If you didn’t pause and think a moment, you would have missed the significance.
The News & Observer of Raleigh ran an Associated Press story May 31 about the 75th Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee, and champion Pratyush Buddiga of Colorado Springs, Colo.
The significance wasn’t so much the story, which ran in hundreds of newspapers across the country, but in the headline The N&O created for the article. The headline proclaimed, “Public school student wins spelling contest” (emphasis mine). Ten years ago readers would have scratched their heads at such a headline thinking, “So what?”
Many other newspapers didn’t seem to attach as much significance to the fact that Buddiga is a public school student. In fact, his hometown newspaper, the Colorado Springs Gazette, didn’t mention in its entire article that he was the first public school student to win since 1999 – nor did the nearby Denver Post. The Associated Press did include the information in the body of its story.
But The N&O seemed to attach greater significance to Buddiga’s schooling. Did the paper feel compelled to prop up public education in the face of years of disappointing results in our own state’s schools?
Perhaps The N&O wanted to embrace a small victory for its capital readership, where there’s a heavy concentration of education bureaucrats who could take heart in such a win. No doubt there’s a measure, however small, of demoralization in recent years because of the limited success of public schooled students in these national competitions.
Congratulations to Buddiga, who demonstrated that hard work pays off, whether you attend a public or non-public school.
Chesser is associate editor of Carolina Journal.