School doesn’t celebrate high achieving kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. So just knowing your child is successful isn’t enough for you? You need the bragging rights and for everyone else to know just how great your kid is?

Maybe the school is highlighting things that help the community or highlighting students who may not otherwise receive any recognition. Maybe they’re hoping that these kids will continue to be excited about learning and helping others.

Sounds like your child already knows how to be a strong student and is used to being constantly praised and highlighted. Why do they need the continual public ego boost?

Who cares what parents say to their kids?

My kid sees the school recognizing others for this or that - kindness award, school athletes, but DC is invisible.

To me it feels that American public schools celebrate mediocrity, because I don’t see the outlier being celebrated and I know they are there from all kinds of families.

It is all kinds of families. It’s unremarkable when a high income family drives their kid to enrichment programs, tutors when it turns out their kid is average intellectually, SAT private and prep classes before taking the SAT test 4 times. Everything is calculated down to the weekly schedule.

Compare that to the kid who walks home to their public housing high rise. No one will be home until 9 pm after their shifts. The majority of kids living there are hanging out outside. This kid stays home and studies all afternoon. Self starter, ambitious, intelligent, doing their best. This kid would have loved a tutor to get their ACT up to a score of 33 but they got a 30 on their own. Not bad.

Seriously, who is more impressive?

Im my opinion, the question is the amount of effort. There are kids who get to 35-36 without tutors. So a score of 30 is not great. It’s like participation trophy - yay, you did some work.

And if a kid has a tutor it still takes hours and hours of practice to get to that level. There is no magic.

It’s really obnoxious to claim 30 score is “not great”. A 30 on the ACT test puts them in the 95th percentile. In case you don’t understand this means that they did better than about 95% of test takers. A 30 and up is considered excellent.

How ignorant are you? And please don’t claim that everyone “in your circle” has kids who get 35 and 36 because that would be a lie.

A 30 is not great compared to a 35. It's completely illogical to celebrate a (possibly heavily prepped) 30 but not a (possibly self-studied) 35.

You know people like the op, people upset that other kids are getting recognition, their kids go to prep classes and tutors. You can’t seem to comprehend that it’s not about the highest score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Publics are like this. We can’t even announce honor roll any more because we might hurt people’s feelings. We can’t rank students.

The school feels perfectly comfortable hurting the feelings of people like OP, so hurt feelings isn't really an obstacle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. So just knowing your child is successful isn’t enough for you? You need the bragging rights and for everyone else to know just how great your kid is?

Maybe the school is highlighting things that help the community or highlighting students who may not otherwise receive any recognition. Maybe they’re hoping that these kids will continue to be excited about learning and helping others.

Sounds like your child already knows how to be a strong student and is used to being constantly praised and highlighted. Why do they need the continual public ego boost?

Who cares what parents say to their kids?

My kid sees the school recognizing others for this or that - kindness award, school athletes, but DC is invisible.

To me it feels that American public schools celebrate mediocrity, because I don’t see the outlier being celebrated and I know they are there from all kinds of families.

It is all kinds of families. It’s unremarkable when a high income family drives their kid to enrichment programs, tutors when it turns out their kid is average intellectually, SAT private and prep classes before taking the SAT test 4 times. Everything is calculated down to the weekly schedule.

Compare that to the kid who walks home to their public housing high rise. No one will be home until 9 pm after their shifts. The majority of kids living there are hanging out outside. This kid stays home and studies all afternoon. Self starter, ambitious, intelligent, doing their best. This kid would have loved a tutor to get their ACT up to a score of 33 but they got a 30 on their own. Not bad.

Seriously, who is more impressive?

Im my opinion, the question is the amount of effort. There are kids who get to 35-36 without tutors. So a score of 30 is not great. It’s like participation trophy - yay, you did some work.

And if a kid has a tutor it still takes hours and hours of practice to get to that level. There is no magic.

It’s really obnoxious to claim 30 score is “not great”. A 30 on the ACT test puts them in the 95th percentile. In case you don’t understand this means that they did better than about 95% of test takers. A 30 and up is considered excellent.

How ignorant are you? And please don’t claim that everyone “in your circle” has kids who get 35 and 36 because that would be a lie.

A 30 is not great compared to a 35. It's completely illogical to celebrate a (possibly heavily prepped) 30 but not a (possibly self-studied) 35.

You know people like the op, people upset that other kids are getting recognition, their kids go to prep classes and tutors. You can’t seem to comprehend that it’s not about the highest score.

Please explain why a heavily prepped 30 is worthy of school-wide celebration while a self-studied 35 isn't.

You don't know if OP's kids are heavily prepped, or if the kids who got a 30 are self studying.

Should the school also neglect to celebrate their sports teams, since most of those kids are heavily coached?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Publics are like this. We can’t even announce honor roll any more because we might hurt people’s feelings. We can’t rank students.

The school feels perfectly comfortable hurting the feelings of people like OP, so hurt feelings isn't really an obstacle.

Hurting the mother’s feelings? WTF? There’s something wrong here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Publics are like this. We can’t even announce honor roll any more because we might hurt people’s feelings. We can’t rank students.

The school feels perfectly comfortable hurting the feelings of people like OP, so hurt feelings isn't really an obstacle.

Hurting the mother’s feelings? WTF? There’s something wrong here.

What exactly is wrong with what I said?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: The struggling students need the support and encouragement. Don’t be small.

Exactly, this is what the culture has become - don’t make low performing students feel bad, don’t eclipse them with your achievements, you are making others feel bad if you talk about your accomplishments, keep it to yourself.

It feels like socialism.

Ironically, I’ve just read in Reddit about low income students who had to work 20 hours/week in a restaurant since twelve, yet excelled academically and got into Ivies schools with full scholarships.

How is that "ironic?" Explain it to me like I'm five.

When you're done with that, explain how this is socialism. Explain THAT to me like I'm five. Use citations and references.

And your trope of a response is eyeroll inducing. Especially since you sound like you're dumb as shit.

NP. Equity is a Marxist concept in which resources are redistributed unequally to achieve equal outcomes. Because it's impossible to raise the bottom much, the top is dragged down quite a bit. Progressive school districts tout equity (not equality) and implement many policies toward this goal. That's how it's socialist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is just a vent.

DC switched from private to a magnet public in high school. On paper they looked good. In reality, the admins in this school are either very incompetent or have some weird agenda.

They celebrate no child left behind level of activities - students built a drying rack for firefighters or students got 30 on ACT, but they tone down high achieving kids.

They have news letters, social media, podcast where the school constantly advertises itself.

DC did was a huge success story for a local STEM state program - selected one of 40 from 800 applicants for an internship, scored the highest in their contest and got 1st prize, was featured in state magazine for this. Not a sound from the school.

I see the old school posting about students’ awards, wins, recognition. “We are very proud of Larla for being the only student chosen for this super internship.”

DC was selected for a top ranked national research program, the one that picks 20 kids from the entire country and very high stats kids often don’t get in. The school doesn’t care. Not a word.

DC is going to be a national merit semifinalist - not a sound.

So yeah, I’m holding a grudge.

So I have a different take on this.

I was a high performing student. When admin realized I had earned 2/3 of the awards for 6th grade, they approached me and said they wanted me to pick two for the yearly awards banquet. I received the rest in a folder with the second.

They didn't change the awards or come up with extra awards for other 6th graders, but they did elect to not rub it in the other students' faces. 7th and 8th grade awards were done normally, as far as I know.

This stuck with me. It was the first year that my cohort clapped for me every time I went up, and the first time that I didn't get any dirty looks or nasty comments during the rest of the school year.

So my question is this: How much recognition has your DC already gotten? There's a difference between getting *no* recognition for top performance and getting a level of recognition that is commensurate with the effort that other top performing students get while the school also highlights some things for other students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is just a vent.

DC switched from private to a magnet public in high school. On paper they looked good. In reality, the admins in this school are either very incompetent or have some weird agenda.

They celebrate no child left behind level of activities - students built a drying rack for firefighters or students got 30 on ACT, but they tone down high achieving kids.

They have news letters, social media, podcast where the school constantly advertises itself.

DC did was a huge success story for a local STEM state program - selected one of 40 from 800 applicants for an internship, scored the highest in their contest and got 1st prize, was featured in state magazine for this. Not a sound from the school.

I see the old school posting about students’ awards, wins, recognition. “We are very proud of Larla for being the only student chosen for this super internship.”

DC was selected for a top ranked national research program, the one that picks 20 kids from the entire country and very high stats kids often don’t get in. The school doesn’t care. Not a word.

DC is going to be a national merit semifinalist - not a sound.

So yeah, I’m holding a grudge.

So I have a different take on this.

I was a high performing student. When admin realized I had earned 2/3 of the awards for 6th grade, they approached me and said they wanted me to pick two for the yearly awards banquet. I received the rest in a folder with the second.

They didn't change the awards or come up with extra awards for other 6th graders, but they did elect to not rub it in the other students' faces. 7th and 8th grade awards were done normally, as far as I know.

This stuck with me. It was the first year that my cohort clapped for me every time I went up, and the first time that I didn't get any dirty looks or nasty comments during the rest of the school year.

So my question is this: How much recognition has your DC already gotten? There's a difference between getting *no* recognition for top performance and getting a level of recognition that is commensurate with the effort that other top performing students get while the school also highlights some things for other students.

That would be tough for a sixth grader if there were, say, 20 awards and she got 15 of them. A lot of pressure on them. What were these awards and how were they decided?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Publics are like this. We can’t even announce honor roll any more because we might hurt people’s feelings. We can’t rank students.

Ranking students doesn’t even make sense. How could you possibly need that information.

It was done for decades. They still use Latin honors so why not just rank. It’s like we can’t acknowledge the hard work put in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Publics are like this. We can’t even announce honor roll any more because we might hurt people’s feelings. We can’t rank students.

Ranking students doesn’t even make sense. How could you possibly need that information.

It was done for decades. They still use Latin honors so why not just rank. It’s like we can’t acknowledge the hard work put in.

Who’s to say which student put in the hardest work? There can be ten students who are separated by .1 gpa. There’s also the brilliant hardworking artists or students focused on the humanities who don’t take all of the APs just so they can get to a top college. It’s like trying to compare apples and oranges. We’ve come a long way over the decades in understanding there are many types of intelligence, all having value. It’s an outdated system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Publics are like this. We can’t even announce honor roll any more because we might hurt people’s feelings. We can’t rank students.

Ranking students doesn’t even make sense. How could you possibly need that information.

It was done for decades. They still use Latin honors so why not just rank. It’s like we can’t acknowledge the hard work put in.

Because latin honors gets at "these are the top students who should be recognized" without getting into the ridiculous games kids play to maximize their ranking. There is no meaningful difference between the kid with a 4.564 and a 4.559, but those kids could be 20 slots apart. So kids game the system and don't take classes they WANT to take, because they feel like they can't risk not maxxing out APs or IBs or honors. Ranking kids damages their education and tells you literally nothing about their success or abilities that Latin honors don't also do.

[Anonymous]

Everyone gets an A except for a teacher working 70 hrs per week. They get fired because admin forced them to grade fraud and MCEA had no ability to protect teachers against retaliation.

[Anonymous]

I think there is way too much academic and extra-curricular pressure for schools to celebrate such achievements, OP.

But also, schools celebrate sports achievements, which I think is unfair. Sports dominate the culture in this country to a ridiculous degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone gets an A except for a teacher working 70 hrs per week. They get fired because admin forced them to grade fraud and MCEA had no ability to protect teachers against retaliation.

Why would admin fire a teacher for doing what they were told?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think there is way too much academic and extra-curricular pressure for schools to celebrate such achievements, OP.

Then why is OPs school celebrating academic achievement?