Does this year’s decline of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in a much-hyped national ranking have anything to do with changes to the admissions policy at the school?
The answer seems to depend on which side of the political/cultural divide you find yourself on.
“TJ” – as it is colloquially known – fell from #1 all the way down to #5 nationally in the recently released scorecard of the top public high schools in the U.S. compiled by U.S. News & World Report.
That’s still better than 24,995 schools ranked in the survey, but the decline has provided fodder for those who believe decisions by the Fairfax County School Board to alter past admissions practices played a role.
“What a sad day for TJ and Virginia – this is what happens when you prioritize discriminatory social engineering over achievement and equality,” said state Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) in an online post.
(Miyares frequently has been critical of the Fairfax County’s school leadership.)
Critics of Miyares were quick to point out that the 2023 ranking used data compiled before the major overhaul of admissions policies at the school, although, by the same token, they occurred after earlier, less major tinkering with the policies.
Sitting ahead of Thomas Jefferson on the 2023 ranking were the Early College at Guilford (North Carolina), which took the top spot, followed by Signature School (Ind.), School for Advanced Studies (Fla.) and the Davidson Academy (Nev.).
While falling to No. 5 overall, Thomas Jefferson did retain its status as tops in Virginia and in the Washington metropolitan area, as well as tops among magnet schools nationally. It also moved up two spots to fourth among the nation’s STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] public high schools.
The school’s position on the overall ranking has bobbled up and down; prior to the pandemic, it had been ranked 10th in 2018 and fourth in 2019.
Jiunwei Chen, a 1997 graduate of the school and a member of a group that pushed for changes to the admissions policy, was not disconcerted by TJ dropping in the ranking.
“The number doesn’t matter,” Chen told The Washington Post, saying that all schools at the top of the ranking provided an excellent student experience.
The U.S. News & World Report ranking does include some diversity factors in its criteria, in addition to using academic-achievement data, which may play out down the road assuming the TJ admissions policy survives a court challenge.
That court case challenging the Fairfax County School Board’s changes to the admissions policy continues to move its way through the federal docket. Those who sued the school system said the changes to policies were made to reduce the number of Asian students who gained admission – often close to two-thirds of each freshman class.
The group won at the district-court level, but a three-member panel of the 4th District U.S. Court of Appeals earlier this year sided with the School Board.
That ruling, however, came before action by the U.S. Supreme Court on a number of college-admissions cases in June. The results in those cases have given the lawsuit’s plaintiffs optimism that they will prevail, either by having the Supreme Court overturn the appeals-court ruling or sending it back to the appeals court with instructions to consider more recent rulings on the subject.
In addition to Thomas Jefferson, the Fairfax County school system had five other schools in the top 10 in Virginia in the U.S. News & World Report ranking.
McLean High School ranked fourth, Langley High School fifth, Oakton High School sixth, George C. Marshall High School ninth and W.T. Woodson High School 10th among the 336 Virginia public high schools reviewed.
While the bulk of the student body at Thomas Jefferson comes from Fairfax County, the school also has partnerships with school districts in Arlington, Loudoun and Prince William counties and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, permitting students living there to attend.
Superintendent Outlines Funding to TJ-Affiliated Group from Chinese Organizations: Arlington School Board members long declined to send students to the regional Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology. Once they gave in, were county students who attended the prestigious high school receiving instruction, or participating in projects, that emanated from the People’s Republic of China?
A non-profit group allied with Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology received $3.6 million in financial support from organizations that may be affiliated with the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party.
But no contributions have been received since 2017, according to an accounting provided by Fairfax County Public Schools to the Virginia Department of Education.
Fairfax Superintendent Michelle Reid on Aug. 29 replied to a March 9 inquiry from state education leaders, providing financial details of arrangements between the non-profit TJHSST Partnership Fund while also distancing the school system from the organization.
Reid acknowledged funding from three sources with connections to China that have raised eyebrows among some in the media and public:
• $1.2 million from Tsinghua University High School, which began a formal relationship with the Thomas Jefferson Fund in 2014 that ran through 2018.
• $900,000 from the Ameson Educational and Cultural Exchange Foundation, which also had a relationship with the fund from 2014 to 2018.
• $1.5 million from Shirble Department Store Holdings (China) Ltd., which had a relationship with the fund from 2016 to 2021.
Relationships of this type have drawn concerns in some quarters about what influence the Chinese Community Party (CCP) was having in U.S. education, Reid acknowledged.
“The TJ Fund’s termination of past relationships with alleged CCP-linked entities mirrors this broader trend,” she wrote in a letter to Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera. The school system’s attorney, John Foster, also signed off on the letter.
At the same time, Reid – who was hired as superintendent from the West Coast last year, defended the TJ Fund as having taken a “cautious approach” to its relationships with Chinese entities.
That included seeking out an OK from the U.S. Department of State at the time of the Tsinghua partnership in 2014, where a State Department representative seemed to give support through an e-mail.
“These communications are reflective of different attitudes that prevailed at that time period, including within U.S. government agencies and private U.S. corporations,” Reid wrote.
In her response to questions from the state government, Reid said she was unaware of any other Fairfax schools with similar relationships, and could not comment on whether the trio involved with Thomas Jefferson “ever had CCP links.”
The full letter from Reid to state officials has been posted on the county school system’s Website at fcps.edu.
While the bulk of the student body at Thomas Jefferson comes from Fairfax County, the school also has partnerships with school districts in Arlington, Loudoun and Prince William counties and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, permitting students living there to attend.
