publicize sports, music, but not academics?

Parent Cafe
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<p>I'm not sure where to post this thread, so moderators feel free to move it.</p>

<p>In our community, a big deal is made about the accomplishments of high schools students who compete in various sports. It's in the local newspaper every week, and the school gives accolades to both individual and team participants. A somewhat big deal is made of accomplishments in music. But the academic accomplishments of students are a BIG SECRET.</p>

<p>In particular, neither the school administration nor the community media will publish anything about what colleges our students graduate into. </p>

<p>I think this is a bad thing for two reasons. First, it sells our students short. It tells our students that academic effort is less important. It may even tell them that their efforts are for our entertainment, rather than for their personal development.</p>

<p>Second, it avoids accountability for the school system. The college placement record of the high school is an objective, outside measure of the academic success of the high school. The school appears to be trying to hide its most important indicator of performance.</p>

<p>But I know there may be other perspectives.</p>

<p>I'm wondering if your community works like this. If so why? I'd also be interested in hearing from you if your community celebrates academic performance, for example, by publicizing the college placements of students. How does that work for you? Are there upsides and downsides to it?</p>

<p>In the interests of a good thread, let me say that I'm a big supporter of both sports and music, and believe that each can play a big role in student's personal development. I'm not trying to start that debate here, just asking about the attitude toward academic accomplishment.</p>

<p>I also know privacy is an issue. But that's true of any recognition, including sports and music. And some places are able to publicize academic accomplishment, so there must be ways to manage privacy issues.</p>

<p>Thank you.</p>

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<p>I really don’t think it’s all that appropriate to publish college admissions community-wide. I would like to see it on the school level, just for reference for future students.</p>

<p>I long wondered why certain groups were always on the HS announcements, the school and district web sites and in the local paper - and others weren’t. This year my H was in charge of publicity for the drill team. I learned that the ignored groups were ignored because they didn’t have a sponsor or parent who sent things in for publicity. Mind you, the local paper hasn’t published every picture my H sent in, but they have published some. And the school put everything he wanted up on the web site. I know that the paper actually covers the sports, but otherwise, they count on the various groups to email them publication-ready pictures and copy.</p>

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<p>Any person is free to submit for publication an announcement of where they will attend college, so a student can do this if s/he believes it is so newsworthy. Whether a newspaper will agree to publish it is another question.</p>

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<p>My hometown weekly publishes two pages of academic reports nearly every week. Admits, graduations, scholarships, prizes/honors. Pretty much anything the schools send out or people submit.</p>

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<p>Snowonder, does it get coverage in your town when quiz bowl does well, or the robotics team, or someone receives academic honors like National Merit? I agree that you need someone to be in charge of sending these items to the newspapers. (The sports people have an organized system for getting those things done, and yes, I’m sure the newspaper makes more of an effort to get sports information, but so be it.) You could do this yourself, if you coordinate with the school activity sponsor.</p>

<p>I’m not sure that listing college admissions would be desirable in a newspaper, however. Just my opinion. A student who makes it into a highly selective college has probably had other academic honors, I would think, that would be more appropriate for a newspaper mention.</p>

<p>I do agree with your basic premise that academics get completely drowned out by the clamor and attention paid to sports, but that is a problem with our entire society.</p>

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<p>You are right. If I google kids names, what comes up are their athletic achievement if they have any. What they got in a Great Race, if they are on the roster of a major team. That’s because the news covers high school sports. The crowds that go to those games tend to beat academic events. So, there you get the publicity.</p>

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<p>Several years ago our town stopped publishing college decisions in the local weekly paper because it might hurt students’ feelings. But I have noticed that the info is posted in the high school guidance office and for several years students have started public Facebook pages where they voluntarily submit the information. Hundreds of students post on Facebook. So I don’t think students are sheepish about their college plans.</p>

<p>I think the main reason high schools don’t submit academic information is because it isn’t in anyone’s job description. And that is a shame. It is such a golden opportunity to shape community opinion about a high school (or any other school for that matter). Sports and music are often publicized only because booster groups take on the responsibility.</p>

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<p>What you’ve noticed didn’t just get like that. Yes, that is very much how it is. I has been much like that for years.<br>
I have old papers from our community in the mid-60’s and it was the same then. Not always true, and not always in all schools, but yes, sports garner a lot of attention and thereby a lot of press. That combined with the “public” aspect of sports contributes to the current balance.
We might wish it were a different balance, but that is wishing.</p>

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<p>I’ve been mildly irritated with our schools for years in the way they handle recognition events. Sports and other ECs have awards nights in the evenings that often include dinners. Academic recognition is at 6am and does include a breakfast, but as my son always said, “How is it a reward to get up an extra hour early on a school morning?” Also, we were not allowed to bring other children, but mine were often too young to leave at home alone, much less get themselves off to school.</p>

<p>Our high school newspapers have a center spread listing seniors and what they are doing after high school (college, military, work, etc.). It’s up to the kids to turn in their info if they want it printed.</p>

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<p>I would like to add that Naviance is an accountability tool. While it is only public to the school community and is “anonymous” (although you can often figure out the stats of particular students) it does provide a limited public forum to judge the success of a high school by one measure. There is nothing to prevent a parent from taking the general information on Naviance and speaking up at a school board meeting or compiling a study or report to share with a PTO group. Would be a fascinating glimpse at a school’s performance. Our guidance counselors never seem to compile global stats like that which would be of interest to the community. For example, what percentage of students attend “very competitive” schools.</p>

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<p>If your child wins a major prestigious award take a picture and submit it to the local paper. If he is a member of a a group of students talk to the other parents and submit a group shot. Also for a very large group, maybe like National Honor Society inductees, write something, take a few photos, and give it to the principal to submit from the high school. I bet the principal would be grateful.</p>

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<p>Well, not only are sports covered by the newspaper, there’s a coach who’ll call his contact or send a press release with scores and results. Those banquets? Planned by the coaches and team captains. Music gets less coverage, but there’s still an “entertainment” section in the paper certain days of the week. So, stories get written, and there’s a choir or band director calling or sending press releases to the reporter who covers entertainment. </p>

<p>Academics? Well now, who does the calling? What section of the paper are the results sent to. The district itself puts all kinds headlines up on it’s own website. The district awards athletic teams with the highest GPAs and gives high achieving athletes designations like “Academic All-Conference”. I cannot fault the school district for not attempting to bring academic achievement front and center. They do. The fact that the local media outlets don’t consider it news is not the district’s fault.</p>

<p>Now, around graduation time, there’s some public recognition. THe kids in the top 5% get thier picture in the paper with the article about graduation. The local paper also puts out a supplement. The city schools and the schools from the surrounding areas are represented. Seniors can give permisson to have merit awards listed and to indicate where they are bound for college. School asks for proof of scholarship money. And here’s where things stop making sense for me. I get it that there may be a few kids who don’t want their whereabouts publicized. Abusive, absent parent, etc. But, seriously? What is the deal with keeping college admissions “private”? Like any one of the vast majority of kids in any class is so special that the whole darn community cares where he’s headed to college or what scholarships he won? </p>

<p>Why are academics so often ignored in the local media? Because sports and music are entertaining. It’s fun to watch a basketball game or see a musical. Bunch of kids testing? Not so fun to watch. And honestly, I think the answer to what gets covered may be that simple.</p>

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<p>When I was in high school (in a teeny town or 800 people), our guidance counselor did a great job of alerting the paper of all events. I took it for granted that things like that were celebrated. I now live in a sports town, and realize that my high school experiece is drastically different. In the yearbook, there are many pages devoted to each sport, with records, accomplishments, etc. The academic teams don’t even get a write up, just an organizational picture. Our schools ROTC wins national awards, but it is rarely mentioned even on the school website, but our losing basketball team gets weekly articles. </p>

<p>It is a shame, and our schools academic accomplishments are not where they could be either. Our community doesn’t seem to care about it either.</p>

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<p>Perhaps there should be a PTA Publicity position. Or maybe groups like NHS should have a publicity chair. Our GCs are so overworked, they have no time to alert the media.</p>

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<p>This whole topic is a pet peeve of mine. Our town’s various sports teams get covered every day. There was even coverage of a local basketball player who got an athletic scholarship to a 2 year school in Wyoming. He turned down admission to better schools so that he could continue with his sport.</p>

<p>But one of our town’s HS graduates this year is a US Presidential Scholar, and so far there has been no mention.</p>

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<p>Well, look at how colleges are mentioned in newspapers – in the sports section. Because it’s vitally important that some college’s basketball team beat another college’s basketball team. That’s what America values. That sucks, but it is what it is.</p>

<p>Once my kids graduate, I am opening a can of whup-*** on the principal, whose monthly letter to parents ALWAYS starts with sports achievement and only later mentions any academic achievement.</p>

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<p>Pet peeve of mine since I was in high school. Maybe it is the type of school–we (kids and I) all have gone to large public high schools. Part of the problem is that the principals are usually old jocks/coaches who get up in front of the whole school and say things like, “Now, you juniors here–it is time to take the ACT. You can’t study for this test. But you’ll be well prepared if you get yourself a good night’s sleep and eat a hearty breakfast. . .” I’m not making this up. Just check out the yearbook: full page photo spread for every athlete signing to play a college sport (even if it is volleyball at podunk state u.) Honor students? 3X5 group photo of all the kids who had 4.0 or over. No names mentioned. Faces so small you couldn’t identify the students if you tried. National Merit? They usually don’t have any, but S’s year they had 2 finalists in a class of 800. It was announced at their quarterly “academic pep rally” where everyone who has over a 3.0 can put his/her name in a drawing for prizes. Yay. That’s it. Not even an extra raffle ticket for that. That fall, the football team won state. It was on the school sign ALL year long.</p>

<p>Now we’re at a different (better) school. But still have the jock/coach principals. Whenever kids get scores/grades/ranks they are not allowed to talk about them, show them to others. They seem to downplay academic awards/activities so other students won’t “feel bad.” Yet jocks get recognized and go around talking about their wins, great plays, record breaking times, get their pictures and write-ups in the paper etc. What if your kid can’t play sports? Trips over his feet in gym class? No one worries about him “feeling bad” because he didn’t get the trophies that the jocks won. So why do they want to downplay academics? It is a “school,” after all. Sometimes I tell myself that for a lot of these kids, their only “glory days” are in high school.
Academic types will, I hope, go on to other achievements.</p>

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<p>It sounds like people are blaming their schools for “downplaying” academics. I don’t think the school administrators have anything to do with high school sports reporting. Newspapers hire sports reporters because a lot of people love sports and like to follow what the local kids are doing in this regard. The reporters get their info directly from attending the games or from whomever is sponsoring the game, not from the principal. If newspaper owners think that reporting on academics will sell more papers, then I’m sure they will report on them.</p>

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<p>My son and one of his friends were recently featured in our local newspaper for their accomplishments in the physics olympiad semi-finals. I confess I don’t read this paper so I’m not sure, but I think this student spotlight is usually on academics. My son does adacemics, music, and sports and all were mentioned in the article but the reporter originally contacted the kids because of academics.</p>

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<p>The local section of our city newspaper used to publish the names of the students on the top honor roll from each of the high schools. When it abruptly stopped I called our HS (they had no idea what I was talking about!) and the PR offices of our school district (who also had no idea what I was talking about!). The editor of the local section returned my call and told me he would love to keep publishing the honor roll but the school district would not cooperate. He was the only person I spoke with who seemed to care. No one at the schools did.</p>