It is not surprising that Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, or TJ, has fallen again in the 2024 U.S. News World Report’s ranking of best public high schools.
This year, TJ is ranked 14th, down from 5th in 2023, and 1st for three years before that. Its premier ranking occurred when Fairfax County’s only magnet school’s admissions were based on merit, not on “equity.” With the last merit-based class graduating in June, we can expect to see the flagship institution wither away and disappear as it succumbs to its diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, cancer.
TJ’s tragic downfall has become clear to the public in recent months. Earlier this year, for example, McLean High School’s quiz bowl team defeated the long-favored TJ team in the 2024 Virginia High School League Scholastic Bowl State Championship. This marks the first time in nine years that TJ has not won a title. With the change in TJ’s admissions and its continued rejection of merit, it is likely the school will be losing its competitive edge in scholastic competitions such as quiz bowl, robotics, and debate.
The STEM school also has had to begin offering its admitted freshmen remedial math. In fact, the school’s principal, Ann Bonitatibus, was so enthusiastic in her expectations that all of TJ’s freshmen would be proficient in Algebra 1 by the end of this academic year that she sent parents an email on March 1, 2024, to brag about it. Her message took many Fairfax County residents by surprise because students entering TJ under the previous, merit-based system had usually finished Algebra 1 by the end of seventh grade.
But that was before institutionalized racism against Asians and other “privileged” students became socially acceptable among the Left.
When Fairfax County School Board members and administrators, such as Bonitatibus, decided that Asians were doing too well academically, they changed the admissions standards to reduce their numbers to benefit other races in TJ’s admissions. It worked — along with the school’s decline in its national ranking, there are also significantly fewer students of Asian descent than there were before.
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Before the admissions changes at TJ, I believed that the magnet school might be a good fit for my three sons. I began to question that when my eldest was rejected last year in favor of students who, apparently, are not yet proficient in Algebra 1. But as I witness the institutionalized racism against high-performing students, coupled with what is likely to be the school’s future continued nosedive in the national ranking, I think our designated neighborhood high school actually might be the better choice.
Looking at TJ’s decline, I am skeptical that Fairfax County School Board members were dumb enough to believe they could replace merit with equity in the admissions process without academic consequence. It makes me wonder if their intent all along was to destroy an institution designated for gifted education as a sacrifice to their DEI religion. If that was their goal, they seem to be achieving it.
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network.
