“Kids can now come out of school with a GPA higher than 4.0 because of weighting of Honors and AP classes. I attended a high school graduation last year and the valedictorian had a GPA of something like 5.65. I’m not sure when this bloating of GPA’s took place, but I don’t recall it when I was graduating in ‘75.”
The sad part is when such students get to college, and get shelled in their classes. I’m not saying it will happen in the case you cite, but I will assert that many, many “honor” students, especially in urban schools, find that they cannot function in big-time colleges when they get there. At that point,they blame racism, or sexism, or some “ism”.
If I’m not mistaken, that 5.65 GPA valedictorian will have to take English and math remediation courses at the college level as a precursor to taking any actual college courses. She may do well, she may struggle. But the fact is, she will be shelling out money for something that, years ago, was put in place at the high school level: true proficiency in math, reading and writing. I think they used to call it the 3 R’s.