Has the TJ Experiment Been a Success?

We are more than three years into the TJ experiment, but the Fairfax County School Board hasn’t yet addressed its successes and failures.  Whether an objective analysis will ever be conducted is questionable, for the program was adopted primarily for ideological reasons, and the Board may be reluctant to subject its ideological assumptions to scrutiny. …

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FCPS Spins the Decline in SAT Scores

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) posted a misleading article last week entitled “Fairfax County Students Continue to Outperform SAT State and Global Averages.”  The school Superintendent, Michelle Reid, touted the same data at the October 12 meeting of the School Board, using a chart labeled “Fairfax seniors have consistently outperformed state and global SAT outcomes.” The…

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Beware the Social Studies Curriculum — Part 2

Documents obtained under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act reveal a disturbing ideological bias in the social studies curricula of Fairfax County public high schools (FCPS). The first article on this subject, which is HERE, discloses that after the current School Board took office in 2020, the curricula were extensively revised to view history and government…

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Beware the Social Studies Curriculum! — Part I

As a new academic year begins, Fairfax County citizens should be aware of what our children will be taught in the public schools. Particular attention should be given to the social studies curriculum.  It is not a straightforward education about history and government.  It is agenda-driven, emphasizing a viewpoint supported by “progressives” and race-theory advocates. …

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The Wheels of Justice Turn Slowly — Update on National Merit Litigation

The Fairfax County General District Court conducted a pretrial conference this morning in Spooner v. Fairfax County School Board,  which seeks to compel the school system (“FCPS”) to produce an outside law firm’s report on its investigation into the failure of several high schools to provide timely notice to students and families of “commended student” awards…

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School Board Amends Title of Equity Policy — Why?

On June 26, 2023, the Fairfax County School Board adopted a new, sweeping “Equity Policy.”  At its next meeting, on July 13, the title was changed.  It is now called the “Educational Equity Policy.”  The amendment was on the meeting’s “consent agenda” and was adopted without any discussion, so the public doesn’t know who proposed…

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Will the Harvard/U.N.C. Decision Affect the TJ Admissions Case?

On May 23 of this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, overturned a federal district court’s ruling that the new admissions standards for the elite Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (“TJ”) violated the “equal protection of the laws” mandate of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment. …

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School Board Rubber Stamps “Equity Policy” in Wee Hours

In a bizarre meeting that sometimes proved the “Law of Triviality,” the Fairfax County School Board unanimously approved a controversial “Equity Policy” at 12:30 a.m. on June 27. How the Meeting Unfolded The School Board’s meetings are user-unfriendly.  They begin at 7:00 p.m., but the discussion of pending business often doesn’t begin until 9:00 p.m.…

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Rhetoric v. Reality in the New “Equity” Policy

After a working session of the Fairfax County School Board a couple of days ago, a new draft of the proposed Equity Policy was hurriedly drafted, and then posted on the FCPS website at 3:30 Friday afternoon.  A meeting will be held Monday evening, June 26, to stamp it with the Board’s final approval.  It…

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