Just out of curiosity, I went looking and found the following article on who this year's National Merit Scholarship winners were: http://www.startribune.com/stories/1592/3907044.html
Scanning through the list, I see TWO winners from South High, the place where Philips teenagers get their schooling. Over in St Paul, I see one from Central High. Most of the rest come from Greater Minnesota. Most Twin Cities suburbs don't have any at all. Must we conclude that parents in suburbs are not as eager as south Minneapolis parents to get their kids to achieve? Meanwhile, I checked with my niece who is a South High grad, class of '91. She said back in her era, South had as many as 19 National Merit scholars in one year. Explanation: It was an academic magnet school. I guess the bright students who had the choice chose South. I wonder how much the overall count for Minnesota has dropped, if South has gone from 19 to 2. ---------------------- By the way, you critics of MPS, check this: http://www.mpls.k12.mn.us/news/we_are_proud.shtml And you defenders, check it too. All is not bad in the kingdom of MPS (Personal note: The son of an old friend of my wife's, a family that stuck loyally with the Mpls public system, was elected president of the Minnesota Association of Honor Societies. Shows you what can happen with dedicated PARENTS. Their ELDER son is a student at U of Chicago and sometimes posts messages here.) I'm afraid Mr. Atherton failed to get the gist of my message. I wasn't talking about "self-motivated" students. I clearly talked about how high the parents set the bar. But I was talking about students whose parents SHOW the value they put on education. Mine both had Masters degrees, my father getting his before he even began a serious career. And as I said, they did very little watching of TV or other entertainment like that. My father was a bowler and a bridge player. My mother mostly just work-work-worked. She was the school teacher, so her dedication was very direct. No one had to be Einstein to get that she considered school important. So, we didn't get chased around to work on studies. But I do fault TV. My study habits were ingrained before entertainment became Job 1 in America. We had some, but it wasn't the focal point of life. Nowadays it is. And America is worse as a result. ===== Jim Mork Cooper-Longfellow-Minneapolis (L'Etoile du Nord) --------------- "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." … Benito Mussolini ... __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
