<p>There is no way I would have let my son participate in this program. It’s absurd. At my son’s high school the honor grads (top 10%) not only wear special ribbons (that’s fine with me), they graduate first! They read through all the honor students alphabetically, recognize them as such and then the rest of the class is graduated. I had no idea that would happen and I was not happy to see it, even though my son was an honor grad.</p>
<p>I thought to myself, “Where is the recognition of those who are first generation high school grads? Of the several teen moms who managed to graduate on-time? Of the kids who’d been homeless at one time during their high school years?” and so on.</p>
<p>None of that stuff matters, except the first one. All those other ones matter only in, as my dad said,
“character”.</p>
<p>The first one, however, is important. But the point is to incentivize the people to do well. The only people that giving recognition to 1st gen. HS grads would be HS dropouts, who are unlikely to go to graduation.</p>
<p>I find it funny that many say jocks are more recognized than nerds and are treated better. I’m somewhat of both and I certainly do not seeing that happen… I mean really, what do jocks have that nerds don’t have an equivalent of? and fact of the matter is being a “jock” is way harder than being a “nerd”. All the so called “hard” problems I’ve had in my classes are nothing compared to sprinting till your heart is about to burst in 30 degree weather with only sweats on and a coach yelling at you constantly.</p>
<p>I would never participate in such a program. As if being smart (if we assume the test score bar mark is a good measure of that at all) should allow one to say that he/she is better than others and can cut lines for something as vital and universal as food! It’s ridiculous! Smartness, athleticism, none of that makes one person better than another. You’d be a fool to think so.</p>
<p>I was surprised to find out that our high school distinguishes between those graduates who have a 4.0+ (a high number due to the number of AP classes taken/passed) with a different-colored gown. These graduates also got to sit towards the front of the rest of the crowd.</p>
<p>At my son’s “commencement” last year, they announced that all who wore the cap & gown were not graduating and that some were only getting certificates of attendance. The diplomas & cerificates were handed out in private so that those who had not actually graduated would not have hurt feelings. Also those who were at the top of the class academically were not recognized in any way because that would be hard on the others.</p>
<p>That is what is wrong with this country. We need to be more like China/Japan where, as another poster said, they post everyones scores on a big wall. We are turning into the country of the participation trophy.</p>
<p>I think that there is an obvious problem with this procedure, and it damn well should have been made illegal. Sure people with higher standardized test scores should be rewarded, but guess what, they do get rewarded. It’s what standardized tests are for. They get you better scholarship and admission chances. So why do people who score high on the SATs need to wear a badge and wait in a separate lunch line?</p>
<p>I hate with a passion the participation trophy, but this is crude and a violation of privacy. If the kids wanna make people who are intellectually inferior to them make others feel inferior, they can do it without a badge.</p>
<p>“Sure people with higher standardized test scores should be rewarded, but guess what, they do get rewarded. It’s what standardized tests are for.”</p>
<p>I believe this is the crux of this matter. For these particular standardized tests the test takers do not get rewarded. These are STAR test scores. They don’t go on transcripts and no college is interested in seeing them. They are meant to test if the teachers are teaching to the state standards. However, if a normally bright student uses their time to make dot pictures of birds, there is nothing the teachers, or the school, can do about it.High school students have many standardized tests they need to try to do well on. In their minds, this test is not one of them.</p>
<p>California schools in general, and high schools in particular, are all trying to come up with something that will make the students care about this test. This was an attempt by one high school to come up with a reward for students who actually try on this particular test.</p>
<p>Personally, I did very well in high school but would feel like I was showing off if I flashed my “special card” or were given special privileges. We were given awards based on our achievements at the end of the year on the second to last day of school at an awards ceremony if we deserved recognition. And if we did well on a test or in a class, people knew, we talked! People knew who the smart kids were.</p>
<p>As to the post that brought up sports, as a girl playing basketball and softball, we did brag a little after a win, but I always thought that was bragging for the whole school beating another school. The real recognition that paid off in the long run was my academic achievements, not winning a softball game, although I did learn a lot from sports.</p>
<p>At our HS all seniors start out with the same privileges, which include front of the lunch line and a separate dining area. They lose those privileges for breaking the rules. It’s pretty easy to predict who won’t be driving to school or eating in the senior lounge by October. Honor grads are recognized at graduation, walk at the front of the line, wear a special tassel, etc…and of course they’re usually recognized individually, and lucratively, at the senior awards night but only awardees and their families are in attendance.</p>
<p>my advice would be to work harder and they can achieve the same.</p>
<p>IMO, the inherent problem is that, under this (reward top scorers) philo, we are asking all kids to march to the same drummer, aim for the same levels in the same challenges. One of my complaints about pre-college is the lack of avenues to recognize those who tow their own line. Or, who have perfectly reasonable alternate skills that get missed in the competition for narrowly defined top attention. </p>
<p>Of course, all should have certain academic skill levels- but there are no “perfect” means to test these in the context of each kid’s life direction. No, I don’t think every kid should get some award for something. Life’s not like that. But, different kids knock themselves out and do well in different respects. Not all kids are desperate for a shot at HYPXYZ.</p>
<p>In my opinion, high standardized test scores are not really an academic achievement. (I was a high scorer, and it was innate, sort of like my eye color.) Grades, attendance, not getting in trouble, volunteering – these things entail sustained effort, and are as worthy of praise as athletic or artistic achievement. And I think most schools do praise these things, starting with the honor roll.</p>
the situations don’t matter; the results matter.
Recognize homeless kids? No.
1)who wants the world to know they were/are homeless
2)yes, a difficult situation to rise against but the situations don’t matter; the results matter.
First gen kids? No.
1)yes, a difficult situation to rise against but the situations don’t matter; the results matter.</p>
<p>@ the guy who said he wouldn’t take part in it and said “As if being smart (if we assume the test score bar mark is a good measure of that at all) should allow one to say that he/she is better than others and can cut lines for something as vital and universal as food!”
Ignoring the “better than others” part, they just get their pick of the food first. At my school, there are only so many really good pieces of pizza to go around. Why not give it to the kids who worked harder? The slackers aren’t denied their food.
and @ his second part “Smartness, athleticism, none of that makes one person better than another.” Yes it does. Get out of fairy-land. It might not make you a “better person,” but does make you better than someone else at certain things, and those correlate with success in life, success meaning a decent income and assets.</p>
<p>^uhm, THE SITUATIONS DO MATTER! That’s like saying the end justifies the process. Can you seriously compare a kid who has to work 5 hours a day everyday of the week and who gets like a 3.7 and 2000 SAT with someone who doesn’t have to work and is tutored in every subject and gets like a 3.9 and a 2200? If I were an admissions counselor, I would definitely give the working kid a higher chance.</p>
<p>and most likely doesn’t equal always…You do realize that there is something called rape right?</p>
<p>What if someone was to propose an argument that the ACT and SAT are taking too seriously in terms of measuring intelligence. Did Bill Gates make a perfect SAT score? Sure. Would Ernest Hemingway? No. The problem is the education department is so worried about standardized test scores that they fail to realize the decaying system. Teachers are told what to teach and if ACT and SAT scores are good they must be great. So lets say an intelligent kid scores less than someone they feel they are smarter than, then you have a kid questioning himself/herself and it lowers self-esteem. If teachers would teach more though provoking lessons that require students to think outside of the box it would open new doors, and better education as a whole. It isn’t uncommon to one to envy someone else for physical being, I’m not saying this is right, but it has existed forever. Kids with higher GPA’s shouldn’t require any special attention;they know they are going to college, work hard, and in the end I have yet to hear a complaint from them. Students should want to better themselves intellectually, but don’t do it through standardized test scores.</p>
<p>About the certificates of attendance mentioned above by socialdramamama, around here those are given to special ed kids with severe limitations who have completed the program that was set before them, but are not qualified to receive a diploma because the courses required for the diploma were beyond their abilities. It would probably be a violation of FERPA to announce who did not complete the true diploma, and most people would probably agree that there is no reason to exclude them from the graduation celebration when, after all, they hung in there and satisfactorily completed their program.</p>
<p>It’s one thing to recognize a person’s accomplishments, even to post their rankings as we are informed China and Japan do. It is quite another to publicly scorn those who are less intelligent by moving them to the back of the food line. I don’t care how intelligent the child is, we do civilization a disservice when we teach them to be rude, craven opportunists who put themselves ahead of all else and who must have an external reinforcer to do their best. Any genuine internal motivation is then displaced by the constant need to be rewarded by others, which is often a significant problem later in life for those athletes who appear to have had it so easy in high school. We need to learn from the system rather than clamoring to be like those who have been perhaps unreasonably elevated.</p>