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Top High School Deprived Students of Nat'l Merit Awards as Part of Equity Policy

60 points by miles 4y ago

guywithahat 4y ago
So it looks like the school withheld awards from all students until after college admissions as part of a diversity program (so students wouldn't be judged on achievements during the college process). That's not just immoral, it's really stupid to handicap your students like that when you're the only one doing it
- atdrummond 4y ago
  I think the goal with such programmes is to encourage a significant proportion of similar institutions to follow suit. I could see the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (which is similar to TJ) adopting this protocol, even though it’s an anathema to the school’s historical practices and objectives.
dmitrygr 4y ago
Stealing mail intended for someone else is a felony. The angry parents should just notify the postal inspection service, and watch the fireworks fly.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  [dead]
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Stealing mail is not something that happened here
  - dmitrygr 4y ago
    TFA quoth: “ because TJ senior administrators didn’t distribute the letters of commendation from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to students”
    - oneoff786 4y ago
      That’s not stealing mail
jefwiof 4y ago
[flagged]
bungeonsBaggins 4y ago
[flagged]
yucky 4y ago
This is exactly what "equity" policies are for, right? Seems to be working as intended.
oneoff786 4y ago
I think there is some real truth stretching here for controversy. National merit is based on the PSAT. Not something you take and learn of in senior year during college apps. You get informed directly by the corp, not via your school. The article waffles over whether it was 2 months or 2 weeks. My guess is that this is not actually about any significant award, but a little memo celebrating the fact that they got the award from the national merit corp a long time ago and already should have known about. Trashy new org and trashy news. Edit: and fwiw, this is a basically worthless award. Actually being a finalist can get you hundreds of thousands of dollars of scholarships. But the tier below that won’t get you almost anything.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
Another citation: https://ussanews.com/2022/12/24/principal-chooses-feelings-over-merit-awards/ https://ussanews.com/2022/12/24/principal-chooses-feelings-o... Our school looked at adding an award for good community behavior, but the principal shot it down because they currently get too many complaints from parents whose kids don’t get the existing awards. This is the fruit of a participation award culture.

60 points by miles 4y ago

So it looks like the school withheld awards from all students until after college admissions as part of a diversity program (so students wouldn't be judged on achievements during the college process). That's not just immoral, it's really stupid to handicap your students like that when you're the only one doing it

atdrummond 4y ago
I think the goal with such programmes is to encourage a significant proportion of similar institutions to follow suit. I could see the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (which is similar to TJ) adopting this protocol, even though it’s an anathema to the school’s historical practices and objectives.

dmitrygr 4y ago

Stealing mail intended for someone else is a felony. The angry parents should just notify the postal inspection service, and watch the fireworks fly.

daniel-cussen 4y ago
[dead]
oneoff786 4y ago
Stealing mail is not something that happened here
- dmitrygr 4y ago
  TFA quoth: “ because TJ senior administrators didn’t distribute the letters of commendation from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to students”
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    That’s not stealing mail

jefwiof 4y ago

[flagged]

bungeonsBaggins 4y ago

[flagged]

yucky 4y ago

This is exactly what "equity" policies are for, right? Seems to be working as intended.

oneoff786 4y ago

I think there is some real truth stretching here for controversy. National merit is based on the PSAT. Not something you take and learn of in senior year during college apps. You get informed directly by the corp, not via your school. The article waffles over whether it was 2 months or 2 weeks. My guess is that this is not actually about any significant award, but a little memo celebrating the fact that they got the award from the national merit corp a long time ago and already should have known about. Trashy new org and trashy news. Edit: and fwiw, this is a basically worthless award. Actually being a finalist can get you hundreds of thousands of dollars of scholarships. But the tier below that won’t get you almost anything.

mensetmanusman 4y ago

Another citation: https://ussanews.com/2022/12/24/principal-chooses-feelings-over-merit-awards/ https://ussanews.com/2022/12/24/principal-chooses-feelings-o... Our school looked at adding an award for good community behavior, but the principal shot it down because they currently get too many complaints from parents whose kids don’t get the existing awards. This is the fruit of a participation award culture.