NY Schools doing away with Valedictorian awards

[AnglingBoi]

interesting to see how that plays out, thanks for the link

 

[JDenver]

You know, the Communist did the same thing. No rewards for excellence except a 'Hero of the Soviet Union' tin medal that would not buy you even a cup of coffee.

It's always like that in socialist countries and you would be surpassed how unions do that alot do. So it does not surprise me schools up north would do that do.

They don't like standouts. Standouts means individualism, and individualism is the enemy of the socialistic systems (unless you are one of the ruling class, then that's another matter.)

In the schools up north you are all equal, but some are more equal than others.

Next you will see the old slogan, “each according to their ability, each according to their needs’. And that means the committees decide what you will do and what you will get. And don’t look to good in front of them, comrade.

Deaf

Interesting theory.

I'm gonna say it's more a contemporary product of parents raising children with the belief that the child is their 'friend' and that household decisions should be debated equally amongst everyone (even the children).

Seriously, blaming the spectre of socialism for society's ills is so 1950.

 

[Archangel M]

Another episode in our drive to mediocrity.

 

[Deaf Smith]

Seriously, blaming the spectre of socialism for society's ills is so 1950.

Not all of society's ills, just socialism's ills. Mediocrity is so, well, modern.

Deaf

 

[Marginal]

In the New World Order nobody will shine, we will all be the same.

Won't that be just great?

We're already all equal. The only difference is the size of our bootstraps and how hard we tug.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Your thoughts?

I spent several years working for the Education department of the state in question and since they had long meetings about the political correctness of the word "it" on a webpage and meetings to discuss what will be discussed in the next meeting nothing would surprise me but this appears to be from the school system not the Ed Dept and still when you are talking education in NY...nothing surprises me anymore not matter how silly and/or stupid it is and this is just plain silly and stupid.

 

[celtic_crippler]

...still when you are talking education in NY...nothing surprises me anymore not matter how silly and/or stupid it is and this is just plain silly and stupid.

Ah...so that's the meaning of "moron" in oxymoron!

 

[Xue Sheng]

Ah...so that's the meaning of "moron" in oxymoron!

yup

 

[Stac3y]

Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" should be required reading. I highly recommend it.

 

[celtic_crippler]

Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" should be required reading. I highly recommend it.

Maybe we should first focus on making sure high school graduates can actually read first. :idea:


...now...where did I put my bootstraps?

 

[Stac3y]

Maybe we should first focus on making sure high school graduates can actually read first. :idea:


...now...where did I put my bootstraps?

I meant by the general public, not necessarily as an addition to high school curricula. Are any of you familiar with the story? In it, to make things "fair," beautiful people are made to wear masks, graceful people to wear weights on their limbs, etc. Same kind of idea as not rewarding academic excellence, or not allowing kids to play competitive games, IMO.

 

[celtic_crippler]

I meant by the general public, not necessarily as an addition to high school curricula. Are any of you familiar with the story? In it, to make things "fair," beautiful people are made to wear masks, graceful people to wear weights on their limbs, etc. Same kind of idea as not rewarding academic excellence, or not allowing kids to play competitive games, IMO.

Yes, I'm familiar with it and agree that many could improve themselves by reading in general!

And why not make it required High School reading? It'd be a lot better than having to read "On the Beach." Man, what a snoozer that was!

 

[Phoenix44]

I wonder what the backstory is here.

The backstory here is parental pressure. Most likely it's a parent who is active in the PTA or school board, and whose little darling isn't a Rhodes Scholar.

Our school district recently stopped ranking students by GPA (although they DID maintain the valedictorian and salutatorian, go figure).

But THAT is the reason. It has nothing to do with political correctness.

 

[Phoenix44]

And just to set the record straight: Central York is in Pennsylvania, not New York.

 

[Xue Sheng]

The backstory here is parental pressure. Most likely it's a parent who is active in the PTA or school board, and whose little darling isn't a Rhodes Scholar.

Our school district recently stopped ranking students by GPA (although they DID maintain the valedictorian and salutatorian, go figure).

But THAT is the reason. It has nothing to do with political correctness.

But it is much like Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron"

So it is not good to be outstanding at anything because if you are we will insist that you are not. Which still edges political correctness in that no one is to be thought of as better than anyone in any way what-so-ever. It just isn't fair is someone is given an awarded to show that they worked hard and did better when others didn't

albeit it is coming from the parents who are putting pressure on the school, the school still caved

 

[Phoenix44]

Why is this whole concept so shocking anyway? It's been headed this way for decades.

Academic scholarships are few and far between, while pretty much all NCAA Division I students get large scholarships, sometimes full tuition and fees. And if you argue that, "Sports makes money for the school, academics doesn't," that just adds to my argument.

When a kid is the winning quarterback, they do a bio in the local newspaper. As a matter of fact, EVERY sports activity is reported in the local newspaper. High academic achievers? You have to win the Intel Competition for that.

Whatever. But as I said, it's not a political matter, it's a personal one, and guaranteed, it involves a PTA mom.

 

[celtic_crippler]

Why is this whole concept so shocking anyway? It's been headed this way for decades.

Academic scholarships are few and far between, while pretty much all NCAA Division I students get large scholarships, sometimes full tuition and fees. And if you argue that, "Sports makes money for the school, academics doesn't," that just adds to my argument.

When a kid is the winning quarterback, they do a bio in the local newspaper. As a matter of fact, EVERY sports activity is reported in the local newspaper. High academic achievers? You have to win the Intel Competition for that.

Whatever. But as I said, it's not a political matter, it's a personal one, and guaranteed, it involves a PTA mom.

Sigh...yeah... Our priorities are pretty screwed up aren't they....

..latter days of Rome...latter days of Rome.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Why is this whole concept so shocking anyway? It's been headed this way for decades.

Academic scholarships are few and far between, while pretty much all NCAA Division I students get large scholarships, sometimes full tuition and fees. And if you argue that, "Sports makes money for the school, academics doesn't," that just adds to my argument.

When a kid is the winning quarterback, they do a bio in the local newspaper. As a matter of fact, EVERY sports activity is reported in the local newspaper. High academic achievers? You have to win the Intel Competition for that.

Whatever. But as I said, it's not a political matter, it's a personal one, and guaranteed, it involves a PTA mom.

Never said it was shocking, as a matter of fact my first post in this thread I said I was not surprised at all. Did say it is still bases in being politically correct.

Still the lack of shock does not make it right and doing this because of some misplaced ideal about equality does not make it right either.

But you are likely right, it likely started with a PTA mom (or dad) and to be honest if the school didn’t cave eventually the Ed Department would have…. That is if they were still not devoting so much time to debating the political correctness of the word ‘it’

 

[blindsage]

I don't think they should get rid of the rankings or awards, and I do think we should recognize and honor achievement, but I often question the reality of those recognitions and awards.

As was said before there are a number of people who work the system to get the best GPA, but don't take harder classes, are they really representative of the hardest working and most accomplished? When I was in college I took classes with a quite a few high school high performers who were completely useless when they had to engage in actual discussion of studied material and had to show their critical comprehension of it. Is that representative of our best and brightest?

The valedictorian at my school worked hard and was smart, but she was kind of a d-bag, and her speech at graduation was the one of the most convoluted, indecipherable, pretentious pieces of poetry masquerading as prose that I have ever heard, we all sat around looking at eachother with WTF looks on our faces. I still laugh about it today.

When I was in college I lived with a guy who was extremely gifted in memorization skills, he's going to med school now to be a neuro-surgeon. But he has to work significantly less hard than a lot of his peers because of how much less he has to study. He used to cram 24 hours before a test without having looked at the material, and still sget one of the top two scores every time. I think he should be acknowledged for his high achievement, but I think there should also be some recognition that others have put in more work to get to the same place, and that his gifts don't necessarily make him smarter than the harder workers in terms of comprehension and application of knowledge. And while his gifts allow him high achievement in one avenue, they don't necessarily mean squat in related areas like medical ethics.

Achievement is great and should be strived for and recognized, but we also have to recognize the limits of what that achievement actually means.

 

[Twin Fist]

we also have to recognize the limits of what that achievement actually means.

this makes no sense what so ever