In Washington Post front-page news this morning, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA, has reported its freshman class of 2012 will be 45 percent Asian--and only 42 percent white. Crisis! (Really, though, front page news? Come on.) In response, the Fairfax County School Board has promised to investigate the magnet school's admissions policy. But "T.J.," as the school is known to its friends, is simply responding to the last 10 years of court cases in this area, which have overturned affirmative action policies at many selective public high schools. Instead of quotas, T.J. is rightly using a mix of grades, test scores, race, gender, and socioeconomic status to make its decisions--just like many of the top universities. John Johnson of the minority student oversight committee is spot on when he says that middle school preparation programs and quota-based admissions policies are not going to miraculously catch up a student who has "been behind the eight ball since kindergarten."
There's only one lesson to be learned here for the Fairfax County School Board, and an investigation of the school's admissions policy is not it. Instead of inappropriately faulting a high-performing magnet school for choosing high-performing candidates, why don't we work on making sure more students are prepared to go to schools like T.J. in the first place? Huh, that's a thought.
