North Carolina School Board Stops Naming Valedictorians, Which Might Not Actually Be A Bad Thing
Yet another celebrated honor has been claimed by these ultra-sensitive times… sort of.
From Fox News:
Citing what it calls “unhealthy” competition among students, the Wake County school board is the latest in the country to make valedictorians and salutatorians a thing of the past, The News & Observer of Charlotte reports.
The school board unanimously gave initial approval last week to a policy that would prohibit high school principals from naming valedictorians and salutatorians – titles reserved for the two graduating seniors with the highest grade-point averages – after 2018, according to the newspaper.
“We have heard from many, many schools that the competition has become very unhealthy,” school board Chairman Tom Benton told the paper.
“Students were not collaborating with each other the way that we would like them to. Their choice of courses was being guided by their GPA and not their future education plans,” Benton said.
At first glance, this seems to be one of those “pussification of America” situations, where awards and recognitions are being sacrificed in order to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings. However, I believe this to be more of a false alarm. When I examine the reasoning for taking away the distinctions of valedictorian and salutatorian, I don’t see a school board bent on sheltering these kids right up until the end of high school. What I do see is a response to an increasingly ultra-competitive and cutthroat culture within the school system that doesn’t really benefit anyone. It’s less a case of “everyone gets an award” and more a case of “no one gets an award.” Hopefully the school board finds an appropriate way to bring back those distinctions.
I highly recommend checking out the comments section of the linked article, it actually gives some of the TFM commenters a run for their money..
[via Fox News]
Image via YouTube
God forbid we reward someone for accomplishing something
9 years ago at 4:59 pmI feel like this whole Intern Shelby. Dorn, comment censorship thing is going to have a lasting negative impact on this site. It has already cost us one Fail Friday.
9 years ago at 5:11 pmHell since I began reading TFM we’ve missed 2 and that was before she was even here.
9 years ago at 5:48 pmThree. Don’t let these fucks off easy. We shouldn’t be afraid to speak the truth about intern Sandy.
9 years ago at 1:35 amWe should also stop doing GPAs in college because I’m offended that I’m excluded from
9 years ago at 5:18 pmApplying for certain jobs because I spend my time drinking rather than the library and other people make “better” grades than me.
I feel as though college GPA actually matters a little though, because that is when you actually develop a work ethic of sorts. In high school you literally have one objective: to get a good enough GPA to get accepted into college, maybe grab a scholarship or two. I think the ACT is a way better indicator of future success, and most of the successful people I know had average grade points and high test scores.
9 years ago at 8:34 pmYou don’t deserve your name
9 years ago at 1:03 amFight me.
9 years ago at 4:04 pmHow is this cutthroat? It’s not like you can prevent someone else from learning. What were they doing, throwing each other’s textbooks in the trash to get a leg up? I get that some kids get dicked over by how classes are weighted but come on now.
9 years ago at 5:36 pmIn Florida for example, kids are taking classes at the community college for dual enrollment. But they are taking the basic Classes, that they won’t use in their education to get a leg up on GPA. The school district pays it as well. And when it was time to graduate kids were forfeiting those credits because their “college didn’t accept those”. Burden on the tax payers
9 years ago at 10:05 pmI guess instead of the next High School Frat Star putting “valedictorian” on his college application to some Ivy League university full of 4 and 5 slams, he’ll just put that he did real good and tried real hard. what’s next, America opts out of owning the Olympics because there are awards for 2nd AND 3rd place?? Maybe just Make America Great Britain again if we’re this sad and afraid of competition.
9 years ago at 6:25 pmAlright this is my first time to chip in because I’m now graduated (still sorta a high-school fuck) and I went to the top ranked public high school in my state. The environment at my school was beyond cutthroat and people would take as many as 6 AP classes a semester just to jump up a couple spots in CR and improve their Ivy chance .6%. Totally stifled learning, and although it looks like libs trying to take away something special, it will improve education in the long run.
9 years ago at 7:04 pmI get what you’re saying, but if someone isn’t learning because of how hard their classes are then that’s on them. I think personal responsibility is more important than ever
9 years ago at 7:20 pmStill a public school, you damn poor.
9 years ago at 9:28 pmDoesn’t matter if you graduated HS yesterday. Don’t come back until you get a bid
9 years ago at 1:08 amYou know the competition in pro sports is pretty cut throat too, they should eliminate the playoffs for every sport so that nobody feels bad for not winning a championship.
9 years ago at 7:38 pmTeams are supposed to be pitted against each other, that’s the point. The analogy you’re looking for is if a certain team stopped electing team captains.
9 years ago at 4:04 pmTo add some context to the discussion: this happened in Wake County, which includes Raleigh. The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill region has the highest concentration of PhDs in the country and there are tens of thousands of other white collar jobs around. With that many intelligent families around, the academic competition in high schools (and below) becomes insane. The academic arms race becomes unhealthy and kids don’t have real childhoods because they’re always chasing numbers and lines on a college application instead of living life and maturing into a functional adult.
9 years ago at 8:26 pmPart of being a functional adult is making your own choices and accepting your mistakes. In high school I took AP Computer Science even though I knew almost nothing about computers. Ended up getting a C and it was the hardest class I’ve ever taken. I recognize now that was a mistake, and I’m glad I almost failed in high school rather than college. Don’t shield kids from personal responsibility just because they’re in high school
9 years ago at 8:53 pmUnfortunately a lot of the time it’s not the kids making those decisions; it’s the parents. That’s why it’s an issue in the first place.
9 years ago at 9:01 pmHaving gone to high school at East Chapel Hill, I can attest that the pressure those valedictorians parents put on them is ridiculous. We had anywhere between a 10-20 way tie for highest GPA during my four years there, and therefore 10-20 valedictorians each year.
9 years ago at 10:02 pmYeah but is that because they want to be valedictorian soooo bad or is it more likely because of parents who push their kids hard and kids who are surrounded by successful students who set high standards?
9 years ago at 4:03 pmMy high school apparently used to rank students by cumulative gpa. There were continuously cases of study group, group projects, etc. where students would sabotage each other. Honestly, it only leads to dumbing down everyone and adding a volatile component to an already stressful academic environment. However, declining to announce a valedictorian and salutatorian is ridiculous. Those two deserve their achievement. At the very least, it’ll be a significant piece of their resumes for a few years.
9 years ago at 9:02 pm“Their choice of courses was being guided by their GPA and not their future education plans”
They’re still going to do that as long as GPA is a factor in college admissions.
9 years ago at 12:24 am