Sadly, The Other Shoe Will Drop

     I’m sure you’ve read about the handful of schools in Virginia – government-run schools, of course – that suppressed announcements that several of their inmates students had won National Merit Scholarships. These days, it would hardly seem out of the ordinary. “Equal Outcomes For Every Student!” shrieks the mission statement of the Fairfax County Public Schools. But that means that for some to be NMS scholars while others lack that achievement is unfair. It violates equity. The sole embarrassment about the matter the responsible educrats have displayed comes from having been caught. They’ve just been waiting for it to blow over so they can get back to the business of turning their captives pupils into left-wing drones.

     But it appears the matter is too outrageous to be easily shrugged aside. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has a bee in his bonnet:

     “We need to get to the bottom of what appears to be an egregious, deliberate attempt to disadvantage high-performing students at one of the best schools in the country,” said Youngkin last week. “Parents and students deserve answers, and Attorney General Miyares will initiate a full investigation. I believe this failure may have caused material harm to those students and their parents, and that this failure may have violated the Virginia Human Rights Act.”

     And indeed, the process has begun:

     “Miyares announced twin civil rights investigations into, first, the withholding of National Merit Commended Student awards by TJ administrators and, second, a Fairfax County school admissions policy, put in place in December 2020, that a federal judge ruled discriminates illegally against Asian American students.”

     Now for the denial. “To suggest a deliberate intent to withhold this information would be inaccurate and contrary to the values of FCPS,” said a Fairfax County mouthpiece who added that the district values “hard work and dedication.”

     The district values revenues, especially state subsidies. Hard work and dedication are of far less interest – especially from its “teachers.” The revelation that a handful of students have achieved greatly while the majority are barely able to read a street sign is too embarrassing to be borne. It might affect the prestige of their union.

     But this is the case in the government-run schools generally. If there are teachers and districts that actually take the education of the young seriously, they’re far from a majority nationwide. The incentives point in another direction entirely. The tenure system plus multiple sources of government funding guarantee that.

     I wish Governor Youngkin all the luck in the world in his efforts to correct this matter. Still, I don’t expect any improvements he and Jason Miyares bring about to last. Not only are the incentives perverse; the Left values its bastion in the “public” schools too greatly to allow a beachhead for actual education. It will fight anything that cross-cuts its sacred “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” drive a outrance. The educrats, who know they’ve got a good thing going – lifetime employment, oodles of benefits, no meaningful accountability – will be right there pitching alongside them.