School Outcomes Too Good To Be True--Because They Weren't

The New York Times tells us about the racist lies that made one Louisiana school seem like it was doing extremely well educating black students:

Some of the fraud at the heart of our T.M. Landry investigation is not so different from the schemes employed in other college admissions scandals. This was certainly not the first time, or the last, that we had seen people lie to get their children into college.

But race sets T.M. Landry apart from more recent cases of education fraud, as was evident in the school’s appeal to prospective students and in how it got them into college...

The Landrys explicitly vowed to get black students into top universities; to level a vastly uneven playing field; to put into reach a college education that many teenagers and their parents worried was outside their grasp...

But the Landrys could not have attracted students without also delivering results. Transcripts were littered with inflated grades, nonexistent extracurricular activities and fictitious classes. In recommendation letters, they fabricated and exaggerated stories of hardship that played on negative racial stereotypes. And they encouraged students to do the same.

In this way, the Landrys painted their students in the “most stereotypical light that they possibly could be in to try and gain some white sympathy to get them into school,” Mr. Smith said.

Or as Eddie Glaude, a professor of African-American studies at Princeton, told MSNBC: Mike Landry was “playing on a kind of soft bigotry, where the idea of educating African-American children is often thought of as a philanthropic enterprise, as a charitable gift.”

This was perhaps the grimmest indictment of the college admissions process, because it seemed to work.

And the SAT's "adversity score" will play into the same stereotypes.

Black families were desperate to believe that the Landrys would help them in a world where no other institutions seemed to care. White, elite institutions were blind to how stereotypes had twisted their ability to assess what it means to be a qualified black candidate.  (boldface mine--Darren)

It seems like the underlying assumption is that black students cannot excel academically.  It must be impossible to change behaviors or community norms--the only way to get ahead is to cheat.  Integrity means nothing, the ends justify the means.  Doing what's right is too hard, it's easier just to cheat.

How have the school's graduates done at their elite schools?  Results are mixed:

Some alumni, especially those who spent only a short time at T.M. Landry, have been successful. Bryson Sassau did well in his classes at St. John’s, although he had to quit some advanced science and math courses. Mr. Smith also did well, but with debts mounting had to drop out after his freshman year. Another Landry graduate said he feels at home at Brown in his junior year, has maintained good grades and was recently accepted into a program that prepares students to pursue a doctoral degree. 

The student in the most viral video, who spent only a short time at Landry, is in his first semester at Harvard. Other Landry students have been admitted to Harvard over the past three years, but the university declined to provide information on their status.