Skating By
Shiny blue banners are draped proudly above the gymnasium bleachers at South Burlington High School. They list the names of every valedictorian in the school's 42-year history, granting those stellar students an immortal status within the red-brick building. Across the gym hang smaller banners honoring the school's most successful boys' and girls' basketball teams.
The academic tributes are a relatively recent addition. Five years ago, the then-principal had the banners raised to emphasize academics at one of Vermont's best public high schools.
My older brother's name is on one of those valedictorian banners. He was a bright, diligent teenager—a future Dartmouth and Berkeley standout and just the kind of student the writers of A Nation at Risk were longing for, a math and science whiz...
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