I was still working in a public school when "No Child Left Behind" began the race to the bottom...

Staff used to comment that if no child is left behind, then by definition, no child is allowed to get ahead!

Tough call on how to spend dollars - especially in high schools where some choose not to learn no matter how much money is spent, but the article highlights a no-cost choice made by an administration. Sad.

That is nuts.

Harrison Bergeron was supposed to be satire.

quote:

Harrison Bergeron

Thanks for recalling that name. I remember reading that story when I was a high school student. I didn't take it as satire but as a warning of dystopian possibilities which clearly have come to pass in parts of our society.

Big Al

OMG that’s ridiculous!

But why wouldn’t National Merit notify those students directly, if it’s something the students could use in their college applications? I’m sure they notify the semi-finalists, finalists, and National Merit Scholarship winners (partly because there’s more in the application process).

My older kid was a Commended Student. The Commended Student letter was a surprise, but it didn’t feel like a big deal.

My younger kid was a National Merit Scholar. Me too!

OMG.

How absolutely awful, misguided, and just completely ignorant.

I hope the parents sue the sh*t out of that school.

I know two kids who went to that school, and it has a rigorous application process. It also has an incredibly demanding workload. You have to really want to be there and you have to work hard to make it through. The idea that a place like that is afraid of hurting a kid's feelings because someone else did better than they did ... it just boggles my mind.

This is a high school version of "everybody gets a medal!" That might be appropriate in elementary school, but at some point kids need to understand that the real world involves competition. There's one job opening and 100 applicants, and there will be only one person hired. Lots of people would like to be professional football players or actors or university professors, but those jobs are hard to come by and there are far fewer jobs than people who'd like to have them. I do wonder if there is any linkage between what I perceive to be an increased incidence of serious mental health issues among teens and young adults and our shift toward making sure that they don't experience the unwelcome effects of competition at an early age.

Quirt, I don’t think you meant the word “not” in your last sentence.

quote:

Originally posted by RealPlayer:
Quirt, I don’t think you meant the word “not” in your last sentence.

Thanks, you are right, I will edit.

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:
I do wonder if there is any linkage between what I perceive to be an increased incidence of serious mental health issues among teens and young adults and our shift toward making sure that they don't experience the unwelcome effects of competition at an early age.

I think this must surely be an element. Experiencing failure, and living to see the next day, getting up and getting right back into the game… knowing that failure doesn’t define you or mean you’re worthless… knowing that even if you “failed,” it was worth doing… being able to enjoy doing something without being the best at it…

I don’t know how resilience can be developed without experiencing these things.

I'm not convinced that that story is more than another chapter in America's angertainment literature. For starters, National Merit information flows outward in many ways. Hard to imagine that some cranky principal is the only gatekeeper for information. I was notified directly by the College Board back in the day.

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
I'm not convinced that that story is more than another chapter in America's angertainment literature. For starters, National Merit information flows outward in many ways. Hard to imagine that some cranky principal is the only gatekeeper for information. I was notified directly by the College Board back in the day.

The article quotes the National Merit letter to the principal:

quote:

On September 16 of this year, National Merit sent a letter to Bonitatibus listing 240 students recognized as Commended Students or Semi-Finalists. The letter included these words in bold type: “Please present the letters of commendation as soon as possible since it is the students’ only notification.”

Unless you think the reporter (a former WSJ reporter, so some credentials) is lying in quoting the letter, the school officials, the Fairfax County administrators, etc.

jeez

quote:

Unless you think the reporter (a former WSJ reporter, so some credentials) is lying in quoting the letter, the school officials, the Fairfax County administrators, etc.

Nope, just an oversight on my part.

That's wrong. Students should be notified directly. No admin should be a gatekeeper.