Supreme Court Justice appointment

A young lad that I know (no names to protect the innocent), took a social studies test last week, and one of the questions on his test was:

"What qualifications should a President look for when appointing a new justice to the Supreme Court".

His response was very interesting, especially when I found out that he didn't realize that the President had recently appointed two new justices. The teacher didn't accept his answer, but based on what you hear on the news you would think this was the major qualification:

"If the President is Republican, he should pick a Republican. If he is a Democrat, then he should pick a Democrat."

Of course that' s not what the teacher was teaching him, but that's what he thought. I can only assume he "learned" that from listening to news / political commentary.?