My poor sister (Part 2)
(Hahaha. You're all going to feel bad for telling me how nice I am to my sister after I tell you this part.)In the eleven years since I was a freshman in high school, New York State has re-structured its math curriculum. When I was in high school, there were the intuitively named Course I (which I took as an 8th grader), Course II, Course III, (which all have State exams) Course IV and Course V. In the past 4-5 years, the courses were remade into two year and a half courses (Course A and Course B) and then the equivalents of Courses IV and V. My sister started taking Course A last year as an eighth grader and this fall in ninth grade and took the final exam last week.
Yesterday:
My cell phone rang at about 3pm. The caller ID indicated that it was my mom's cell phone. I was kind of worried and curious: I was at work and I knew that my mom was also at work (and I was busy and distracted). It was my sister. The conversation after I figured out it was her (remember, this occurred while I was sitting at my desk in the lab):
Me: "What's going on?"
LS: "I just got my Regents score."
Me: "Oh! Okay. Good. How did it go?"
LS: "What did you get?"
Me: "On what?"
LS: "The math regents."
Me: "Which one?"
LS: "A"
Me: "There was no A." (She knows this. I don't know why she's asking.)
LS: "Well, the same one."
Me: "Umm, I got a 99 on the Course I Regents and 100 on the Course II Regents."
LS: "HA! I beat you!"
Me: "No you didn't."
LS: "Yes! I did! I got 100! I am the first person in Our Town!"
Me: "Good job! But it was different then! You didn't beat me!"
LS: "It was not! I don't care! I BEAT YOU."
Me (finally realizing that this was perhaps not a fruitful argument to have): "Oh, okay. Whatever. Well, good job."
Oops. Good job/Go you! was really the right answer there, huh? How does she put up with me?
posted by Immunegirl @ 8:54 PM
8 Comments:
*snort*
Your sister beat you!
The correct answer was "You can NEVER beat me now!" Ever!
then cackle
Aren't test grades and the like private? How can one know that they are the first in town without some illegal disclosure of grade info? The next question is how does the media know...
Hmmmm. That's a good question Ben. Here's my experience and some conjectures on the illegal disclosure part (Keep in mind that this is my experience in a very small town where everyone knew everyone else's business anyway. Also keep in mind that spelling is a HUGE challenge for our town paper, so the legality of grade info might be low on their list):
The whole "first in town" thing was a matter of teachers telling me the information in a relatively informal way*. I would assume that this wouldn't techincally be an illegal disclosure of grade info because they weren't telling me what other people's grades were, they were just telling me what they weren't .
*(Mostly. I think that there may have been some "And let me tell you this other interesting fact about Bree!" talk at awards ceremonies and assemblies which is more questionable.)
And then there's the media part (some of this is just me thinking of things, feel free to comment as you will)....
The names of any students who earned high honor/honor roll were published in the town paper each quarter (as a sort of congratulations). The grade point requirements for these honors were always listed.
The Valedictorian and Salutatorians' grade point averages were printed in the town paper in articles about them around graduation.
Other than that (and the one other thing, discussed below) I can't think of other examples of specific scores being published, though there was plenty of information surrounding various academic awards.
As far as the other thing, I just wrote enough to fill a whole post about the craziness of its disclosure to other students and to the media before deciding that it was too much info. Needless to say, it was extremely sketchy although I do remember that the school secretary DID ask me if it was okay to call the paper. I think the school alerted the other papers/tv stations as well and they may have even asked my permission in a rather broad way, but I don't remember. That is certainly the only time anyone ever asked me if it was okay. Once this had been published the first time, it was endlessly repeated in many forms.
Yes, she is your poor sister *grin*
Good for her! Take her out for lunch to celebrate.
Yep, what nookie said. Take her out to celebrate.
Be nice to LS or else she really might beat you!
(You Ivy League types just have to be the best all the time, don't you?! Pffft!)
*smooch*
This is exactly why I took one for the sister team and settled on being such a super underacheiver.
*swats Iggy*
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