as possible?

On the up side, the fact this is "news" at all suggests this is a very uncommon practice.

vjulian6• 4 years ago

You skipped a critical step between G and H which seems to be overlaying skin color as an approximation for current social status.

Edit: Though point taken that isn’t the case now with the high school policy. It does seem to be, however, a held sentiment.

UncleMeat12• 4 years ago

There is a huge difference between the Harvard policy and the TJ policy. Harvard explicitly considers race. TJ does not. TJ removed some elements of the admissions process and seeks to have students from every school in fcps but does not allocate any admissions points based on race.

rayiner8• 4 years ago

As a TJ C/O 2002 graduate, this is pretty wild to hear. The national merit scholar announcements were a big deal when I was there. There was a school wide announcement and the list of what everyone got was distributed by the school.

Actually, it looks like the Washington Post used to publish the lists at least as late as 2014. I don’t see anything from WaPo after that though.

UncleMeat12• 4 years ago

I graduated around the same time and never once cared about this crap. TJ didn’t have a valedictorian because it created unnecessary competition and pressure. If the decision to remove the valedictorian was made today you’d see breathless complaining from Asra in the Washington Times about how this was sending the school down the toilet.

In what way is it critical to loudly publish awards handed out to students based on a test they took in 9th grade?

rayiner8• 4 years ago

There was always a WASP cultural undercurrent that discouraged openly acknowledging the competition. But I think even those folks agreed that test scores were the proper way to identify the smart kids. The school certainly didn’t shy away from promoting the number of merit scholars and semi finalists it had. Downplaying that is a significant change of course.

RestlessMind7• 4 years ago

and never once cared about this crap

By any chance, are you privileged enough that you never have to care about such "crap"? Because believe me, what you call "crap" might be a big ladder for someone less privileged to climb out of their actual crappy situations. Such "crap" labels often help getting admission to a good college, or embellishing your resume if you want and need a good job.

HDThoreaun7• 4 years ago

I went to a school similar to TJ and we definitely didn't give a shit about national merit scholars. Like half the school got it so it would've just become another way to bully/exclude people if the school made a big deal about it.

throwawaysleep• 4 years ago

This has reached the point of actively disadvantaging kids who are capable…

remarkEon• 4 years ago

Isn't that the point?

UncleMeat12• 4 years ago

Actively disadvantaging? Because they didn’t publicly publish the list of merit scholar winners or send emails to parents but instead sent emails to students and handed out letters in homeroom?

The same exact kids were awarded the scholarship. Absolutely nothing about the PSAT or the award changed.

imgabe2• 4 years ago

"Equal outcomes for every student"

I'm genuinely curious what this is supposed to mean. Every student gets into the same university? They all get the same job at the exact same salary upon graduation? What is the real-world consequence of this policy supposed to be?

If your outcome as a student is guaranteed to be equal to every other student's outcome, what is the incentive to work harder?

Outcomes being equal doesn't necessarily mean they're good. The students could all fail and get minimum wage jobs. That would also be an equal outcome.

Even if we assume the school goes to the extreme of assigning students the same grades and recognition regardless of performance, maybe some virtuous students don't care about the recognition and spend extra time studying math because they simply love math. They will end up being better at math than students who don't - an unequal outcome. How is the policy supposed to address this?

BurningFrog• 4 years ago

Equal outcomes for everyone means you have no way to influence your own outcome.

The logical reaction is to put in zero effort.

ffssffss• 4 years ago

This 22 second youtube video is the supporting evidence linked by the article for that "equal outcomes for every student" line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujpcvIsMZBU

So, your guess is as good as mine, because that video certainly is not some kind of school policy position, as the article implies. I'm pretty suspect of the rest of it, since as someone else pointed out, the school actually did notify the students! They just didn't hold a big ceremony. The actual issue that the parents had is that the physical awards - which were delivered to students, in paper, at school, on their desks, did not arrive before early admission deadlines. The students were informed prior to the deadline by emails to their official school district accounts, which the article says they don't often check.

This just overall feels like a culture war hack piece, it's full of red flags from top to bottom, and I mean, it's from a Federalist byline...

defrost3• 4 years ago

and I mean, it's from a Federalist byline...

Good point.

I'm not from or in the US (although I frequently work in or with USAians) and it's just astonishing how much of the US Federalist | Conservative pieces lack any kind of policy substance -- the media from that side of the aisle seems almost entirely focused on raising dust in the air over trite matters of near zero import.

I like fiscal responsibility and a lot of principles that these groups supposedly stand for - but the culture war obsession of the US right is just performative.

rayiner8• 4 years ago

I went to TJ and grew up in northern VA. When I was there the announcement was made publicly and distributed to everyone. I’m not sure if we had a school district email account back then but that’s not how it was communicated, nor was it communicated by private letter.

Yes this is part of the culture war, but that’s not a reason to dismiss it out of hand. Everyone in this story was a democrat until 2015. Around then a subset of mostly white Democrats discovered racism still exists and completely lost their minds about it. My parents think what’s happening at TJ is nuts and I couldn’t even get them to vote for Larry Hogan.

imgabe2• 4 years ago

So, your guess is as good as mine, because that video certainly is not some kind of school policy position, as the article implies.

The person in the video is the superintendent of the Fairfax County Public schools who stated that "equal outcomes" are a priority for her upcoming tenure. Maybe not a policy directive, but the leader of the school system is stating that it is a priority they intend to focus on.

The author has an agenda, sure, but they didn't fabricate the video or put words in the mouth of the district superintendent.

eduction• 4 years ago

ad hominem

adjective

ad ho· mi· nem (ˈ)ad-ˈhä-mə-ˌnem -nəm

1 : appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect

an ad hominem argument

2 : marked by or being an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the contentions made

made an ad hominem personal attack on his rival

raincom• 4 years ago

All schools, all companies should just say upfront that they want “equality of outcomes”; that way, students and prospective job applicants don’t need to waste time putting efforts to acquire any skills or even efforts to learn anything. Since the outcome is decided by tick marks, it is rational for people to not learn.

bcrosby95• 4 years ago

It seems paradoxical to require students to study college level material late into the night to keep up, but also aim to have equal outcomes.

baconEggRoll• 4 years ago

I thought when people talked about this kind of thing, they were being ridiculously hyperbolic.

avs733• 4 years ago

They are. This article is literally hyperbolic about parents being slow to get emails that their kid is special

RestlessMind7• 4 years ago

Those slow notifications actually affected college admissions process for the kids. Read the last paragraph:

"On Monday, December 12, after getting caught, Kosatka sent an email to the parents of Commended Students, notifying them of the “important recognition” and saying, “We are deeply sorry” for not sharing the news earlier. He claimed school officials would contact college admissions offices to correct the record."

renewiltord• 4 years ago

Haha yes, exceptional! Governments have made scholarships and admissions a zero sum game. Ideally, all these public schools do this and those kids get fucked. Then my kids will have a better chance at all of this stuff.

You bet you'll see me voting for woke people in the public school district.

Pigalowda• 4 years ago

That’s the part you’re not supposed to say out loud. Keeping your kids on the right path and not falling into these mediocrity traps is important.

UncleMeat12• 4 years ago

In what way did the national merit scholarship become a zero sum game? What changed about it here?

julianeon• 4 years ago

I'll tell you what my takeaway is:

It is incredibly stupid for the National Merit program to leave the decision to notify students up to the schools. In such a situation it is entirely 100% certain that a situation like the one at Thomas Jefferson High School will eventually happen. In fact it's probably happened multiple times already, due to incompetence, which is why it should scrapped.

From the article:

On September 16 of this year, National Merit sent a letter to Bonitatibus listing 240 students recognized as Commended Students or Semi-Finalists. The letter included these words in bold type: “Please present the letters of commendation as soon as possible since it is the students’ only notification.”

You know what's better than a system where the schools need to be monitored to make sure they tell their students? A system where you don't have to scrutinize what the schools do, because you told the parents and the kids directly.

It's 2022. You have the information of the students who took the tests, obviously. This is a solvable problem. It can, and should, be fixed.

crystalmeph• 4 years ago

I would bet that there has literally never been a school that failed to notify the recipients before now. It is not just an honor for the student, but the school itself.

Yes, now, the National Merit organization will probably come up with a direct notification procedure, but it was not a failure on their part to assume that schools would act in their own self-interest.

eppp• 4 years ago

I would guess that the number of people that act directly against their own self interest on a regular basis is a very high percentage of the population.

matthewdgreen3• 4 years ago

Except that the article says the school did notify the students. Overall I'm just confused by it.

johnnyo6• 4 years ago

You missed the even dumber part

National Merit hadn’t included enough stamps on the package, but nevertheless it got to Bonitatibus by mid-October

The parent is basically complaining that the school didn’t drop everything and make handing out certificates to 240 students their top priority.

They were handed out to student a few weeks later

sofixa• 4 years ago

You missed the even dumber part:

One former student said he learned he had won the award through a random email from the school to a school-district email account that students rarely check; the principal neither told his parents nor made a public announcement

So the students were notified by email, which they don't bother checking, and it's only the regular old mail that was slow to get to them (for regular old mail and physical constraints reasons, nothing extraordinary).

johnnyo6• 4 years ago

The opening paragraphs seem to imply that the awards were withheld based on race.

When you get into the meat of the article, though, it makes it more clear that the school just forwarded a paper cert to the kids, and didn’t make a big deal about it. And parents are complaining because the school didn’t make a big deal out of it or get it to students “fast enough” to apply for some early admission stuff.

It’s been a while, but I remember most of those “National Merit” type things to be not very important or relevant. It’s just based on your PSAT score.

havetocharge2• 4 years ago

Maybe there's a meatier part still, where the author alleges that they have yet to receive a certificate earned two years ago.

johnnyo6• 4 years ago

As a parent, the chances a piece of paper given to a kid in homeroom makes it to the parent are probably 50% at best. Probably lower.

I know when I was a student, it was probably below 25%

lambdasquirrel• 4 years ago

If that’s what’s going on then it’s a little overblown, IMO. I went to Stuy and I think they just posted the list of National Merit Scholarships on a bulletin board somewhere, and yeah we all gawked to see who got it, but then it was just back to the grind. It’s not like it was some ace-in-hole that could make or break your admission.

johnnyo6• 4 years ago

Yeah, if you drill down into the actual sources, that appears to be what happened.

The school got a stack of certificates. They sat on the principals desk for a while, then they sat with the guidance counselor or homeroom teachers before being passed out.

The parent is basically complaining because:

1. They didn’t notify the parents via email.

2. They didn’t find out in time to put in on an college early admission application.

3. The school didn’t make a big deal of handing out the awards in an assembly or similar.

This sounds more like a complaint from an overbearing helicopter parent than any sort of issue that HN would care about.

BryantD• 4 years ago

Yeah, this is internally self-contradictory. I quote:

But homeroom teachers didn’t distribute the awards until Monday, November 14, after the early-application deadlines had passed. Teachers dropped the certificates unceremoniously on students’ desks.

“Keeping these certificates from students is theft by the state,” says Yashar.

... so they did get distributed, albeit without much ceremony. Also, that's in plenty of time for scholarship applications, so "Recognition by National Merit opens the door to millions of dollars in college scholarships and 800 Special Scholarships from corporate sponsors" is a bit of a non-sequitur.

positr0n• 4 years ago

It’s been a while, but I remember most of those “National Merit” type things to be not very important or relevant.

That's what I thought when I was a kid, but it turns out that the important college ranking system uses "number of national merit finalists" as a high weighted metric. I got a full ride to a respected state university solely from that PSAT test and so did two of my friends.

causality03• 4 years ago

Rewarding bad behavior, regardless of its origin, does nothing but encourage more. My best friend growing up was Asian and worked his ass off every single day. I had a lot more fun than he did but he got into a better school and makes better money now because he fucking deserved to.

UncleMeat12• 4 years ago

Bad behavior? The same kids still get the award. TJ isn’t deciding who gets the national merit scholarship.

I personally think that my time hanging out with people watching classic rock concert footage during 8th period was rather valuable for my life and happiness and many of the personal skills I learned are valuable for my career.

This isn’t about deprioritizing excellence.

causality03• 4 years ago

This isn’t about deprioritizing excellence.

Agreed, it's about giving fifty percent reward for zero percent effort.

I think HN readers remember perhaps better than most how much the "peanut gallery" in the back of the class interfered with our ability to learn. I find the idea those assholes are going to get at least half credit for doing nothing absutely repugnant.

throwaway22032• 4 years ago

All of this stuff is just so hilariously nonsense.

Dude, some people have to lose. We can shuffle as much as we want, we can probably make them perfectly distributed amongst races, sexes, heights, weights, whatever.

But there will still be a shit ton of losers. It's just how the world works. You can't have 8 billion flying Tesla electric private jets to Malibu.

notwokeno• 4 years ago

The thing people can't handle with this is that intelligence tends to be heritable* so the more intelligent workers you need the smaller and more racily similar the successful group is going to be which runs directly contrary to the currently popular world view.

*It's influenced by other things too of course. Once you hit a (fairly low) limit it's going to start skewing more and more male. Upbringing is a huge part of it too so children of divorced parents tend to perform worse etc.

NoImmatureAdHom• 4 years ago

The basic thrust of this comment is correct. Coastal elites can't stomach the fact that people are different. Some are smart, some are not. And there are observable regularities in who's smart and who's not. That's just how it is.

k__• 4 years ago

The thing some people don't seem to get is, it's not that there will be losers, it's that the losers are a liability to society, so we need to minimize "losing" as much as possible.

Certainly not by gifting people stuff, but buy gifting them education.

wombatpm• 4 years ago

Or they could establish the office if the Handicapper General who would be responsible for limiting above average students in some way to make them conform

stonogo• 4 years ago

The cognitive dissonance in this article is staggering. It's the "top school" in the country, but at the same time it's being mismanaged because administrators aren't doing the work of some third-party student-ranking corporation? Or it's the "top school" in the country but there's deep injustice because they don't throw pizza parties for kids who are good at standardized tests?

The struggle between "this is the best school" and "these administrators are terrible" is never resolved, but it sounds like the quickest way to end this battle in the "war on merit" is for the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to mail the paper to the students instead of outsourcing it to the teachers.

fatjokes• 4 years ago

The "best school" reputation was built over many years. The woke mismanagement is recent. It's actually a pretty easy reconciliation but I admit I have some context on TJ.

kthejoker2• 4 years ago

Is there a broader war on merit in our public school system?

Maybe.

Is sending National Merit certificates out a few weeks late evidence of such a conflict?

No.

Does this article come across as a tempest in a teacup, thereby also weakening its argument that there is a broader war on merit?

Yes.

Propagandists would be wise to choose their battles, Chicken Littling every bureaucratic snag or even isolated incident as evidence of a widespread issue creates fatigue.

1letterunixname• 4 years ago

City Journal is a conservative outlet, and possibly neocon.

I'm wondering if NMSC or College Board (conducts PSAT/NMSQT) notified students directly, would school admins kick NMSC out? I doubt they would be able to resist the leverage if parents went political.

There have already been explicitly racist tests including the NASP from 1964 until 2015.

More racism, cheating, and lying doesn't cure racism, it diminishes faith in public school system and gives ammunition to the pro-private school libertarian types who scapegoat "big gubberment" and don't want to pay any taxes. For what it's worth, California played cute with curricula, race-based admissions, and forced bussing in the 80's and 90's and most of the top students (the rich ones) left for private schools.

I'd be interested to know the demographics of children of that county and of the surrounding areas because I don't think they're 72% Asian or 60% male. Gender is not necessarily a problem given how the current education system fails boys and men. Are the students mostly future lawyers, doctors, and software engineers?

The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

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