This past week we learned that 26 Decatur High School students have earned "Advanced Placement Scholar" awards for taking at least four Advanced Placement examinations and passing them with the passing grade of "3" that is required by many colleges for recognition.

Competitive Colleges usually require a grade of at least a "4" for recognition.

We also learned that the magazine "Business Week" placed Federal Way as 2nd runner up in Washington on their survey of "Best Places to Raise Your Kids."

This all sounds like good news for the school district, right?

Not so fast!

There were more than 1000 students in the school district who were enrolled in the Advanced Placement (AP) program.

That would mean that over 200 of these students would have been enrolled in Decatur. Since Decatur High School has about 700 students in the 11th and 12th grades, that would mean that about 28 percent of the students would be enrolled in the AP program.

As a former administrator from Decatur once said, "We teach the best, and shoot the rest," it would appear that executions could be a major hazard at Decatur!

Seriously I don't want to depreciate the accomplishments of the 26 who have achieved the Scholar status, but we have to ask, "What happened to the rest of the students?"

I would assume that there are also some "AP Scholars" from our other three high schools, but we haven't heard about these yet.

If the other high schools have similar numbers, it points out the plight that these high schools have and the reputation that it presents to college admissions counselors.

This is very thin icing on the cake!

I know from personal observations that the reputation of these high schools is not helping some of our kids who wish to gain admissions to some colleges and universities.

Why are our schools this way?

Could it be that we tolerate poor achievement and behavior in these high schools, and middle schools, which cultivates a lifestyle that doesn't regard achievement very highly? I think so.

In fact, we heard at the last school board meeting from a high school principal, "that it is very difficult to get parents to support achievement." Support for athletics or arts can be found, but support for achievement is hard to find. Could it be that there is too much emphasis on these diversions? I think so.

Why aren't these schools "powerhouses" in achievement, instead of something else?

Do we think that "training gladiators" is the function of our schools? A look at the local newspapers would suggest that this may be the case.

There are countless stories about kids signing up to "play," notice I didn't say "study," at some less than academically competitive colleges.

There are no similar stories about kid who get admitted to academically competitive colleges. One has to ponder why we call these places "schools" if these are the favored outcomes.

Looking at the "Business Week" article in some depth to find out how Federal Way made this list, I find that some of the criteria may not be what many of us would find that important in selecting a place, with a population of at least 50,000, to raise our children.

I need to point out that the reasons for this selection were only given for the winners in each state. In Washington the winner was Bellevue, Shoreline was first runner up with Federal Way as second runner up.

The first criterion in this survey was "affordability." I am not sure how Bellevue cleared that hurtle.

Clearly Bellevue has one of the finest school systems in the state due to the insistence of the former Superintendent to actual instruction in all classes. He no more than left the district, than the teachers went on strike to get this mandate eliminated!

In a few years we may see the decline in the Bellevue's achievement. Maybe the selection was based upon the stark differences in achievement that most other districts in the state have from Bellevue's achievement. I have to point out that the "achievement level" measure in this state was the WASL. Had it been the SAT scores and participation, the results could have been quite different.

No one has been admitted to college based upon their WASL scores.

In looking at the criteria used in all states I found that the most frequently mentioned reason for being selected was outdoor recreation facilities (34%) followed by museums and zoos (32%), schools (18%), low crime rates (10%) and athletics (6%).

How Federal Way gets to be 2nd runner up on this basis may puzzle some of us.

We have to remember that the town has to have at least 50,000 in population to be considered.

There are some states that only have one center of population that can meet this criterion, and some states that do not even have a center of population that meets this criterion, but the state was given a "first place" town in any event.

What do these "distinctions" mean? Perhaps not as much as originally thought. I don't want to diminish the accomplishments of the 26 students at Decatur High School, but I have to ask, "Why so few?"

As for bringing up children, if I were to read our local papers crime blotter and look at national achievement scores, I might have some reservations about South King County.