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Regarding the changes to summa cum laude (Poll Closed)

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Total Votes: 180
3 Comments

  • Winston Weinmann - 13 years ago

    The poll is not as helpful as it could be, because you can only check one the four options, but the answers listed are not mutually exclusive. For example, one could agree with the first option, that it's good that all students who qualify can earn distinction, and still agree that it's bad that the distinction is based on GPA, still want to make a comment, and perhaps still have an "other" category that could be listed.

    And as with any poll, if you don't ask the right question(s) you won't get useful answers. For example, what if some parents are concerned that the summa cum laude designation is in part a replacement for the previous, broader, system of course by course recognition. The poll presents it solely as a replacement for the valedictorian status, but the course recognition was dropped at the same time. The new system leaves out a child who excels in a particular area, but not in all areas.

    And the poll does not even start to address whether it's a good idea to have all these honors for junior high students.

    As to there being no comments on the blog, I'd ascribe this almost entirely to people being new to that form of communication, rather than a lack of interest in commenting. My own inclination is to first either send an email to Bo or to a PAWS rep as those are private commmunications. A blog comment is public (although you don't have to enter your name.) Also, many, maybe most, online fora require that you register to comment. (This was my assumption before leaving this post.) Who wants yet another login? And what's going to happen to my email address on a a website named "polldaddy.com"?

  • ... - 13 years ago

    I absolutely agree!
    I think this system will challenge students to aim higher.
    Students will be encouraged to work harder in an effort to receive this distinctive award.

  • Robert A. Gist, JD - 13 years ago

    Congratulations! An academic system which demands and encourages excellence must reward excellence when it is achieved. Where exellence is achieved by many,
    many, then, should be honored/recognized; if not because they earned it, then out of equity and fairness. Spock, in the movie Star Trek, said it well, and rightfully so, when he said..."the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the one, or the few". The interest of the many, while basic and fundamental to our academic system, should never be underminded by the very system which serves that interest. A failure to reward an achiever for his/her achievements is tanamount to a system that fails the very students it shapes.

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