TM Landry College Prep Scandal

Many of the recent blog posts have been discussing college admissions and affirmative action. The goal of affirmative action is to increase diversity in schools and help minority students get into more elite colleges. The lack of diversity in colleges and inequality when applying to schools has been a known problem for a long time. It is such a problem that one school in Louisiana, TM Landry College Preparatory School, is now under investigation for cutting corners and doctoring their student's college applications. Dozens of former students and teachers reported the school to the FBI for embellishing college applications with fake transcripts, nonexistent extracurriculars, and fake stories of hardships in recommendation letters. While the FBI discovered that the TM Landry did doctor the applications of their students they also discovered the reasoning behind it. They discovered in Lafayette, the town of TM Landry, the graduation rate of white students was significantly higher than the graduation rate of black students. They also discovered that this was not only a local problem. Low-income black and Latino students are significantly more likely to be assigned to a worse public school than white students. The couple that opened the TM Landry College Preparatory School aimed to create more equality within the education system which proved to be very difficult because even though they improved graduation rates they still had to deal with the challenges of getting their students into college. While the allegations against TM Landry are very serious many understand their actions and the parents believe that the environment of these charter schools helps to eliminate years of educational disadvantage. While I believe the actions of the TM Landry Prep School were wrong and they should not have faked their college applications but it also demonstrates the inequality within the American Education System.