No more valedictorians.

No more valedictorians in Boulder Valley School District

posted by: Dan Boniface , Web Producer created: 11/14/2007 10:56:34 AM
Last updated: 11/14/2007 10:57:13 AM

BOULDER (AP) - Boulder Valley School District will end the valedictorian honor starting with the class of 2010.

The district's high schools used grade-point averages to determine the honor, but the district's top students were separated by just hundredths of a point - leading to complaints.

At Tuesday's board meeting, officials heard from a district committee that recommended honoring high-achieving with summa, magna and cum laude honors instead of crowning a single valedictorian.

Boulder Valley had previously abolished class rankings to reduce "unhealthy competition."



(Copyright Associated Press, All Rights Reserved)

Gee, let's just give everybody straight A's so that no one feels bad at all.

:rofl:

This is pissing me off the more I think about it. Idiotic pigfuckers.

What the hell is this world coming too? :shrug: :wtf:

:shrug:

It can be taken too far, of course. But these kids are going to have to compete for jobs eventually. Things will not be handed to them. They will not be coddled in the workplace like this. Not enough sales? Fired. Etc.

Maybe all football games should end in ties, so as not to hurt anyone's feelings.

My feeling about the GPA thing is that they should round to 2 digits after the decimal. 3.89 is less than 3.90. There is nothing wrong with a tie for first or second. So you share it, big deal.

:shrug:

It's ridiculous that the kid with 3.997 gets significantly more praise and honor than the kid with 3.996 and the three kids who made 3.995.

magna, summa, cum - recognizing the top 5%, etc. I support the idea of having a class valedictorian, but I think those kids who are closely ranked together should have to compete for valedictorian. A good friend's son was one of ten who had to compete for the honor of speaking at his high school graduation, and although he didn't make it, he thought it was a very fair system.

Our school district has some kinks in it that informed kids know how to manipulate.

An "A" in an honors class or AP class gets 5 points, while an "A" in a regular class gets 4 points, as I think it should be.

Now, an "A" in p.e. gets regular points, and since all students - theoretically - take p.e. that would be fine. However, if you're in the marching band, you don't have to take p.e. ever, and if you're in "honors" band," you automatically get 5 points for an "A" than the students who have to take p.e. and get 4 points for an "A." If you can get a doctor to sign a form saying that you can't take p.e. (for regular credit), then you can substitute that class for an honors class allowing you to garner more points. I know there's a few other ways to game the system, but I can't seem to remember them right now.

Does the kid who is a whiz at science take the economics class that will expand her mind where she might get a B+, or does she stick with the physics class that will be an easy A for her?

If the student has a love of learning, then that's what will motivate them... if they just want a scholarship or title, then that's what will do it.

But stop the (from my point of view, healthy) competition for the top spot just cause some students might do as you described above? I don't know about that...

But, I don't think you limit motivation by recognizing a group and not just one.

They still have the goal to be summa cum laude or top 5%.

Its hard for me to imagine a kid who would try hard to be a valedictorian but wouldn't try hard to be cum laude or to get in a good college.

Given that, I say it's a fine idea to reduce the pressure and anxiety on the kids this way.

Just group recognition? Top tier, second tier and so on?

Without going into too many identifying details, one of my kids was honored at the state level for one of her talents TWICE :) :) :) , but continuing in that class for four years cost her some valuable points. She still graduated in the top five percent, which was fine with me.

And because of a scheduling conflict, she had to take a regular class for a subject in which she would have normally taken an honors class. That really sucked, but the alternative would have been to drop the elective class in a subject area for which she was recognized in the district and state. And four years of that elective class destroyed all chances of graduating valedictorian, anyway. I was very proud of her for sticking to her own values.

and ended up as #10. I was in lots of activities though, even though I was a giant nerd. This was long before the rankings were dragged out to the fifth decimal point, or whatever.

But I remember that the guy who was #11 (a buddy of mine) was upset. ;)


I don't envy kids now, since competition of all types seems to be taken to an absurd level. I don't know what the answer is....

and steal an election - well why bother to study anymore

:eyes:

The high school has been rated as one of the top high schools in Massachusetts. Consequently, people with the means to do so moved there for the school system. They graduate a number of kids each year who have perfect A averages, and took as many honors classes and AP classes as they could fit in. The school and the students are so competitive that kids were having stress and anxiety issues trying to be at the very top of the class.

So now the school only gives out class rank in quintiles, and the valedictorian and salutatorian are chosen based on a contest for the best essay. There are many excellent writers who are not #1 in their class, so this is giving them a chance for the spotlight and giving the graduation attendees much more interesting speeches. Kids are still stressing over grades, but some of the anxiety is relieved by de-emphasizing class rank.

BTW, the high school has a 98% rate of kids going on to college, has many kids getting perfect scores on SATs, and send 30 or so kids to ivy league schools every year.

And right now, both the girls' soccer and field hockey teams will be playing for the state Division 1 titles on Saturday. The football team broke a state record a couple of years ago by winning 50+ football games in a row, also at Division 1 level. There is no lack of competition with these kids!

So, everyone, take a deep breath. Whether the Boulder schools have decided to go this route for the same reasons or not, don't condemn this out of hand. To be honest, I had the same reaction when I first heard of what the high school was doing, but I have seen the results and they look OK to me!

They've still got distinctions that honor the people who do best, so there's still an incentive to perform well. That's good. However, when you're taking the GPA down to the hundredths of points and with the various ways to avoid having to take non-honors classes as mentioned above, I'm not surprised there's discontent. The high school I graduated from when through a couple of years in the early 90s where all the people who tied for the top spot got to be "valedictorian", which meant that in one year there were *sixteen* of them. Now that's ridiculous. As an alternative, I think doing away with "valedictorian" and just giving the top three percent or something "suma" honors is fine.

Of course none of that logic will stop the usual suspects from decrying the coddling of our youth or the destruction of good ol' fashioned American competition, but that won't hide the fact that what they're doing at that school is better than the alternative in their situation.

No more district or state or any kind of champions. Just some kind of summa, magna, and cum laude honors for the top teams.

dropped all her advanced and AP courses and replacing them with easier courses for the last semester so she would be assured of keeping straight A's. The rest of us stayed in the tougher courses, learned more and took our chances. She was obviously under a lot of pressure to win the valedictorian slot over everything else. This is not healthy.

and I think even the state - has awarded different point values for AP/honors classes for years. Students get an extra point for an A compared to regular classes, so the goal is to take as many AP or honors classes as possible. My kids have all graduated with grade points higher than 4.0, and they weren't even in the running for valedictorian, although they did graduate in the top 5 percent.