01

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Thomas Jefferson High School drops to 5th in latest US News ranking" and posted in the "Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)" forum. This thread was inspired by a new release of U.S. News & World Report’s “Best High School Rankings”. Thomas Jefferson High School, or TJ, as the school is normally called, has led these rankings for the past three years but is listed as 5th in the latest list. U.S. News says that this is not a big deal, the school's supporters say it is not a big deal, and those who think it is a big deal are largely ignoring the facts. So, in many ways, this thread is a whole lot of todo about nothing. First, regarding the position change itself. As a U.S. News managing editor is quoted as saying, the top schools are so close that very small changes in the data can result in what appear to be big changes. "But it doesn’t mean too much has really changed there." Next, the reason for the change. As anyone even vaguely familiar with the recent history of TJ will well know, the school recently underwent a change in its admission policies. Opponents of the changes have warned that the best applicants are no longer being selected and, as a result, the quality of the school will decline. Therefore, some saw this drop in rankings as an indication that their prediction is coming true. The flaw in that thinking, however, is that, as the article to which the original poster linked makes clear, the data on which the rankings were based was collected prior the admissions changes. This did not prevent some posters from still blaming the changes. One poster was so insistent that the admissions changes have harmed the school's quality that he literally wrote that it didn't matter how many times others posted the quote saying that the data was prior to the changes. He claimed that the significant impact of the changes was being ignored. Other posters pointed out that TJ must indeed be a leading STEM school if it was capable of developing a time machine that went back to the past to influence data based on changes that hadn't occurred. As is the case with almost all TJ threads these days, this one soon devolved into a debate about race and ethnicity. Posters argued that Asian students were denied admissions in favor of less-well prepared minority students. Others pointed out that Asians remain the largest group of students admitted to the school. The rhetoric suggesting that Asians have been victims of discrimination often has as unfortunate tendency to become racist itself. One poster suggested that minority students admitted under the new policies are "lazy kids who just want a quota for them to get in". To be clear, no quota exists and the new admissions system is race blind. The racist slant of these threads tends to snowball, causing me to lock the threads. So, it's not clear how long this thread will remain open.