School Board Considers Banning Valedictorian Award (Los Angeles)

foxnews ^ | February 23, 2003

[Protagoras]

Ain't gonna happen; gotta keep those sheeple accustomed to herding.

It won't happen as long as people accept them as a given.

[headsonpikes]

Subverting the implicitly socialist public schools should be Job One for every American freedom-fighter.

Teach your children to disrespect wrongful authority.

[Protagoras]

Teach your children to disrespect wrongful authority.

I do, at every turn.

[Motherhood IS a career]

I thought this was some kind of satire, especially when I saw the old "it could get their feelings hurt" bit. But then I noticed that it's in L.A.

I'm sure that in time, the NEA will push for a Pass/Fail system, to eliminate all that "unhealthy" competition, but then sooner or later it will occur to them that "it could get their feelings hurt" when some of the kids fail.

[Motherhood IS a career]

There are just too many here in our schools that have a perfect GPA to pick only one of them.

Sounds suspiciously like grade-inflation. I find it difficult to believe that there are that many students who are equally matched in perfection. When I was a student, the difference between a Valedictorian and a Salutatorian were grades that were 98.6 and 98.1. But back then, teachers gave real grades, not fuzzy averages that tend to lump students into fewer and fewer academic categories.

I know the speeches are a whole lot better with the students picked by their peers instead of some I sat through with Valedictorians.

In other words, instead of academic competition, it has turned into a popularity contest. Nice work.

They graduate over 400 here and we get out in a little less than two hours which is great!

Of course. It's always more important to get out fast.

Clearly, you are not writing from the perspective of a parent, who doesn't mind sitting through 2 or more hours of their child's graduation ceremony, but from the perspective of a teacher or administrator, who has to sit through what you consider to be tedious ceremonies, time after time after time. And that explains a lot about your post.

[Motherhood IS a career]

Good for you!

I also graduated as Salutatorian (years and years ago), losing to the Valedictorian by a small fraction of a point. (We were also on a 0-100 system, which I think reflects greater accuracy of grades.) And I was also enrolled in several AP classes in my senior year, so I earned college credit. But in my case, so was the Valedictorian. In fact, all the higher achieving kids did the smart thing and took the more challenging classes. It was fair and square, and everyone was happy.

I think you're absolutely right... the joke IS on him. It really makes little sense to "strategize" yourself into a Valedictorian position by passing up on AP courses. This is something that is probably pretty obvious to a smart kid who's looking at the long term goal, but not so obvious to someone who is simply driven to win at any cost. Being a Valedictorian is a fleeting title that's gone as soon as you advance to the next level -- college.

So if you ask me, you made the smart choice, and you're better off for it. Congratulations!

[Bob Quixote]

At my class, they had three commencement speakers--two co-valedictorians and one chosen by the class. The class chose some football player who was about a C student, of course. I think a teacher wrote his speech--not that anyone listens to the speeches, anyhow.

Letting the kids choose commencement speakers is always disastrous. In my day, the outside speaker was someone with some dignity--the local congressman, a college professor, someone like that. The last graduation I covered for the local paper (about 10 years ago) featured a speech by a local shock-radio morning DJ.

[Bob Quixote]

The strategy of taking harder classes and not worrying about class rank is noble, but it can backfire. I didn't qualify for many college scholarships because my class rank wasn't in the top 10. It didn't matter that I was taking AP classes while several kids above me were taking business courses.

I might have had the last laugh, though. At my 10-year reunion, I was one of only a handful of college graduates, while even some of those ranked ahead of me failed to graduate, juicy scholarships and all.