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[Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, now available exclusively on VDARE.com]
In my November Diary here at VDARE.com I led off with the heading “Dismantling the meritocracy.” I noted how big licensing associations for important professions—the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Bar Association—were de-prioritizing merit in selecting entrants to their professions in favor of race and sex quotas.
That is of course very bad, in fact dangerous. Aspiring doctors and lawyers should be admitted to training schools for those professions on the basis of knowledge and intelligence, as measured by competitive examinations, not because they fill out race and sex quotas. Those quotas are bad enough in college humanities departments; in practical professions like medicine, law, and engineering they might be lethal.
This dismantling of the meritocracy, I’m learning, starts much earlier than medical and law school admissions, at any rate in Fairfax County, Virginia. That’s the location of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, “TJ” for short, a selective school currently ranked Number One in U.S. News & World Report’s list of “Best U.S. High Schools.”
There is an exam that high-schoolers can take called the PSAT, the Preliminary SAT. Nationwide about three and a half million high-schoolers, mostly juniors and sophomores, take this exam. Those who score highest qualify for National Merit Award scholarships; and that, says the Fairfax County Times story I’m reading this from, “opens the door to millions of dollars in college scholarships and 800 Special Scholarships from corporate sponsors.” [ FCPS withholds awards, pays $455,000 for equity contractor , by Asra Q. Nomani, Fairfax County Times December 29, 2022]
Of course a student has to know he’s won this award in time to include the fact in his college application. It’s turned out that TJ administrators—the Principal, Ann Bonitatibus [Email her] and the Director of Student Services, Brandon Kosatka[Email him]—have for five years been withholding notification to the students until after their college applications have been filed.
Why would they do that? Diversity! The main factor here, as with well-nigh every other crookedness and malfeasance in the U.S.A. today, is race. Disproportionately many of those students winning National Merit Awards have been Asian; disproportionately few have been black. Not enough equity!
The Fairfax Times has also discovered that TF’s Principal has engaged a black race hustler named Mutiu Fagbayi —a Nigerian immigrant—to supply her school with “equity training” at a cost to the school district of nearly half a million dollars. The goal of the training: “Equal outcomes for every student, without exception.”
TJ + Fairfax County are tip of the iceberg, as @EricRWeinstein says, in war on merit. @fcpsnews @FCPSSupt engaged in cronyism, signing no-bid $455,000 contact with Performance Fact Inc.'s Mutiu Fagbayi, whom Reid hired at Northshore School District.
2017: https://t.co/HrtPMjmNHh pic.twitter.com/EtXDJIJxNU— Asra Nomani (@AsraNomani) January 6, 2023
Asra Q. Nomani, who filed the above report in the Fairfax County Time has a fuller report in City Journal, on the TJ scandal. She’s not only a (moderate, dissident, feminist) Muslim immigrant herself, and a somewhat conservative pundit who actually voted for Trump in 2016, she’s also a Thomas Jefferson parent, and she just learned, in the course of reporting this story, that her own son was a National Merit Scholar in 2020, so it’s personal:
I learned—two years after the fact—that National Merit had recognized my son, a graduate of TJ’s Class of 2021, as a Commended Student in a September 10, 2020, letter that National Merit sent to Bonitatibus. But the principal, who lobbied that fall to nix the school’s merit-based admission test to increase “diversity,” never told us about it. Parents from earlier years told me that she also didn’t tell them about any Commended Student awards. One former student said he learned he had won the award through a random email from the school to a school-district email account that students rarely check; the principal neither told his parents nor made a public announcement….
School administrators … have implemented an “equitable grading” policy that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of “NTI” for assignments not turned in. It’s a race to the bottom.
The War on Merit Takes a Bizarre Turn—Why are administrators at a top-ranked public high school hiding National Merit awards from students and families?, December 21, 2022
Indeed it is. It is also, as fans of Alice in Wonderland will recall, a caucus-race. Quote from Chapter 3 of that great children’s classic:
However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out “The race is over!” and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, “But who has won?”
This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”
Final comment on Thomas Jefferson High School: I couldn’t help noticing the Principal’s last name: Bonitatibus.[Tweet her] (It’s apparently Italian).
It is of course childish and wrong to make fun of people’s surnames, which none of us can help. However, since Ms. Bonitatibus has cheated some unknown number of students out of their shot at a college scholarship, I’ll make an exception here.
What that surname brings to mind for us bookworms is the second-longest word in the English language, uttered by a character in one of Shakespeare’s plays: “honorificabilitudinitatibus.”
Whether “honorificabilitudinitatibus.” actually is in the English language, as opposed to the Latin language, is a nice point. I couldn’t find it in either my OED or Webster’s Third.
You can’t argue with Shakespeare, though; so here it is with an entry in Wikipedia, defined to mean: “the state of being able to achieve honors.”
High-schoolers in Fairfax County are deemed to be in that state only if they belong to a race and sex approved of by Ms. Bonitatibus.
John Derbyshire [email him] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him.) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT (also available in Kindle) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013.
For years he’s been podcasting at Radio Derb, now available at VDARE.com for no charge. His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com.
Readers who wish to donate (tax deductible) funds specifically earmarked for John Derbyshire’s writings at VDARE.com can do so here.
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We’ve always had ditsy-brained, self-satisfied harpies like this “Ann Bonitatibus” running around. The difference is that now they’re in positions of real power, and “ready willing & able” to ramp up the wreckage.
Wreckage is a good word, too; because their handiwork will ultimately result in collapsing buildings and bridges as well as a ruined society.
Though it demonstrates the outright stupidity of our times, I’m not too bent out of shape about these people not getting into TJ HS. The Oriental and •Indian parents still want to work the system rather than opt out like patriotic Americans that are increasingly switching to homeschooling or co-ops.
You’ve got to separate from the whole system. It’s too far corrupted to fix.
I wouldn’t make too much of Principal Bonitatibus’ deed. It wasn’t semifinalists she failed to notify but commended students. “Commended student” has never been that big a deal and there’s not much money in it either. In fact, at an elite high school, a white or Asian kid who gets “commended” will appreciate it if no one makes a big deal about it.
She could stop notifying semifinalists too; everyone with a high score will check the state cutoff and figure out for he/she made it.
And for those who are wondering, when the name ends in a pronounced “s” such as Thomas, you append an apostrophe + s to make it possessive.
When it ends with a “silent s” such as Barthes, it takes only the apostrophe.
Funny thing is that the “s” at the end of the latter is then pronounced, once.
Thomas’s promises may be relied upon more readily than Barthes’ promises. Get it?
Class dismissed. Go study for your PSATs.
Leave it to an ‘International Jew’ to find the essence of the problem in there being “not much money in it.” LOL
But that’s not the point of principal’s transgression. She withheld academic information from parents and students because she didn’t want to appear ‘racist’ against those of a darker hue. And you can bet that if the black kids were scoring high, she’d be the first to advertise that.
Women, and men who think like women, shouldn’t be in control of education. Or be in any place of authority, really.
How can anyone hitch their ship to the sinking ship of the West™ when its economic system is a form of patronage that awards cliques high salary sinecure positions. This is highlighted in the article by the incompetent school administration paying a half million dollar salary to someone who provides zero value. Such waste and incompetence is the rule in the private and public sector in the West™. Meritocracy has long been dead even before the race stuff, wealth in the West™ especially at the high end is a function of who you know, not what you know.
Decadent, cowardly, lazy and ignorant, their lot is to be eclipsed by Eurasia.
What gets me is it seems it’s always White people making these decisions that screw other White people. ??
Who will deliver us from these AWFL’s? I almost don’t care for their plight when the mayhem starts intensifying. Love the podcast Derb, keep up the amazing work!
She did it for the purpose of equity. And she being in her position had to have known that “commended” is big enough a deal for college admission that by not notifying students she was affecting “equity” (helping the lower IQed and lazy by disadvantaging Asian students).
I was a National Merit semifinalist myself; I would have been a finalist, but they said my day-to-day grades weren’t good enough.
Did she say that was her reason? If she didn’t, then the likely reason was, as I said, that “commended student” isn’t that big a deal. And no, colleges don’t need to be told you were a “commended student”; they can just look at your PSAT score (if they care).
Of course, this also applies to STEM subjects. But this is just one of many Acts of Societal Disruption being used to destroy our civilization.
Did you read the quoted words of Mr. Kosatka up there in the yellow-framed box?
If so, why are you repeatedly dissembling about this?
I dunno about the ups and downs of all this; back when I was a kid, getting academically “commended” in public for anything was just a recipe for getting your ass kicked in the parking lot after school. I used to beg my teachers to keep their damn gold stars to themselves.
Are you serious? I mean, really serious? Of course she’s not going to say anything like that. You think she would admit to withholding information because of racial concerns directed against Asians? That would either open herself up to a civil rights suit alleging discrimination against Asians, or, at the very least, she’d have to explain why black kids are ‘underachieving’. In the real world, ‘educators’ like to sidestep that one, if they can, unless they can blame it on white privilege.
Miss Principal may be a woke idiolog, but she’s probably not that stupid. And by now the county legal department is likely coaching her on what not to say.
But here’s the thing, and you can consider this a tip from the Doki Literature Club, directed toward those who look for excuses at the expense of understanding real life behavior and attendant sub rosa motivations: Actions speak louder than words.
And if you understand the motivations of woke academia, you start to understand their actions in day to day life. Again, if her black kids were scoring high, do you think she wouldn’t advertise that to the world?
From one of the actual articles about this fiasco:
This lady is totally focused on diversity, which means blacks and Mexicans. And by the way, how do you know that kids scoring high wouldn’t want to be recognized, but instead would be embarrassed by not being the top scholar? How arrogant and patronizing is that idea? I’m sure not all the parents are like Tiger Mom Amy Chua, who might tell their kid, “Second place is First Place for losers!”
Good one.
Whites don’t discriminate according to race. Whites discriminate, especially against each other, according to economic class. Keeping poor and working class whites in their place is seen as a net benefit to those who consider themselves to be the good whites.
In the United States smart children get bullied. In the East smart children get praised.
Very easy to forecast the trajectory of the two regions
Which words, which box? Be specific.
After that, go to your dictionary and look up dissemble.
I don’t doubt how in a classroom full of blacks, ‘smart’ (meaning white or Asian) kids are bullied. But in a classroom of majority blacks, everyone who isn’t black probably gets harassed regardless of how intelligent they are.
When I was in school, it wasn’t like that. No blacks. And the white kids formed cliques based upon their ‘interests’ etc. Nerds with nerds; honors with honors; hoods with hoods; jocks with jocks. In the group, there wasn’t much interest in anyone outside their respective clique. At least that’s how I recall it. God knows how it is, today.
You’re imputing motives based on no evidence (news flash: not liking someone is not evidence). You and the other commenters here from the left tail of the distribution, where the meaning of “commended student” was never relevant for you.
Between the fifth and sixth paragraphs of the article.
Focusing only on the Principal (“Did she say ..”) to obscure the quoted statement of the Director of Student Services is dissembling your support for their policy and practice.
That school is going to get sued to dust. In a fairer world, Mx Bonitatibus would be crucified (and I don’t just mean “would be the recipient of peevish tweets“).
That said – and at the risk of incurring the wrath of the crowd – I’m with “International Jew” on this one, with two caveats.
Namely:
① only so far as the lifetime outcomes for the kiddies are concerned; and
② so long as his representation of what happened is correct (“It wasn’t semifinalists she failed to notify but commended students“).
The cutoff for “Commended Student” is, as I understand it, about the 96th percentile. (Wikipedia).
That’s not good enough by itself to augur Good Things for the kiddie concerned.
Literally every kiddie in my undergraduate class had to be above the 96th percentile to get into the course: 25% of the kiddies who did well enough to get in, didn’t complete the undergraduate degree.
Less than 10% of them what got in, did well enough to get into the Honours year, and only 6 kiddies did well enough to get ‘full ride’ merit scholarships for graduate study (“personified in this case by a ‘orrible Kant… me” as Brick Top would say).
Anyone who doesn’t qualify for a full-ride merit scholarship, is not remotely competent in whatever they’re studying. It’s rare to find an ‘Upper Second’ who can tell the difference between shit and a hot rock.
So ‘Commended Student’ is really a nothing category. (example: I’m roughly 96th percentile in height for adult males – but 6’1½” is not exceptional and is not a useful predictor of anything).
Not telling the ‘Also-Rans’ that they also-ran, is not a big deal per se. To do otherwise is to get their hopes up, and hope’s not getting them into, or through, a half-decent undergraduate degree at a half-decent university.
***
On the same Wikipedia page, it’s made clear that Semi-Finalists are rarer: roughly the top third of the kiddies who make the cutoff, donc above the 98th percentile.
Now we’re talking. 98th percentile kiddies won’t wash out, and the top half of them will become genuine domain experts.
***
Lastly: the sorts of people who try and shoe-horn their sprogs into places like TJ, are vile midwit shitbags. They test-prep their midwit kid to the maximum extent possible, so that their midwit kid can false-signal. So I love the fact that they’re so annoyed.
But it’s precisely those folks who are going to lawfare-rape TJ.
Corporate lawyers are by definition sleazes. Corporate doctors unless they rebel against the Big Pharma regime are also sleazes, and possibly vampires. The real issue is the people who actually work for a living and built the country are being pushed out by the affirmative action mob. The former are of course much predominantly white males. That put it crudely explains why nothing now seems to work well. The affirmative action mob are like George Orwell’s proverbial wasp. It eats the jam while its innards have been destroyed. A I is going through the process of deskilling. Now jobs that really did require mental rigour can actually be done by the A.A. mob most of the time. Airplanes don’t usually fall out of the sky. Most medical conditions can be diagnosed by computer data. But now more airplanes will fall out of the sky and more people are being misdiagnosed.
They counted grades? I was a Merit semifinalist, too, with B+ to A- grades in high school. Finally in college Macro Economic Theory required me to actually study.
Probably all via smart phones.
Actually that was Ricky Bobby’s dad, but he was high when he said it.
Second place is first place loser originated with Dale Earnhart.
First, that’s not even the third longest word in English.
Second, and more importantly, I would like to bone and bone and bone the bejeebers out of that principal. I don’t care a whit about her policies, that’s good pussy and should be boned and boned and boned.
Third, don’t hire an African guy whose name starts with “Fag”. C’mon, man!
@TechNomad:
Yeah, they don’t take your grades into account. Don’t be a lying douche.
Irrelevant, all of it. Brick and mortar schools from K thru advanced doctorate-generating institutions are “dinosaurs”. Dead. Finished. Dust bin of history. As far as education is concerned.
As Mark Twain said, “Don’t let schooling interfere with your education”
The internet — smart phone, soon to be enhanced by AI as one’s personal mentor — gives anyone anywhere instant access to all the world’s knowledge. Allowing anyone with the ambition to train themselves as rapidly as they care in any field no matter how arcane.
Brick and mortar colleges become rite-of-passage training centers for children seeking adulthood.
Which generally means one of two behavioral training styles: (1) serious student dedicated to achieving, or (2) Party animal looking to get hammered and laid and a cheap-ass piece of paper certifying them as “educated” (riiiight!)
We’ve reached the era of self-schooling.
Back in the day, I was a National Merit Scholar (I guess “semifinalist” is the correct term), but we got our PSAT scores sent directly to us just like the SAT. Our high school had nothing to do with it except for being the location where we took the test. Maybe things have changed, but I’m not sure how the school could conceal your score.
Here’s another thing that seems weird. I just googled National Merit Scholar and apparently they have a geographic affirmative action program. Each state has its own cutoff score. This “commended student” thing is apparently for anyone who met the minimum score to be a semi-finalist in the state with the lowest cutoff, but who didn’t make the cut-off for their own state.
It’s not obvious what “proportion” they are trying to maintain on a state-by-state basis. Is it the proportion of National Merit Scholars per capita of state population? Or by the proportion of those taking the PSAT? Or some other “proportion”?
I see no rhyme or reason to the cutoffs. In Montana and Wyoming, lily white states (except for some Injuns), with some of the highest test scores in the nation, you only need a 207 to qualify. “U.S. Territories” (i.e. Puerto Rico) is also 207. Mississippi actually requires a higher score of 210. But D.C., New Jersey, and “studying abroad” are 223.
The cutoffs have always been state by state.
Places like Wyoming do have a high average score, but they have a tight spread too. Hence the low cutoff.
My state of California, which nearly leads the country in poverty and illiteracy, has one of the highest cutoffs because at the high end we have high-flying Silicon Valley Indian and Chinese kids.
https://vdare.com/radio-derb/who-ll-be-speaker-2016-hangover-dismantling-meritocracy-and-desantis-vs-academe-etc
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2023-01-06.html
Has Derb gotten banned from youtube? I know I can listen to his podcast on vdare but youtube’s interface is better…
When I first skimmed your piece I read deskilling for desk killing.
I’m not sure it was wrong.
I think in the next year we’ll find out that the reason why no price was too high to pay to get the WEF Tool elected as Speaker. was that the only things standing between the WEF/ESG having their very own hegemon are Slo-Mo Joe and Heels-up Harris.
Winsome Newsom stands ready to mop up.
Motives can be and often are justifiably imputed based on circumstantial evidence.
For the bulk of the past seventy-five years, perhaps much more, the practice you recommend has not been taught as a norm in American schooling. Even less so has it been a practice enforced in American publishing, where the most widely used guide to spelling, punctuation, and other aspects of writing and composition has long been the Chicago Manual of Style, now in its seventeenth edition.
Your recommended practice—it is fair to say that you present it as a rule—was given only qualified recommendation (i.e., it was not prescribed) by CMS’s editors in just one edition: the fifteenth. Both prior and subsequent to that edition, CMS stated that its unqualified preference was to form the possessive of a proper noun ending in silent –s, –z, or –x in exactly the same way that possessives of other singular nouns and of plural nouns not ending in –s were regularly formed: by adding –‘s.* Thus, per CMS style, your example sentence should have read as follows.
________________
*The relevant paragraph in CMS 16 is 7.17; in CMS 17, it is 7.18.
For the bulk of the past seventy-five years, perhaps much more, the practice you recommend has not been taught as a norm in American schooling. Even less so has it been a practice enforced in American publishing, where the most widely used guide to spelling, punctuation, and other aspects of writing and composition has long been the Chicago Manual of Style, now in its seventeenth edition.
Your recommended practice—it is fair to say that you present it as a rule—was given only qualified recommendation (i.e., it was not prescribed) by CMS’s editors in just one edition: the fifteenth. Both prior and subsequent to that edition, the unqualified preference of CMS was to form the possessive of a proper noun ending in silent –s, –z, or –x in exactly the same way that possessives of other singular nouns and of plural nouns not ending in –s were regularly formed: by adding an apostrophe and –s.* Thus, per CMS style, your example sentence should have read as follows.
________________
*The relevant paragraph in CMS 16 is 7.17; in CMS 17, it is 7.18.
I did not mean for my comment to be entered twice, albeit in slightly improved form the second time around. I apologize for the duplication.