{"id":335335,"date":"2021-09-05T23:42:10","date_gmt":"2021-09-05T20:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/letters-to-the-editor-sept-6-2021\/"},"modified":"2021-09-05T23:42:10","modified_gmt":"2021-09-05T20:42:10","slug":"letters-to-the-editor-sept-6-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/letters-to-the-editor-sept-6-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"#Letters to the Editor \u2014 Sept. 6, 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<strong>#Letters to the Editor \u2014 Sept. 6, 2021<\/strong>&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/09\/de-blasio-001-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n        <\/aside>\n<p><strong>The Issue: The New York City Department of Education\u2019s push to ban honor rolls and class rankings.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Honor rolls and awards should definitely be abolished, but not for the reasons stated by the Department of Education (\u201cDOE\u2019s War on Excellence,\u201d Editorial, Sept. 2).<\/p>\n<p>The editorial board is very idealistic in thinking that students who merit honor status are really honor students.<\/p>\n<p>Administrators and teachers often bestow accolades on students just to inflate the kids\u2019 egos and morale. During 48 years of teaching in New York City high schools, I\u2019ve seen numerous highly unqualified youngsters being handed awards simply for staying out of jail during their educational careers.<\/p>\n<p>Many honor students possessed lengthy dean\u2019s records and suspensions. Other students were placed on honor rolls simply for showing up every day. <\/p>\n<p><em>Robert Grandt<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Manhattan<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve personally known black students who loved working hard and making honor roll. It definitely is a motivator for good students to strive harder and reach higher goals.<\/p>\n<p>Some schools even have regular honor roll and high honor roll. Two goals and rewards to reach for. <\/p>\n<p><em>Carol Meltzer<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Manhattan<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The DOE\u2019s desire to do away with honor rolls is part and parcel of the efforts of Mayor de Blasio to stigmatize high levels of achievement among academically competitive students.<\/p>\n<p>This is on the grounds that recognizing and awarding success somehow is damaging to students who are less gifted or simply do not care about their education.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s mostly Asian kids, many of whom come from poor immigrant backgrounds, who bear the brunt of the elitist wrath for daring to outperform other groups through hard work and for scoring the highest on standardized tests. No honor roll for them!<\/p>\n<p>It is clear that the progressive response to dispar\u00adities in academic achievement is not to take measures to improve the performance of kids at the bottom, but to strive for a leveling process based on equity of outcomes, where everyone gets a medal for just showing up.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dennis Middlebrooks<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Brooklyn<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is yet another example of the dumbing down of education in America.<\/p>\n<p>How convoluted is the DOE\u2019s thinking that a hard-working student who achieves success should be considered a negative thing?<\/p>\n<p>As a retired teacher with more than 30 years of teaching kindergarten through high-school students, I can state, with no reservations whatsoever, that the DOE is a group of absolute idiots.<\/p>\n<p>Shouldn\u2019t the DOE be addressing the reasons why some students succeed while others struggle? This \u201cphilosophy\u201d of theirs is an outrageous insult to those students \u2014and their parents for that matter \u2014 who have put in the time and the effort to become educated; it is unconscionable. <\/p>\n<p><em>Jeannie Weldin<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Dumont, NJ<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I believe the DOE\u2019s next move should be to tell schools that their basketball and football teams should emphasize \u201ccontributions to the school or wider community, and demonstrations of <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a> justice and integrity,\u201d and eliminate tryouts and other methods of recognizing excellence to avoid penalizing \u201cstudents who have been marginalized based on their ability.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If it <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>lies to academics, it should apply to extracurriculars and sports as well. <\/p>\n<p><em>Rick Collarini<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Houston, Texas<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The DOE might as well change its name to the \u201cMinistry of Victimhood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Do you really want your future surgeon to have passed high school just because they showed up or because they whined about social justice?<\/p>\n<p>This woke period isn\u2019t going to last forever, and when it ends, it\u2019s going to leave a generation of students wholly unprepared for \u201creal life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At some point, society has to get back to a semblance of normalcy. Let\u2019s hope it\u2019s sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, China can guarantee its future successes with hard-working students fulfilling rigorous curricula.<\/p>\n<p><em>N. Albanese<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>New Rochelle<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Want to weigh in on today\u2019s stories? Send your thoughts (along with your full name and city of residence) to letters@nypost.com. Letters are subject to editing for clarity, length, accuracy and style.<\/strong>\n                        <\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/09\/05\/letters-to-the-editor-sept-6-2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Letters to the Editor \u2014 Sept. 6, 2021&#8221; The Issue: The New York City Department of Education\u2019s push to ban honor rolls and class rankings. Honor rolls and awards should definitely be abolished, but not for the reasons stated by the Department of Education (\u201cDOE\u2019s War on Excellence,\u201d Editorial, Sept. 2). The editorial board is&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":335336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/09\/de-blasio-001-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[115466,5042,70643,12786,72133,74212,47020,47212],"class_list":["post-335335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-9-5-21","tag-bill-de-blasio","tag-department-of-education","tag-grades","tag-letters-to-the-editor","tag-public-schools","tag-students","tag-teachers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}