From Devoted Reader Kevin S. comes this story of a school board which seems to think that "diversity" is more important than test scores, even when the school in question is the "elite" Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology:
Jefferson, a magnet school that draws students from across Northern Virginia, has long grappled with the role of race in admissions. Almost 3,000 students apply every year, and 800 semifinalists are selected based on a multiple-choice test of math and verbal skills. Last year, the student body was about 1 percent black and 2 percent Hispanic.
Last month, a panel of admissions experts recommended that the school do away with the cutoff score on the admissions test and consider factors such as teacher recommendations, extracurricular activities and essays.
Until 1998, the school in the Alexandria section of the county selected some minority students for the semifinal round whose test scores fell below the cutoff but who seemed otherwise qualified. Five years ago, lawyers advised Fairfax County to abandon any affirmative action in admissions, but the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2003 ruling that the University of Michigan could consider race in admissions prompted school officials to revisit the process at Thomas Jefferson.
According to the panel's recommendation, which the School Board will consider tonight and again at a work session Monday, "work must begin immediately" so the amended admissions process can be in place by the fall for students applying to Jefferson next year.
The president of the local NAACP branch says that members are already "mobilizing" in order to speak at the July 21 meeting, but then he criticizes the school - which is a school for science and technology, remember - for communicating its policy changes using email and the Internet. His representatives "don't use computers," but anyone who doesn't use computers isn't going to be attending this school anyway.
Asian parents, on the other hand (Asian students make up 32% of the most recent entering class), wonder if their numbers are going to dwindle, and wonder if the suggested essay test might weed out some qualified students who are recent immigrants.
What no one wants to address are the possibilities that (a) students admitted from teacher recommendations might not be qualified and (b) the minority students who are already at TJ might not appreciate an influx of "diverse" students who didn't have to satisfy the same stringent testing requirements, especially if poor performance on the part of any of the newcomers leads to lowered standards, or more racial tension between those who can do the work, and those who can't.
Also, there's an unspoken assumption here that something must be wrong with the admissions test; otherwise, why say there are qualified students out there who can't score well on it? But does this school have any data to suggest that the test does not do a good job of selecting qualified students? Or are they just unhappy that they don't get the racial balance that they want using a purely meritocratic approach?
I hope TJ realizes that, now that they've opened the door to challengers who want to claim that their test is "biased" against minorities, they might have a hard time getting that door closed again.
Posted by kswygert at July 8, 2004 08:59 AM