Supreme Court won’t review admissions at Va.’s Thomas Jefferson HS

[cigaretteman]

The Supreme Court will not review a challenge to the admissions system for a prestigious Northern Virginia magnet school, the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, which administrators said opened the program to a wider socioeconomic range of students but opponents claimed discriminated against Asian American applicants.

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The high court’s decision Tuesday not to take the case drew a sharp dissent from two conservative justices and follows its ruling last term rejecting race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. That historic ruling rolled back decades of precedent and has dramatically changed how the nation’s private and public universities select their students.

The legal battle in Virginia is between a group of parents, called the Coalition for TJ, and the Fairfax County School Board over an admissions policy designed to encourage diversity at the school without explicitly considering race. Thomas Jefferson, locally known as TJ and often ranked the best high school in the country, changed its admissions process in 2020 in part to boost racial diversity at the school, which had long enrolled single-digit percentages of Black and Hispanic students.



The revised admissions process at TJ used a more holistic review of applicants by considering what admissions experts call “race-neutral” factors, such as what neighborhood a student lives in and their socioeconomic status. The new process also removed a notoriously difficult admissions test and $100 application fee and reserved a set number of seats for students from each of Fairfax County’s middle schools. Applicants must have an unweighted grade-point average of at least 3.5 while taking higher-level courses, complete a problem-solving essay and submit a “Student Portrait Sheet.”
The first admitted class saw boosts in Black and Latino enrollment, as well as more low-income students, English-language learners and girls. The percentage of Asian American students dropped from around 70 percent to 50 percent, sparking accusations that the changes were designed to drive down Asian American enrollment.
A parent group that opposed the changes filed a lawsuit against the district, alleging that the new process was discriminatory.





http://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...agnet-affirmative-action_inline_collection_18

As is common in court orders, the high court majority did not provide a reason for allowing the appeals court’s decision upholding the new policy to stand. The two dissenting justices, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas, said the lower court was wrong to uphold the school’s new admissions policy and that they would have reviewed the case.

What the lower court “held, in essence, is that intentional racial discrimination is constitutional so long as it is not too severe. This reasoning is indefensible, and it cries out for correction,” wrote Alito, joined by Thomas.
A District Court judge initially sided with the parent group in 2022, calling the new admissions process “racial balancing” and “patently unconstitutional.” Then, in May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit reversed the lower court’s decision, ruling in favor of the Fairfax County School Board and stating that the process did not discriminate against Asian American students.



Coalition for TJ, the group formed in opposition to the new system, asked the Supreme Court to intervene in August.
“Local school boards in these cases have enacted policies designed to balance the racial composition of their schools at the expense of Asian Americans,” the coalition wrote in its petition for the Supreme Court to take up the case.
Similar legal challenges to admissions-based high schools have been filed around the country and have been watched as a possible next frontier of admissions challenges after the Supreme Court’s decision in the Harvard and UNC cases in June.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/20/supreme-court-affirmative-action-thomas-jefferson-high-school/

 

[Aardvark86]

It's been a while since I looked at the papers on this, but I have to say there was something that definitely didn't smell right about what went down at TJ, in that there's a pretty decent inference of not just disparate impact discrimination, but intentional discrimination. That said, in discussing the case with a good friend (D) who is a very level-headed intermediate appellate court judge here in VA, he noted that there were certain parts of the plaintiffs' theory that were definitely overreach.

 

[NDallasRuss]

Having had a child that went through TJ's selection process (unsuccessfully) pre-diversity, and having read stories about what happens to kids that don't finish near the top of their class at TJ, I can say that admitting students based on anything other than achievement is going to really hurt those kids once they get into the program - unless they also refine the program to hand-hold those kids through their four years at TJ.

It really was the most competitive of the most competitive. We went to an info session when the kid was in 7th grade, talking about the process to apply for TJ. There we found out that we were woefully unprepared. There were kids that had been test prepping since 3rd grade, just to take the entrance tests for TJ - a PSAT and a TJ-specific exam. We hired a test-prep tutor for about 6 months, but by then we were too late.

Then, when/if you get in, it's four years of cutthroat "every person for themselves" as each student tries to jockey for a better position in the graduating class. See, it's not enough to graduate from the "best HS in the country", because colleges evaluate you against your peers/competition. I've read stories about kids who graduated from TJ - which should've been quite an accomplishment - but didn't get into any of their college choices because they were outside the top half of their class. They might've been valedictorian if they stayed in their local school, but because they put themselves up against the other TJ kids, that's who they were judged against, and it could really hurt them.

There's a reason why so many Asian kids get in, and do well, at TJ. They have parents who taught them early on that there's nothing else other than school and academic achievement. There's no sports. Summer camps are academic prep camps. One of my daughter's best friends in middle school loved playing soccer, but she knew that once she hit 9th grade, she was done with all that.

When I'd take the daughter to these different tests/competitions/evaluations, she was frequently the only white kid there. I understood why such a high percentage of the kids that got into these programs were Asian, because they were the ones putting out the most effort, and had the most dedication. and yeah, often they accomplished these things because their parents pushed them super hard, and wouldn't accept anything less. It's a double-edged sword though - when a kid spends their entire life, to date, with only one path to success, and then something bad happens - like a bad grade in a class - they're unprepared to deal with it, because they don't know anything else. Once that's taken away, they can lose all hope, so the area where I lived in VA had a pretty high suicide rate among HS kids, and a lot of it was these kids who were pegged to go on and go to the best colleges to become doctors, engineers, etc.

Good luck to any kids who get in because they check a box, rather than because they're among the most extraordinary of students. They're going to be in for a rough four years if they're not prepared.

 

[Aardvark86]

Having had a child that went through TJ's selection process (unsuccessfully) pre-diversity, and having read stories about what happens to kids that don't finish near the top of their class at TJ, I can say that admitting students based on anything other than achievement is going to really hurt those kids once they get into the program - unless they also refine the program to hand-hold those kids through their four years at TJ.

It really was the most competitive of the most competitive. We went to an info session when the kid was in 7th grade, talking about the process to apply for TJ. There we found out that we were woefully unprepared. There were kids that had been test prepping since 3rd grade, just to take the entrance tests for TJ - a PSAT and a TJ-specific exam. We hired a test-prep tutor for about 6 months, but by then we were too late.

Then, when/if you get in, it's four years of cutthroat "every person for themselves" as each student tries to jockey for a better position in the graduating class. See, it's not enough to graduate from the "best HS in the country", because colleges evaluate you against your peers/competition. I've read stories about kids who graduated from TJ - which should've been quite an accomplishment - but didn't get into any of their college choices because they were outside the top half of their class. They might've been valedictorian if they stayed in their local school, but because they put themselves up against the other TJ kids, that's who they were judged against, and it could really hurt them.

There's a reason why so many Asian kids get in, and do well, at TJ. They have parents who taught them early on that there's nothing else other than school and academic achievement. There's no sports. Summer camps are academic prep camps. One of my daughter's best friends in middle school loved playing soccer, but she knew that once she hit 9th grade, she was done with all that.

When I'd take the daughter to these different tests/competitions/evaluations, she was frequently the only white kid there. I understood why such a high percentage of the kids that got into these programs were Asian, because they were the ones putting out the most effort, and had the most dedication. and yeah, often they accomplished these things because their parents pushed them super hard, and wouldn't accept anything less. It's a double-edged sword though - when a kid spends their entire life, to date, with only one path to success, and then something bad happens - like a bad grade in a class - they're unprepared to deal with it, because they don't know anything else. Once that's taken away, they can lose all hope, so the area where I lived in VA had a pretty high suicide rate among HS kids, and a lot of it was these kids who were pegged to go on and go to the best colleges to become doctors, engineers, etc.

Good luck to any kids who get in because they check a box, rather than because they're among the most extraordinary of students. They're going to be in for a rough four years if they're not prepared.

Very well said.

As I think I've mentioned before, when we were looking at schools in NoVa for our kids (and particularly our daughter who has a mild physical disability), priority one was what I called the "high normalcy quotient". You can tell pretty quickly which ones "feel" like what a high school is supposed to feel like in the best sense. And you can also tell which ones will view your child as some sort of disgrace if they've not solved for pi to 500 digits by 8th grade. And whatever 'benefits' may accrue from the latter type of school, you have to carefully consider the cost of future psychotherapy you'll have to offset against them.

Speaking of which... I just finalized a contract to sell my house yesterday, and am now looking for a place in the Shenandoah, preferably around Lexington (while maintaining a small footprint here). We were visiting there last week, and in one of the bathrooms at W&L there was a sticker identifying at least a half dozen "mental health and wellness options" available to students. That gave me an idea, which is to create a student mental health app called "Suck it Up".

 

[NDallasRuss]

Very well said.

As I think I've mentioned before, when we were looking at schools in NoVa for our kids (and particularly our daughter who has a mild physical disability), priority one was what I called the "high normalcy quotient". You can tell pretty quickly which ones "feel" like what a high school is supposed to feel like in the best sense. And you can also tell which ones will view your child as some sort of disgrace if they've not solved for pi to 500 digits by 8th grade. And whatever 'benefits' may accrue from the latter type of school, you have to carefully consider the cost of future psychotherapy you'll have to offset against them.

This ended up being a big deal for the daughter during the process of looking at/applying to TJ and the Loudoun Academy of Science. She's smart, but not "follow the scientific method 100%" smart - more like "figure out my own way to get to the answer". And those places don't want that. They want kids who can master a repeatable process without fail. She wasn't going to do well in those kinds of places. So, she went to the local HS, which is still a really good school, and plenty academically competitive. One of her friends was 2nd in the national science fair and went to MIT, and he only finished #7 in their class. But... she also got to have friends, hang out, have fun, and continue being a kid on occasion. While still having high expectations for their kids, the parents - at least all the ones we interacted with - were supportive of not only their own kids, but with others also. She ended up with a LOT better experience than I think she'd have had at one of those STEM schools/academies.

Plus, with TJ, they bus kids from the local areas all the way over to TJ and back every day. Factoring in traffic and getting to school on time, she'd have to be at our HS parking lot ready to leave at 6:30am, and getting home around 6:30pm. They said in the information session that a lot of kids end up doing homework on the bus since they were on it so long, and they get home late. It was going to be a beast of a schedule.

In the end, there's 1,000 ways to get where you want to go - albeit, some easier than others - but the same way isn't right for everyone.

 

[Aardvark86]

This ended up being a big deal for the daughter during the process of looking at/applying to TJ and the Loudoun Academy of Science. She's smart, but not "follow the scientific method 100%" smart - more like "figure out my own way to get to the answer". And those places don't want that. They want kids who can master a repeatable process without fail. She wasn't going to do well in those kinds of places. So, she went to the local HS, which is still a really good school, and plenty academically competitive. One of her friends was 2nd in the national science fair and went to MIT, and he only finished #7 in their class. But... she also got to have friends, hang out, have fun, and continue being a kid on occasion. While still having high expectations for their kids, the parents - at least all the ones we interacted with - were supportive of not only their own kids, but with others also. She ended up with a LOT better experience than I think she'd have had at one of those STEM schools/academies.

Plus, with TJ, they bus kids from the local areas all the way over to TJ and back every day. Factoring in traffic and getting to school on time, she'd have to be at our HS parking lot ready to leave at 6:30am, and getting home around 6:30pm. They said in the information session that a lot of kids end up doing homework on the bus since they were on it so long, and they get home late. It was going to be a beast of a schedule.

In the end, there's 1,000 ways to get where you want to go - albeit, some easier than others - but the same way isn't right for everyone.

Yep the idea that high school (if not junior high) educational achievement is somehow tightly predictive of success (however you want to define it) is one of the most laughable concepts pervading our society.

For an entertaining satire on this subject (albeit in the context of the British postwar secondary educational system), read Michael Young's 'The Rise of the Meritocracy".

 

[NDallasRuss]

Yep the idea that high school (if not junior high) educational achievement is somehow tightly predictive of success (however you want to define it) is one of the most laughable concepts pervading our society.

For an entertaining satire on this subject (albeit in the context of the British postwar secondary educational system), read Michael Young's 'The Rise of the Meritocracy".

I might have to read that.

Reading the Wiki summary for it, it includes: "The schools of the upper classes tried to teach humility, and a mythos around sport, the "mythos of muscularity", was created in the education of the lower classes. Some of the latter became sports professionals, but the majority became TV-watching sport fans. The lower classes grew to esteem physical achievement, whereas the narrator and the upper classes value mental achievement."

It might have been written as satire, but that part is scary accurate.

 

[goldmom]

My kids went to a high school in a pretty affluent Dallas suburban ISD noted for academics. The school was popular with several groups of “diverse” parents who expected high achievement for their kids. All of the Asian kids (there were Japanese execs here for a 3-4 stay with their company offices in the US) and the kids went to what was called Saturday school where the focus was on math and science. If they wanted the kids to keep up with their peers back home with any chance to gain admission to higher education once they returned home they had no choice. The Vietnamese and Korean kids went as well.
The Indian kids were just smart as hell and did fantastic.
The school also had about a 20-25% Jewish population. They all got into the public Ivy type schools or smaller highly rated schools like Tulane or Rice. (One noted exception was a super funny class clown who goofed off a lot and ended up at Kansas. He now lives in NYC and is a super successful financial guy on Wall Street)
The Black kids all went to college and are doing well. (like their parents)
Funny thing was that all these years later most of the kids - even the regular old Anglo Saxon socially oriented ones are pretty successful.
I really believe it was the world they lived in and the general expectations all the parents put on them and their friends. My kids are now at the age where they recognize that they were very fortunate and they appreciate their experiences.
I feel sorry for folks who live in a bubble like the world existing around TJHS.

 

[Aardvark86]

I might have to read that.

Reading the Wiki summary for it, it includes: "The schools of the upper classes tried to teach humility, and a mythos around sport, the "mythos of muscularity", was created in the education of the lower classes. Some of the latter became sports professionals, but the majority became TV-watching sport fans. The lower classes grew to esteem physical achievement, whereas the narrator and the upper classes value mental achievement."

It might have been written as satire, but that part is scary accurate.

If you do read it, make sure to read the (relatively few) footnotes. Especially the very last one.

 

[Aardvark86]

My kids went to a high school in a pretty affluent Dallas suburban ISD noted for academics. The school was popular with several groups of “diverse” parents who expected high achievement for their kids. All of the Asian kids (there were Japanese execs here for a 3-4 stay with their company offices in the US) and the kids went to what was called Saturday school where the focus was on math and science. If they wanted the kids to keep up with their peers back home with any chance to gain admission to higher education once they returned home they had no choice. The Vietnamese and Korean kids went as well.
The Indian kids were just smart as hell and did fantastic.
The school also had about a 20-25% Jewish population. They all got into the public Ivy type schools or smaller highly rated schools like Tulane or Rice. The Black kids all went to college and are doing well. (like their parents had)
Funny thing was that all these years later most of the kids - even the regular old Anglo Saxon socially oriented ones are pretty successful.
I really believe it was the world they lived in and the general expectations all the parents put on them and their friends. My kids are now at the age where they recognize that they were very fortunate and they appreciate their experiences.
I feel sorry for folks who live in a bubble like the world existing around TJHS.

A case study. One of the lawyers for the TJ plaintiffs is my neighbor. Both she and her husband (he's a law professor at GMU) are just ridiculously smart people. I mean ridiculously. They are also, while very very nice and well meaning, pretty socially challenged.

But they are so invested in (their) intellectual merit as a rational theoretical construct, that they cannot see what is obvious to everybody around them, which is that the world is not always a rational place. Sometimes, it's better to be simply lucky than good, and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[NDallasRuss]

A case study. One of the lawyers for the TJ plaintiffs is my neighbor. Both she and her husband (he's a law professor at GMU) are just ridiculously smart people. I mean ridiculously. They are also, while very very nice and well meaning, pretty socially challenged.

But they are so invested in (their) intellectual merit as a rational theoretical construct, that they cannot see what is obvious to everybody around them, which is that the world is not always a rational place. Sometimes, it's better to be simply lucky than good, and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's a good point - while it's generally better to be smart and educated than not, it's not the sole predictor of success - even when combined with an "average" level of effort. One of the most successful people I've known was my cousin's husband. He was smart enough, and had a high school education, but I've never encountered anyone else in my life that could out-work him. He was an HVAC tech and took a business from zero to highly successful within a few years - off of hustle and effort and drive. He started out crawling around in attics in the TX summer and ended up on the beach on Costa Rica, setting his kids up to take over a business that had a really solid foundation and a great reputation.

 

[Urohawk]

I think Malcolm Gladwell put it best when he said, "Don't go to Harvard." These schools cause elite people to underperform because they are crushed under pressure and the regress to the mean. If they really smart, they should be successful but they fail because they still fall somewhere on the bell curve. The dumbest kid at Harvard is really smart but feels dumb.

 

[goldmom]

I think Malcolm Gladwell put it best when he said, "Don't go to Harvard." These schools cause elite people to underperform because they are crushed under pressure and the regress to the mean. If they really smart, they should be successful but they fail because they still fall somewhere on the bell curve. The dumbest kid at Harvard is really smart but feels dumb.

I also think a good number of kids there are legacy admits who cruise their way through.
Like I said above one of my daughter’s good friends was the class clown and “had” to settle for Kansas.
Well as many of the kids said it’s not hard to get into KU but it’s not so easy to stay there. He found that out and did fine. And he’s been really successful on Wall Street.