(Last year, I blogged at length about this region's controversy, regarding valedictorian/plagiarist Blair Hornstine, whose 2003-04 academic whereabouts remain unknown. Kudos to her and her parents for keeping her out of the limelight, and I continue to wish her well. Kids are allowed to make mistakes, and the hatred heaped upon her was disproportionate to her actions.)
This time, scandal moves down the eastern seaboard to Crisfield High, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, home of the Mighty Crabbers. The Baltimore Sun sums up the story: (1) Girl from the wrong side of the island is presumptive valedictorian; (2) School administrators prevail on six teachers to make "grade corrections" to put Miss Goodie Two-Shoes the new valedictorian; (3) Scorned Sally Sues.
Students of this genre will note that this is the flipside of Hornstine's case: there, administrators sought to reduce Hornstine's home-taught grades and otherwise compensate for her lack of a gym grade weighing down her GPA; here, they seek to (artificially?) inflate #2's grades to accomplish the same goal.
I merely pass this story along, and hold fast to several principles about these things:
(1) Schools should not have sole valedictorians determined by statistically meaningless distinctions, but should instead recognize all of their elite students fairly;
(2) It's not worth suing over, reflecting as poorly on the plaintiff than as on the administrators being charged with poor conduct; and
(3) Any school administrator who things that the selection of a valedictorian is so important that it's worth futzing the grades for needs to find better things to do with his or her life.
Seriously, it sounds like this oyster shucker's daughter got screwed.
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