Sun Prairie had...wait for it...ONE
Our favorite rival....close in size but smaller Middleton, had THIRTEEN
Madison Memorial had FOURTEEN
Even Mount Horeb had TWO
Semifinalists represent the top 1 percent of the approximately 1.5 million students who took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test last year. About 90 percent of semifinalists become finalists who are eligible to receive one of 8,300 college scholarships totaling more than $32 million next spring.We keep talking about Sun Prairie being the cream of the crop, but there's more crop than cream here.
Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/education/local_schools/high-school-seniors-in-dane-county-named-national-merit-semifinalists/article_994e97e4-fc6b-11e1-9341-001a4bcf887a.html#ixzz26dx1YYGP
Teachers want to be valued...and recognized with cash.
Ill-informed political groups just want to throw more money (tax dollars) at it.
People....spending more money does not produce National Merit scholarships! It takes a strong curriculum as a foundation with strong teaching as the framework. And while we're at it....knock off the Dr. FeelGood grade inflation.
Maybe if we laid off the teaching 100 Chinese characters and instead developed a Latin program that would without question benefits students. And let's not even talk about how our offering Mandarin Chinese plays in a world in which the Chinese government is involved in some pretty serious human rights issues.
The pudding is here in the National Merit semifinalists list, and it only proves that Sun Prairie is mediocre in terms of educational achievement.
What other conclusion is there other than that the really smart kids do not choose to attend SPHS?
Posts
