What's that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Several weeks ago, I attended an Economic Development Conference sponsored by the Kansas Bankers Association.  The noon speaker was the President of Kansas State University.  He spoke of the awards students were winning.  They were not sports awards – Academic Awards.  He was reporting on the most recent award winner.  She was a Kansas native that won one of the six most prestigious academic awards in the United States.  He went on to tell that K-State leads the nation in Public University awards of these six.  Private universities have more but K-State leads everyone else.

The week before, I was listening to Concordia High School Counselor Larry Laas, speak about the academic success of students in Concordia.  I asked him to look up the records they had at school.  Here is his email:

“I looked in my files and found that records began to be kept in 1966.  Since that time, Concordia has been fortunate to have 31 National Merit finalists and 45 National Merit Commended Students.  In just the last 12 years, we have had 12 National Merit Finalist and 11 National Merit Commended Students.  Very impressive for a school our size!”

As my mother used to say, “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

Well, as we recruit businesses to Concordia, as we are now, being able to point to the success of students in the classroom is a key point of interest to owners and families of folks who will come with those businesses.

We are doing something right in our schools.  Academics is the primary mission of schools.  We should take our hats off to the work our USD 333 staff is doing.