the virginia department of education is
taking steps to abolish
advanced degrees for gifted students now
why
because they're worried that students
who excel aren't diverse enough
and this really bothers leslie sale the
policy director for virginia's education
department
this is about how and where graduation
requirements can operate
operate as a lever for equity first
we're going to start with one of our
more conceptual discussions
which is the possibility of
consolidating the standard and advanced
studies diploma
and hopefully this discussion will allow
us to think through how we maintain a
rigorous academic foundation
in a way that's really equitably serving
the needs and aspirations of all of
virginia's learners
she doesn't know the word hopefully is
ungrammatically used in that sentence
but she's an education expert by
equitably serving the students she means
punishing all the gifted students in the
name of racial justice
now let's be clear what ms sale wants to
do is take virginia's top-notch
education system
and drive it into the dust how does that
help anyone well joining me now azra
nomani fairfax county parent former
georgetown professor
also here is harry jackson fairfax
county parent
harry um you are the father i believe
of of six kids who are
in the extremely is that correct am i
getting that right
six no no there's three kids uh three
students oh three kids
freshmen tj now my step okay but but
you're at thomas jefferson which is a
is a one of the top schools in the
country for science and technology
how does this affect your kids
well it would affect uh uh it would
affect the the oldest
by limiting his opportunities this next
year it would most
dramatically impact my daughter um who's
on who's on track to be in precalculus
by eighth grade
and would certainly impact my youngest
child who's a kindergartner who's also
who's also gifted in advance as well she
would not have
the up she would not have the enrichment
opportunities necessary for education
azra we're told by ms sale and others
like her that this is all about
racial equity and equitable educational
opportunities for all isn't that a noble
idea azra
it's it's a race to the bottom basically
virginia
has got this leadership that has decided
that any kind of advanced learning
is a injustice they have failed
bach and hispanic students and so their
solution
is to try to bring those that are
excelling
down instead of bringing our most
challenged kids
up to the levels that we would hope and
this is the ultimate injustice of this
theory of critical race theory
because it is so unjust to
advancement of children in society it's
really something that everybody should
be worried about
now another top virginia educrat
said another amazing thing about the
state's mathematics
pathway initiative it's really um
framing and restructuring the way we
think about the progression
of mathematics in a way that meets the
needs of every student and every learner
i don't want to lose sight of the equity
implications around the virginia
mathematics pathway initiative because
i do think that it will be one of the
most transformational things we can do
in virginia
to advance um equity and really
instructional support
harry they're telling your kids
that they can't handle the course load
or is it just dumbing down math so
everybody gets an a what's going on here
well it's transformational but not in
the right way um
basically what they are as rihanna
pointed out it is a race towards the
bottom it's basically denying advanced
mathematic opportunities for those
students that
that can handle this this material i
have i'm a parent of gifted children
but most parents this does not only
impact gifted children this also impacts
above average children
this is basically putting kids in your
class who have like maybe
a 700 on the math sat a 600 or even a
500 in the sat
with those children with a 300 or 400
the math sat
and they i think they're completely
ignoring this entire concept of
collaborative learning environments
and what they focused on is this
differentiated learning which
essentially is
that if your kid is bored and they're
being slow and they're slowed down
they're just going to give them extra
work and it's going to cause problems
for these children
no azra and harry this was one of the
most disturbing stories and a line of
disturbing stories
about education that we covered this
week and we're going to stay on this
thomas jefferson school we are
watching you because your fabulous
school don't ruin it