Parents at Thomas Jefferson High School are justifiably upset that students whose performance on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test earned them “Commended” status were not notified in a timely manner about the award this year.
The question is, was it an oversight, or was it intentional?
An opinion piece in City Journal — a conservative publication of the Manhattan Institute — claims not giving these awards on time has been going on “for years.” The author, Asra Q. Nomani, claims the TJ principal intentionally hid or delayed reward recognition as a part of the school’s commitment to equity and increasing diversity.
Fairfax County Schools told the Washington Post that the episode was a one-time error and denied information was deliberately withheld.
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This episode has set the right-wing media sphere afire, and captured the attention of Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
“This is reprehensible,” she wrote in a Dec. 30 tweet. “I have reached out to the Governor and Attorney General and asked for an investigation. Our children’s education is not a zero-sum game. We cannot punish success in order to have ‘equal outcomes at all costs’.”
It’s not clear that the school district’s commitment to equity is at play here. The strongest evidence to support her claim comes from one parent — attorney Shawna Yashar — whose son was among those affected.
As reported by the Fairfax Times, she claims that in a call with Director of Student Services Brandon Kosatka, he said: “We want to recognize students for who they are as individuals, not focus on their achievements.” He also told her the principal didn’t want to “hurt” the feelings of students who didn’t receive an award.
According to the Post, school officials haven’t confirmed the conversation took place.
An investigation is ongoing, and if it turns out withholding the commendations was intentional, then the school district should act with all haste to discipline the responsible school leaders.
While the award is a consolation prize, it’s not without significant value.
Roughly 1.5 million students take the PSAT/NMSQT exam every year. Only about 50,000 students earn recognition as top achievers; just 16,000 go on to compete for National Merit scholarships. The other 34,000 students receive Commended status. They do not qualify for a National Merit Scholarship, but they are eligible for scholarships from businesses and corporations worth millions of dollars.
They also can denote the award on early acceptance applications, which were due Oct. 31 this year. TJ didn’t notify the students until Nov. 14.
What is concerning to us is Earle-Sears’s claim that the school is “punishing success.”
Even if the decision to keep the announcement of Commendation status low-key proves true, it doesn’t necessarily follow that TJ gave the rewards late just to keep recipients from earning potential scholarships. TJ is ranked the No. 1 high school in America by U.S. News & World Report. Claiming it would take actions to deny students scholarships, potentially jeopardizing its standing, doesn’t pass the smell test.
As this administration has already demonstrated with Critical Race Theory, teacher performance, and test scores, it’s more than willing to sacrifice a nuanced, intelligent discussion to the fire-pit of parental rage if it means bringing in support for Youngkin’s presidential ambitions.
All the administration’s early bluster about failing public schools and misrepresentation of test data have created a credibility gap. Many Virginians simply no longer believe Youngkin has any interest in supporting traditional public schools.
Here in our community, that gap is yawning.
The governor has cherrypicked his education battles in favoring those that will score political points. He attempted to alter elections for the Loudoun County School Board, but couldn’t be bothered to issue a well-deserved rebuke to School Board Chair Kirk Twigg for the chaos he’s unleashed in Spotsylvania County.
Earle-Sears’s tweet has all the hallmarks of just another culture war battle. As long as it helps Youngkin “own the libs,” the consequences for Virginia’s schoolchildren, it seems, really don’t matter.
As the controversy in Fairfax shows, education is hard work. We are right to hold our educators to high standards, and mete out punishment when they betray the public trust.
Now, a full year in, this episode gives us little confidence that the Youngkin administration has learned anything from its mistakes with education.
Governor, it’s time to drop the culture wars and focus instead on solving the problems our schools face in delivering a quality education to every student in Virginia.
