Caught this item in The Federalist this week:
When PC and lawyers collide.... That's exactly what happened in Nashville schools recently, where school officials have banned the posting of honor rolls to recognize high-achievers, and may soon stop hanging students' work in the hallways. Why, you ask? Since it seems a few "parents" expressed concern that their tender and underachieving progeny might face ridicule from their smarter peers for not making the honor roll, the school system's lawyers said all such academic recognition had to go. State privacy laws, they insisted, prohibit the release of academic information -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- without prior consent. (Interestingly enough, those issuing the complaints didn't have any academic information released -- you have to be smarter for that.) Apart from the utter absurdity of the decision, the real question here, according to Federalist Research Editor and Tennessee publik skoo grajawit John Machen (himself rolled a time or two in violation of state privacy statues) is, "What kind of public school is it where the smart kids pick on the dumb ones? I didn't go there."