Scholarly Attention
INCLUDING its three seasonal specials, the [Boston] Globe publishes about 150 full pages a year filled with stories about high school teams, their games, scores, summaries, prospects, and interviews, often with pictures of coaches and athletes. At the same time, high school academic achievement is almost completely ignored.
Science fair winners, AP scholars, Emerson Prize winners, math Olympiad contestants, Model UN competitors, debate team winners, Latin exam gold medalists, college acceptances, and many other subjects for stories about good academic work are not given the same prominence.
[…]
There has been anti-intellectualism in American life for a very long time, of course, but these days we can least afford it, and there is no excuse to continue to promote it now.
[Letter to the Editor of The Boston Globe, "Give scholars same attention as athletes", by Will Fitzhugh and Michael Shaughnessy.]