Appeals process leaves minorities out

McLEAN, Va. — It’s an annual rite in Fairfax County, which has one of the wealthiest, best-educated populations in America: Hundreds of secondgraders troop off to private psychologists for IQ tests to prove they’re worthy of advanced academic programs in the public schools.

The competition is fierce. Acceptance, some parents believe, can be the key to getting into prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a magnet school that routinely sends graduates to the most competitive colleges.

“I guess I never made the cut,” said Aaron Moorer, who is African-American and eventually graduated from Mount Vernon High with a 3.8 GPA. “I never made the special class.”

Moorer’s family wasn’t aware hundreds of families file appeals every year, armed with private exams costing more than $500, to persuade bureaucrats their child is deserving. This system exacerbates a problem plaguing giftedand-talented programs across the nation: Black and Hispanic students almost never file the appeals that can secure their admission.

Using the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to obtain 10 years of county records, The Associated Press found fewer than 50 black and Hispanic second-graders have filed successful appeals. That’s less than 3 percent of the 1,737 secondgraders admitted through the appeals process, further skewing a program already heavily weighted toward whites and Asians.

Fairfax County has the nation’s 10th largest public school system, with more than 188,000 students. Of those, 25 percent are Hispanic and 10 percent are African-American. But over the past 10 years, blacks and Hispanics have constituted only 12 percent of the students deemed eligible for Level IV, the most advanced academic program.

Notably, the data show that when black and Hispanic students do submit intelligence tests, they are just as likely to gain admission as their white and Asian counterparts. The problem is that black and Hispanic students only rarely submit appeals.

Francisco Duran, the school system’s chief academic and equity officer, downplayed the disparities in the appeals process, citing successful efforts to enroll more black and Hispanic students through teacher referrals and other means. But he acknowledged the school system is not where it wants to be in terms of identifying students at an early age who have the potential for advanced academics.

“We want it to be so that we don’t have a need for an appeals process,” Duran said.

Looking back, Moorer is sure he could have handled more advanced classes if given the opportunity.

“Not being included in the academic program kind of left me feeling unchallenged. I was able to get straight A’s but I was often left bored in class. I felt somewhat envious to know that many of the friends that I had in those classes were learning at a more advanced level,” said Moorer, now an undergrad at Hampden-Sydney College. He also was accepted at James Madison University but was waitlisted at Virginia Tech and turned down by University of North Carolina.

For talented students, the stakes are high: Children in Level IV, the highest and most competitive, can be assigned to schools with concentrated numbers of gifted students, providing what many parents feel is a more robust learning environment. Lower levels, offered in neighborhood schools, may include occasional enrichment projects, outside classwork and advanced reading assignments.

The appeals culture in Fairfax is so prevalent that nearby George Mason University has graduate psychology students learn their trade by administering the tests. Ellen Rowe, the Cognitive Assessment Program’s director, said sliding-scale fees make testing accessible to low-income families, but “we don’t control who comes to us.”

“Not being included in the academic program kind of left me feeling unchallenged . ... I was often left bored in class.” – AARON MOORER