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But some people think that for every honor student, there's a kid with bruised feelings. And protecting the low feelings of a student is more important than celebrating another's high accomplishments. That's the message sent to schoolkids in Nashville last December.
It all started when several parents complained about a school publicizing the names of students who had made the honor roll and earned other academic distinctions. It seems those parents felt the list would harm the self-esteem of some non-honors students. "They were very concerned that ... [children] would feel ashamed or discouraged or left out because they weren't honored," one school official told the Nashville Tennessean.
Here's the kicker: The complaining adults weren't even upset about their own kids, who'd actually made honor roll. They were indignant on behalf of their kids' friends who hadn't. Who knew a simple honor roll could cause so much trouble? But it did. A school attorney discovered an old state law barring the release of students' academic information without parental consent. Suddenly, most Nashville schools stopped announcing their honor roll. One school declined to announce the winner of its spelling bee. One high school principal was told, to his amazement, that he couldn't release the names of high-scorers at basketball games. It became taboo to celebrate success.
Now for the sanity part: Some folks in Nashville had the good judgment to call this madness, and the honor rolls were eventually reinstituted (for kids whose parents consented, at least). But others still wanted to eliminate old-fashioned competition. The principal of one local school said that he just didn't believe in ranking students. In fact, he had done away with his school's honor roll before the statewide controversy. "I discourage competitive games at school," he told the Associated Press. "They just don't fit my worldview of what a school should be."
Come again? Competition has always been central to education, and for good reason. In the real world, results matter -- whether you're a mechanic or a house painter or an accountant.
And your abilities have never mattered more than today. Think for a minute about the outsourcing of jobs. Sure, companies are attracted to cheaper labor in places like India, but to thrive they also need skilled workers. That's just what they find there and in a number of other countries: well-educated, highly motivated workers. To compete in this global marketplace, our students have to be taught to excel.
Unfortunately, plenty of schools around the country are joining Nashville in watering down the traditional standards of success. For instance, you might assume that honoring one superstar as the class valedictorian every year is a rock-solid tradition. But school districts in a number of states are rethinking this practice.
"There are folks who are against the whole [valedictorian] idea because they don't like the competitiveness," says Michael Carr of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. One San Antonio principal told the local paper that naming valedictorians would clash with her school's "educational philosophy."
But kids are fighting back with lawsuits brought against schools, claiming they were denied their rightful title as valedictorian. These pressures are causing some schools to respond in really bizarre ways. In Texas, Indiana and Kentucky, several schools are parading 10 or more of their top students as "valedictorians" on graduation day -- making a joke out of a once-great honor. According to the dean of admissions at one California college, some high schools are honoring as many as 50 to 100 "valedictorians."
It's one thing to blur the differences between students when you're giving out awards. But this Kumbaya attitude has also seeped into classrooms, with potentially serious consequences. A school board in New Hampshire, concerned about undermining the self-image of kids, voted earlier this year to end the practice of breaking students into different groups and teaching them according to their ability. So now the school is "leveling" the groups and teaching everyone together. But tracking students makes good academic sense: It allows teachers to challenge the best students and give struggling kids the extra support they need, without wasting the time of either group. And who's to say that low-performing students will feel any better when they're in a classroom full of sharpies and can't keep up?
Some elementary schools have also moved away from letter and number grades, choosing instead commentary about students based on their achievements "in relation to their own effort and ability," as one education website puts it. And that has led to a lot of meaningless jargon. One Illinois school district gave up letter grades in favor of baffling commentary like "emerging," "developing," "exceed" and "modify." According to a local paper, "modify" signals that "changes need to be made in the curriculum to change the child's expectations" -- as if the curriculum, and not the child and his or her parents, is at fault.
No more honor rolls, valedictorians, letter grades -- how long before schools start to ban simple games like tag? Oh, wait: That happened at a Santa Monica, California, school just a couple of years ago. "In this game, there is a 'victim,' or 'It,' which creates a self-esteem issue," the principal explained in a newsletter to parents. Tag would no longer be allowed, unless supervised by adults. Your lesson for the day, kids: School is no place for winners.
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