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I happen to know this particular school. It's in an area with a high Asian population. Which probably brought race into the meetings on this somewhere along the line. I'll assume fuming and yelling was involved.
Good point. Students can be intelligent/gifted but not score highly on standardized tests. Would this ID be more acceptable if it was based on report cards instead of a standardized test?
Trouble is that report cards are much more subjective, and if the student is very "likeable" he/she will have inflated grades. Standardized tests do away with the popularity grade.
I remember going through high school with a friend who was smart, studied hard, and was very outgoing and personable. We were in all the same classes together and invariably we were neck and neck for the highest scores on tests, but she'd always pull off the A at the end of the semester, and I'd sometimes get an A-.
When it came time to take the standardized Advanced Placement tests (English and American history), it was expected that she'd get 5s, and I would probably get 4s (even I thought that). Amazingly, she only got 3s on both tests, while I got the two 5s. Nobody could believe it. I was later talking to our AP history teacher, and she confessed to me that she had always subconsciously thought my friend was the smartest one in class, and she ranked me just behind my friend.
I happen to know this particular school. It's in an area with a high Asian population. Which probably brought race into the meetings on this somewhere along the line. I'll assume fuming and yelling was involved.
The school itself does not exactly have a high Asian percentage, though. It's actually very close between Hispanic, White, and Asian. It's similar to how all of my schools were. Actually, out of those three, the Asian group is the smallest percentage.
I don't have a problem with acknowledging achievment, I do however have a problem with making one group appear superior over another. Don't our kids have a hard enough time fitting in in school, now we as adults are catagorizing them
From the article: Students with white cards--more than half of the 2,400-strong student body--had to stand in a separate cafeteria line at lunch and received no special privileges.
A separate cafeteria line...really?
"You see a lot of condescending attitudes toward everyone without a black card," Kennedy senior Kiana Miyamoto, who has a black card, told the Orange County Register. "One [International Baccalaureate] student said in class, 'Hey, you're in IB. Anyone who has a white card shouldn't even be in IB.' It's really sad to see people who have the black cards acting this way." Students with white cards told the paper their separate lunch line was much longer than the one for better-scoring students.
Good going all you well intentioned, but misguided adults, you have now given kids more reasons to bully other kids
Honestly why can't we just let kids be kids. Why do we always have to put more pressure on them.
Trouble is that report cards are much more subjective, and if the student is very "likeable" he/she will have inflated grades. Standardized tests do away with the popularity grade.
I remember going through high school with a friend who was smart, studied hard, and was very outgoing and personable. We were in all the same classes together and invariably we were neck and neck for the highest scores on tests, but she'd always pull off the A at the end of the semester, and I'd sometimes get an A-.
When it came time to take the standardized Advanced Placement tests (English and American history), it was expected that she'd get 5s, and I would probably get 4s (even I thought that). Amazingly, she only got 3s on both tests, while I got the two 5s. Nobody could believe it. I was later talking to our AP history teacher, and she confessed to me that she had always subconsciously thought my friend was the smartest one in class, and she ranked me just behind my friend.
So this girl would have a white card and folder even though she is what a straight A student. All because she doesn't do well taking tests.
The school itself does not exactly have a high Asian percentage, though. It's actually very close between Hispanic, White, and Asian. It's similar to how all of my schools were. Actually, out of those three, the Asian group is the smallest percentage.
I looked it up: White is highest at 47%. Asian 36, Hispanic 14, Black 3. Interesting.
Hmmm. I looked up its report card, and those are not the numbers it listed. Weird.
Not weird. Multiple sources for information. I'm inclined to trust your findings as you have a proven track record in these things, psr. (And I was in a hurry which is death to accurate research.)
It's about time high achievers got recognition for their hard work and intelligence. They certainly won't get it in society, and they'll be heavily taxed (punished) by government if they continue to work hard and succeed.
And "low esteem" is no longer the problem it was when I was growing up (1960s and 70s). The problem now is that younger generations have far too high an opinion of themselves, and think they deserve a life of luxury just because their parents always treated them like God's gift to the world (of course, the reason our generation raised kids like that was BECAUSE we had low self-esteem, and we desperately wanted our kids to like us and consider us their best friends).
Sports stars have always been given special privileges and recognition in school--something that makes no sense, since school should be about academics and not recreation. Even back when I was going to college, I didn't qualify for scholarships despite straight-As, because my family had a relatively high income (but only for 3 years, then my Dad had to retire early due to health). All the academic scholarships required you to be low income, while all the sports scholarships (and there were tons of them) ignored income altogether.
Our society seems to despise and look down on intelligence, although we heavily depend on those people to work hard keeping the nation's systems functional. Intelligence is NOT correlated to financial reward in our society, which is one of the reasons our economy is so dysfunctional--we reward arrogant Narcissism instead.
In the school system--the ONE time in life that high intelligence and learning ability are actually recognized--it seems that many are obsessed with pretending everyone is exactly the same, and everyone has equal value to society. Unfortunately, a school system is meant to differentiate between the most intelligent and the least, so that career paths can be decided. Doctors and engineers have to be pretty smart to get through their educations and careers, while graphic artists can be very intellectually challenged while still being superstars.
You do understand that "high achievers" "hard work" and "intelligence" are separate things? A person may be hard working and less intelligent, hard working and more intelligent, lazy and less intelligent or lazy and more intelligent. Standardized tests don't necessarily measure hard work. Doing well on standardized tests is often just that. Doing well on a test. Some people are very good at testing - regardless of actual knowledge AND some very knowledgeable people simply are poor test takers. And intelligence in and of itself is not an achievement.
Last edited by maciesmom; 10-05-2011 at 09:14 PM..
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(And I was in a hurry which is death to accurate research.)
