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This wasn't an oversight, the Principal and Director of student services intentionally didn't notify the students.
Both should be fired, not kicked upstairs as happens in other DC area school systems, and have their Teaching/Administration certificates permanently revoked.
It should be noted that TJ is a Science/Tech magnet for Northern Virginia, admission by test scores.
This wasn't an oversight, the Principal and Director of student services intentionally didn't notify the students.
Both should be fired, not kicked upstairs as happens in other DC area school systems, and have their Teaching/Administration certificates permanently revoked.
It should be noted that TJ is a Science/Tech magnet for Northern Virginia, admission by test scores.
National Merit Finalists get full-ride offers from numerous universities! (At least they did 15-20 years ago when my kids were in high school.) So this principal has cost these affected families hundreds of thousands of dollars, collectively. I'm not one for silly lawsuits, but I'd be suing in this case.
And how in the heck can this school have a policy of "equal outcomes for every student, with no exception."
Fire everyone connected to the enactment of this nonsensical policy, and bar them from ever working in education again.
This wasn't an oversight, the Principal and Director of student services intentionally didn't notify the students.
Both should be fired, not kicked upstairs as happens in other DC area school systems, and have their Teaching/Administration certificates permanently revoked.
It should be noted that TJ is a Science/Tech magnet for Northern Virginia, admission by test scores.
I agree. I am stunned. A lot of our students ended up at TJ...in fact, our school often had more than any other school.
But I'm also stunned that they got away with this over several years.
There clearly needs to be some heavy duty law suits against these administrators.
I agree. I am stunned. A lot of our students ended up at TJ...in fact, our school often had more than any other school.
But I'm also stunned that they got away with this over several years.
There clearly needs to be some heavy duty law suits against these administrators.
This, by the way, is the kind of stuff I was talking about on the other thread. If you don’t want to promote raw innate academic excellence/superiority and celebrate earned academic merit awards you shouldn’t apply to lead a merit based elite school. I, for instance, would never apply to such a school as I am all about getting blood out of turnips. I would end up hurting myself by rolling my eyes too much and biting my tongue. I do know what I wouldn’t do if I took the job anyway, deliberately try to sabotage the students. However, TJ is surely the dream job of plenty of folks who are true believers in its mission, why would they not hire one of them?
I am shocked they are still attempting to justify it. But, I agree with coming lawsuits. Some of those kids lost admittance to top notch universities and scholarship opportunities. There are real tangible losses here, in addition to the intangible ones.
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This, by the way, is the kind of stuff I was talking about on the other thread. If you don’t want to promote raw innate academic excellence/superiority and celebrate earned academic merit awards you shouldn’t apply to lead a merit based elite school. I, for instance, would never apply to such a school as I am all about getting blood out of turnips. I would end up hurting myself by rolling my eyes too much and biting my tongue. I do know what I wouldn’t do if I took the job anyway, deliberately try to sabotage the students. However, TJ is surely the dream job of plenty of folks who are true believers in its mission, why would they not hire one of them?
I am shocked they are still attempting to justify it. But, I agree with coming lawsuits. Some of those kids lost admittance to top notch universities and scholarship opportunities. There are real tangible losses here, in addition to the intangible ones.
Because our school had more TJ admissions almost every year (at least back then), I watched parents go nearly insane just trying to get their kids into TJ. That's why I have little doubt that lawsuits will follow, and deservedly so.
But again...that they apparently hid doing this for several years...more than just these 2 administrators must have known about it. How did someone not open their mouth sooner?
Because our school had more TJ admissions almost every year (at least back then), I watched parents go nearly insane just trying to get their kids into TJ. That's why I have little doubt that lawsuits will follow, and deservedly so.
But again...that they apparently hid doing this for several years...more than just these 2 administrators must have known about it. How did someone not open their mouth sooner?
If there's a Test Coordinator s/he would likely have known, those people also get the notifications unless NMSQ is different than every other test result. We never had any kids who qualified so I don't know.
Also, and I mean my God, every single kid in that school is in the "Very Top Performer" category.
National Merit Finalists get full-ride offers from numerous universities! (At least they did 15-20 years ago when my kids were in high school.) So this principal has cost these affected families hundreds of thousands of dollars, collectively. I'm not one for silly lawsuits, but I'd be suing in this case.
And how in the heck can this school have a policy of "equal outcomes for every student, with no exception."
Fire everyone connected to the enactment of this nonsensical policy, and bar them from ever working in education again.
This reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's short story Harrison Bergeron (not sure whether short story names are underlined). This story was about dragging down higher-functioning people. In the story, people were "handicapped" so that they could not excel:
Quote:
Originally Posted by (written by author) Kurt Vonnegut
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarterthan anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
This amounts to punishing excellence; trying to hurt good students in the name of some spurious "equity."
Shockingly bad acts by this principal, derailing top students future academic choices and careers.
Then I started to wonder who else besides her may have done similar acts related to prejudices they held.
What black or brown students never got their Merit awards, what young women, what gay people, what Asian students, what Muslim, Hindu, atheist students, you name it.
There needs to be some oversight on this very important high school area.
These students were deprived of very important boosts, full scholarships in many cases but definitely deprived of showing their test results so that colleges could see their achievements.
From the article:
“We want to recognize students for who they are as individuals, not focus on their achievements,” TJ’s director of student services, Brandon Kosatka, reportedly told a parent concerned about the delayed distribution of the awards.
Aren't achievements part of who students are as individuals? Good administrators would come up with a way for all students to excel at something.
This sort of equality thinking is going to lead to shocking revelations in real life. I work for a Fortune 100 company with very high standards for hiring, essentially top 10% in your college class. I used to tell interns that when they came to work for the company they would have to deal with being average after being top of the heap their entire life. Imagine how poorly someone who thought they were top of the heap, because that's what they were incorrectly told, would do in that environment
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