I, like many of you, have a(many) smart child(ren). The grades that he brings home are admirable. In the past year and a half I have always assumed that he was on the honor roll but have never seen any proof of it. Until today.

As I was on the train perusing my copy of School Week (a publication I have come to appreciate, BTW...even though I am unsure of the goal of this weekly), on the second to last page was a copy of the Hadley Junior High Honor Roll for the Second Semester. My beliefs are confirmed. Right there! There is my son's name! He is a genius! Wait a minute...WTF??? How many fricken' kids are on this list? That's gotta be the majority of the school.

I think you can guess what I did next. I called Fish...rather he called me and I asked him if he knew the enrollment at Hadley. He did not...but he e-mailed me the number. 1,150. He says he counted 295 names on the 6th grade honor roll. I estimated that there were 240 in the 7th grade. And I don't care about the 8th graders...but there were a lot of them. By Fish's estimation...295 of the approximately 350 6th graders made the honor roll. My child...and his...merely run-of-the-mill. Nothing special, I guess. Poor kid.

Anyway...what is needed to make the Hadley Honor Roll? Anyone know the criteria for membership?

quote:

Originally posted by Clamato:
Anyway...what is needed to make the Hadley Honor Roll? Anyone know the criteria for membership?

A pulse?

LOL

I know this sounds horrible, but at our house we have always called it the Hadley Average Roll, for the very fact that it appears from the listing that the vast majority of students are simply super-duper and extra fan-tas-tic! The last time I saw this listing at school, I believe it was actually called the Hadley Effort Roll.

I think the intent is to encourage all by including many.

"Thanks for showing up....here's your trophy!"

quote:

I think the intent is to encourage all by including many. Wink

Encourage all....by including all. I think that's what you meant.

Ruydah asked me if I was truly shocked or just acting. I was truly shocked. Had no clue.

Careful - there are some people with children who have not made the list.

I have had to bite my tongue more than once in mixed company to keep from totally offending someone with my snarky "average roll" assessment.

Trust me...I was scanning the list for Fish's daughter after I made a similar comment. I'm usually better than that. Thank God she was on it.

Am I just looking behind the curtain too much? Should I just ignore this and many other things re: education in this town? Just go with the flow?

If everyone in a class gets 100% on a test,

A) Is it a good sign that all the pupils are studying and understanding the material?

B) The test was too easy?


If so many make the honor roll is the grading to easy? Should they go back and grade like the old days and use the bell curve where no matter what your grade is if you are the lowest in the class, you fail?

Not a good idea....according to NCLB the school doesn't get the funding with all those failures...41 should be rolling in the dough by the time the entire district makes the honor roll.

Hadley is known for giving easy A's. Unless you have a real challenge or a kid who fails to turn in assignments you pretty much can expect good grades. I my opinion Hadley is very weak.

Those poor kids.

It's the only break those poor little white middle class kids will get...praise them and let them enjoy it while it lasts.

quote:

Originally posted by my2cents:
It's the only break those poor little white middle class kids will get

What you talkin' bout Willis

quote:

Originally posted by Clamato:
Trust me...I was scanning the list for Fish's daughter after I made a similar comment. I'm usually better than that. Thank God she was on it.

Am I just looking behind the curtain too much? Should I just ignore this and many other things re: education in this town? Just go with the flow?

Clam I think you and Walt Zlotow should sit down and write a letter to the editor of that weekly school rag.

My incredibly average honor roll student tells me that you must maintain a "B" average to make Hadley's honor roll.

The guy we just hired in Ningbo, CHina, said it loud and clear. "School is hard here". My hadley honor roll guys have not even had homework....

quote:

Statistics for American high school students give rise to concern for our student's education in math and science. Less than 40 percent of U.S. students take a science course more rigorous than general biology, and a mere 18 percent take advanced classes in physics, chemistry or biology. Only 45 percent of U.S. students take math coursework beyond two years of algebra and one year of geometry. And 50 percent of all college freshmen require remedial coursework.


Meanwhile, both India and China have made dramatic leaps in educating their middle classes - each comparable in size to the entire U.S. population. Compared to the U.S., China now produces eight times more scientists and engineers, while India puts out up to three times as many as the U.S. Additionally, given the affordability of their wages, China and India are now preferred destinations for increasing numbers of multinational high-tech corporations.


Just as the Soviets' launch of a tiny satellite ignited a space race and impelled America to improve its science education, many experts feel the United States has reached its next "Sputnik moment." The goal of this film is to help answer the question: Are we doing enough with the time we have to ensure the best future for all?

2 million minutes

I'm sure you guys are having fun, but I'd like to make some serious points, for the record. These are issues that I have paid some attention to over time.

Is homework really a measure of the quality of education provided? I do not think so. I am happy when my kids don't have any.

And please consider this before decrying the lack of homework assigned:

there is absolutely no evidence of any academic benefit from assigning homework in elementary or middle school. For younger students, in fact, there isn’t even a correlation between whether children do homework (or how much they do) and any meaningful measure of achievement. At the high school level, the correlation is weak and tends to disappear when more sophisticated statistical measures are applied. Meanwhile, no study has ever substantiated the belief that homework builds character or teaches good study habits.

Rethinking Homework, Alfie Kohn

In my view, learning does not have to be difficult. It just has to be accomplished.

Incidentally, my three stepchildren all attained honor roll at Hadley. All went on to take honors and AP courses at West, then on to and (for two of them so far) through university - meaning to me that the honor roll designation might not be totally cosmetic. Students can learn something at Hadley.



I'd like to offer a little something in response to one of the implications of the quote from the 2 million minutes web site. Reading that page, we are being encouraged to perceive that we are somehow behind China and/or India and that we are failing to educate people here in America. It's not necessarily true. Please consider another take on this issue.


Here's an interview with the producer of the 2 mm minutes film:

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/251.7/popup/index.php?cl=6523002

in which he says about the film:

'it's not an indictment of the school system at all'



This claim that schools do not produce enough engineers is not a new one. It has been used to bash the school system often times in the past. It's not necessarily true, either. Here's a few bits form the other side. Since the claim is by no means a new one, some of this information is also from years past. I don't think that means it's stale.


Shortage of engineers in America?

A commonly heard defense in the arguments that surround U.S. companies that offshore high-tech and engineering jobs is that the U.S. math and science education system is not producing a sufficient number of engineers to fill a corporation's needs.

However, a new study from Duke University calls this argument bunk, stating that there is no shortage of engineers in the United States, and that offshoring is all about cost savings.

Study: There Is No Shortage of U.S. Engineers


We shouldn't measure America's need for engineering talent by the number of engineers produced by schools in other countries.

In reality, no one knows how many engineers our high-tech society needs. In addition to the impact of productivity gains, the nature of the design work that's going on also alters the demand for engineers. The industry is devoting itself to high-volume consumer products, which require tremendous manufacturing resources but call for roughly the same amount of engineers as low- to moderate-volume products. Thus, the ratio of engineers to product volume is going down.

No shortage of 'engineering shortage' talk


Rolls Royce gets new engineers from - where?

'For a number of key skills, we are having to go to Germany and America.'

Did he really say America?

Rolls Royce boss despairs at lack of British engineering talent (DailyMail)


How good are those Indian engineers we are supposed to be struggling to keep up with?

A study commissioned by a trade group, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, or Nasscom, found only one in four engineering graduates to be employable.


India's engineer shortage (NYT)



How about the Chinese engineers?

In fact, about half of what China calls "engineers" would be called "technicians" at best in the United States, with the equivalent of a vocational certificate or an associate degree. In addition, the McKinsey study of nine occupations, including engineering, concluded that "fewer than 10 percent of Chinese job candidates, on average, would be suitable for work [in a multinational company] in the nine occupations we studied."

Heard the One About the 600,000 Chinese Engineers? (WaPo)

Here's some raw numbers about American engineering labor market, from 2006:


in 2006, engineers held about 1.5 million jobs.


In 2006, there were 373,074 undergraduates enrolled in undergraduate engineering programs, 74,186 beachelor's degrees awarded in engineering in the US, 39,015 masters degrees awarded, and 8,351 doctorates awarded.


Numbers are from from the American Society for Engineering Education 36 page pdf



Is it a problem created by industry itself?

Many companies say they're facing an increasingly severe shortage of engineers. It's so bad, some executives say, that Congress must act to boost funding for engineering education.

Yet unemployed engineers say there's actually a big surplus. "No one I know who has looked at the data with an open mind has been able to find any sign of a current shortage," says demographer Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.


"Companies are looking for a five-pound butterfly. Not finding them doesn't mean there's a shortage of butterflies," says Richard Tax, president of the American Engineering Association, which campaigns to prevent losses of engineering jobs.

Behind 'Shortage' of Engineers: Employers Grow More Choosy (WSJ)

Wow, excellent information, John. Thanks.

You're welcome! and thanks for saying!