Some sense out of school boards

When I first saw the headline on the front page of the on-line edition of the Rocky Mountain News — “No more competition: Boulder says bye-bye to valedictorians” — it sound like yet again a case of political correctness and self-esteemism run amok in our public schools. However, much to my pleasant surprise, when I read the actual article I found that the change actually makes sense:

A district committee studying the issue agreed to mirror colleges by recognizing groups of high-achieving seniors with summa, magna and cum laude honors instead of crowning a single valedictorian. The change is the result of a previous Boulder Valley decision to no longer calculate class rank.

“This honors more kids for academic achievement,” said Fairview High School Principal Don Stensrud, who co-chaired the committee. “It gives kids something to strive for.”

The district’s plan was presented at Tuesday night’s school board meeting. Because there’s no policy on valedictorians, a board vote isn’t required.

Before, each school decided how the valedictorian was determined. No high school allowed co-valedictorians, and the sole determining factor was a student’s grade-point average.

Those rules led to complaints in past years. Little separated the top 10, 25 or even 50 students at the district’s large, high-achieving high schools. For valedictorian, it often came down to hundredths of a point.

My own graduating class (Grossmont High School, 1971) had, as I recall, 10 people with 4.0 GPAs — and this was pre-AP, so there was none of this “5.0” stuff. I don’t recall off-hand if they named all of them as valedictorians (I wasn’t one of them; with a 3.91 GPA, I was way back in 19th place [OK, it’s really sad that I can remember that]). But given the arbitrary natures of some teachers and how they grade, I do think this is a good move, for a change. ..bruce..

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Category: Education, Main