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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Put Into Perspective

I love sports, but...

Peyton Manning, former quarterback of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, just signed a free agent contract with the Denver Bronco's that will pay him $96,000,000 for the next five years. Put into perspective, his annual salary of 19.2 million dollars is two and a half times the annual cost to operate our entire school district and nurture the dreams and sustain the hopes of 330 learners.

In over 100 years of professional baseball - played by over 100,000 different players - there are less than two hundred batters with a .300 batting average or higher. That means that you would be considered a star as long as you fail to get a hit in less than seven out of ten plate appearances. Put into perspective, it requires a much, much higher standard of achievement to reach the mastery level on state-wide assessments administered in New York.

"March Madness" is the term used to describe the annual NCAA Basketball Tournament that is held each year in that month. The real March Madness can be found in the annual report, "Keeping Score When It Counts," by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida. The study calculated the graduation rate for male basketball student-athletes as 66 percent in 2011. That's an unacceptable rate of completion among colleges - many of whom are perceived as excellent institutions of higher learning. Put into perspective: What would happen to a public high school in New York if they produced graduation rates that low each year? Fortunately, the presidents of these colleges collectively reside in the State of Denial instead of the State of New York.

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