County Can Be Proud of Educational Strides

Can a high-quality high school education be obtained in Putnam County? A knee-jerk reaction would be: “Of course!”, but there’s some objective evidence to back this up.

One recent statistic should be a cause of pride for county residents.

When West Virginia University honored 50 of its top graduating seniors with the WVU Foundation Outstanding Seniors Award, three of the students on the list were from Putnam County.

The 2008 WVU Foundation Outstanding Seniors came from all over West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland, yet 6 percent of them were from our county, chosen for their contributions and achievements in scholarship, leadership and service.

That’s quite an honor.

Likewise, 78 Putnam County students were listed on the recently released WVU dean’s list.

Part of what it takes to produce students of this caliber is a school curriculum based on sports, drama, science or art and a student body with shared interests and individualized experience.

Putnam County Schools has taken some admirable strides in that direction; but many improvements remain to be made.

We think kids at our schools have an edge, no matter their economic background.

Educators have been demanding reform for decades, but policy debates have been the biggest obstacles to improvement.

Reformers in the 1980s wanted to make all students ready for college with a demanding core curriculum.

Ten years later, school choice and testing were the big buzzwords, with some activists arguing that the entire public school system should be dismantled.

In the last few years, small schools – first proposed decades ago – have gained traction with funding from organizations like the Gates Foundation and the New Schools Venture Fund.

There’s a lot happening in educational development. Putnam County will have to continue to change, adapt and improve if the county wants to persist in producing more outstanding students such as the ones mentioned above.

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