Saratoga High trying to ease grade pressure (Educrat dumbing-down education alert!)

San Jose Mercury News ^ | 5/4/05 | Maya Suryaraman

[SiliconValleyGuy]

Thanks for the ping.

The red highlighted portion of this makes me sick. And it's people who think that way who are diluting the American education system so that we can't compete in the world anymore. Damn them.

[Serenissima Venezia]

In college, grad school, or later in the real world, no one cares who was valedictorian or prom king or whatever.

But putting that you were a valedictorian of your graduating class on a resume would have more of a kick that putting you were a prom king!

[Serenissima Venezia]

And I suppose that at Saratoga's football games, both teams win as well.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

I graduated from Saratoga High School. It was considered 'Stanford Prep'.

I don't even recognize this as something my old alma mater would condone let alone endorse. We had some very successful people come out of Saratoga who were able to catch the beginning of the Internet bubble.

[ChildOfThe60s]

"There are kids at Saratoga who are working very, very hard in regular-track classes, who will never, ever be valedictorian under the current system,"

And ya know something? Some of those kids will be failures in life & some will be successes. But no one will be a success because you gave them an unearned award.

"What message does that send to those kids? I talk to these B students who feel like they've failed."

What message indeed?

1) You aren't aways going win.

2) Winning awards doesn't always equate with success

3) Failure is in your mind, not the school's

4) Quit the game because you don't win everytime and you will never even score, much less win.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Very nicely put.

This whole thing smacks of the "self-esteem" nonsense that plagues us. Self-esteem is earned through hard work and achievement, not leveling the playing field so everybody is mediocre and everybody can be a "champion." Our schools are run by idiots.