Monta Vista, Gold Medal?

The US News has been famous for ranking colleges. Now they have decided to move to another lucrative market of ranking high schools. Two of the FUHSD made the top 100: Monta Vista #59 and Lynnbrook #73 (http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2007/11/29/gold-medal-schools.html). They got a gold medal. Congratulations.

So what's next? The ultimate news for the nerds. Yes, Monta Vista is now known nationally, or even around the world, for having bright students hacking into its computer system. The Mercury News reported it (http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_7725723?nclick_check=1) asking the readers to vote for punishment. Most voted for suspension, but close behind were expulsion and prosecution. Everything that was reported and said was based on rumors and not facts. The students are bright and not cheaters. If they wanted to get the tests, they would have done it quietly without anybody knowing that they got into the files. They wouldn't have left a message saying that "You were hacked." They were not searching for anything. They all knew that the grades were in Schoolloop. They did it for fun, the thrill of breaking into the sys admin account, and to be able to brag about it. What they did was wrong and illegal. There's a code of conduct they must abide by. They didn't know of the consequences of their action.

The article quoted a student saying in the Schoolloop discussion "We get expelled for hacking/ schools in other places/ get expelled for shooting people." I'm wondering how the reporter got this exact quote without logging in Schooloop as a student because even the parents who, also have an account, could only see the grades and news and not the discussion group. Only the students, administrators and teachers can see the discussion group. Is it hacking? :)

We all know that in this high tech world, kids are very smart in computers. Some are addicted to myspace, to facebook, etc. They are learning everyday and challenge themselves in any way they can. The ultimate challenge is to hack into a computer system. So you can say that they are going for the gold medal to keep the reputation of a gold medal school. The school should thank them for finding the hole now. This proves that the school is not doing its job securing its sytem because even a kid can hack into it. If there's nothing important and confidential stored in the system, why give a fuss about it? There's no need to involve the sheriff and broadcast the news. Keep it quiet and suspend the kids for a few days. Educate them about the code of conduct. The finals are coming. The kids are under a lot of stress right now and they don't want another distraction from the outside world.

This is a good lesson learned for both the students and the school.

Another news worth noting is that a chemistry honors teacher who, was hired this year, is now gone because of his difficulty to explain the concepts of chemistry to the students. The students had been complaining about not learning anything from him. They got more confused after each lecture. They got the raw deal. They come to the finals with bad grades and knowing less than their counterparts who have other teachers. It's unfair to the students. Their grades will suffer because they did not have a proper education, and not because they're lazy and do not study. It's very unfortunate that a gold medal school got something like this.

Hope that we learn from the past and move on.

One kid asks "Is the price of our house going down?" Another says that "now we are a bunch of cheaters, no college will accept us."

Happy Holidays.