T.M. Landry College Preparatory, a scrappy independent school in Breaux Bridge, La., gained fame over the past five years for sending many of its underprivileged African American students off to Ivy League colleges. The school’s YouTube videos of acceptance notifications frequently went viral (one, of an admission to Harvard, has been viewed more than 8 million times). Its inspirational students were fodder for feel-good morning TV shows.
But last month, the New York Times published a report that revealed Landry was not all it seemed. As it turned out, the school’s administration forged transcripts and confected harrowing life stories to appeal to college admissions officers, and abused its students in pursuit of high test scores while neglecting to teach some of the basics of writing and math. Its founder, Michael Landry, pitted black and white students against each other, forced students to kneel for long periods, and at times choked and hit them.
Even so, Landry remained defiant. “Write whatever you want to write about us,” he told a Times reporter. “But at the end of the day, my sister, if we got kids at Harvard every day, I’m going to fight for Harvard.”
The story is appalling, and it appeared at a moment when it is clear that our obsession with elite education is out of control. America’s deification of schools like Harvard, Princeton and Yale distorts everything in their orbit — and far too much is.
T.M. Landry was able to go unnoticed because it hid behind our most favored marker of success: Ivy League admissions. The school sent 50 graduates over five years to Stanford, Princeton, Harvard and Brown, among other top universities, so it must have been doing something right. (Brett Kavanaugh went to Yale! Shouldn’t we all aspire?)