<p><a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002336475_garfield15m.html?syndication=rss[/url]”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002336475_garfield15m.html?syndication=rss</a></p>
<p>This school has 44 vals…egad</p>
<p>Its definitely time to weight those GPA’s and rethink their grading system so that an A- isn’t the same as an A+.</p>
<p>I’m glad I won’t be in the audience…39 speeches.</p>
<p>My niece who attended a local IB school was 1st in her class- however I think there were about 30 who were “1st” with same GPA.
Wasn’t valedictorian however- didn’t give a speech.
My older daughters school didn’t rank or weight ( no AP) and if you wanted to give a speech… or sing… or dance you could.
Perhaps one person gave a short speech- I don’t beleive it was the person with highest gpa, one student who was interested in communications produced a short film about the school- it was hilarious, he is now a correspondent for NPR, my daughter sang a Carole King tune.
I didn’t go to graduation @ Garfield, but they had each student who wanted to speak say one sentence, so I am assuming they were out of there before midnight- I hope.
Since this is a class where many take lots of AP classes and at least 15 students are going to Ivy league schools ( not counting Stanford/Swarthmore/etc)but at least that many perhaps are not from college educated parents, and have made great accomplishments in high school, I think it is appropriate to recognize that :)</p>
<p>SO, Dear Admin Staff, I was valedictorian!!! And so was Suzzy, and Bob, and Tanya, and Wendy, and Mary…</p>
<p>It really looks like grade padding, because how could 10% of the class get straight As in every class all through highschool, starting in Freshman year.</p>
<p>It will look like the school is pretty easy. </p>
<p>I would like to see how they do on the AP tests. That would be the real test.</p>
<p>“Skeptics say that so many students with perfect 4.0 GPAs is evidence of grade inflation; admirers say it’s the product of smart, hard-working students at a school that encourages academic success.”</p>
<p>The following link to the New Jersey Star Ledger is an article about Valedictorians in North Jersey. </p>
<p>In the article my daughter is Emily. Her school only had one Val one Sal, based on a weighted grade point. There was a definite distinction in all grade points.</p>
<p>Congratulations to you & Emily. You must be incredibly proud!</p>
<p>Our school had one valedictorian and one salutatorian. They were the only two students in our school with 4.0s- they were the top 1% of our class. In a school 10 miles away (one that is very similar in socioeconomic level, albeit much smaller), 30% of the class graduated with a 4.0. I think it’s safe to say that something’s wrong down the road.</p>
<p>I agree it does seem like a lot- my daughter had straight As 1st sem but this sem has 3.3
But there are some pretty smart students there- as I mentioned on another thread- they do have the gifted cohort of the district, and since they have a history of placing students in competitive colleges, I am assuming that the admittance rate would go down if they were found not to be able to keep up.
these are kids who are super type A - they have been staying up till dawn since probably 6th grade- and I don’t think in many cases it is grade inflation.
Other years they have had much fewer straight A students- but I like that all the students that have 4.0s are given a chance to speak rather than a fierce competition as I have heard about on these boards where only one person is Val & Sal and where there are a lot of bad feelings and much drama.
When they note that they are Val ( which isn’t actually determined till after they have been accepted at schools) I am sure it is in the school description, the percentage of people with straight As ( at least I would hope so)
I appreciate that they don’t rank- but they may have contributed to so many with the same GPA. My daughter will be taking one Ap class at a time- two at the very very most, but she still has the potential as having the same GPA as someone who takes 5 AP. IT might not sound fair, but by looking at the transcript you can see their course schedule so you can tell right there who was taking a strenous load</p>
<p>My D has a 4.0uw in a competitive IB magnet program. The IB curriculum is very structured and she follows their recommendations with regards to # of HL courses, electives, etc. She is nowhere close to Val because of weighting. The kids gunning for Val make sure their electives are heavily weighted rather than interest based, take extra classes rather than study hall, etc. They definitely deserve to be Val & Sal if they put this much effort in, but my D certainly deserves her 4.0 as she’s earned it in every class she’s taken.</p>
<p>My kids went from a strong public school to a strong private school. What an eye opener! At the public, at least 25 every year had straight A’s and lots had weighted 4.5 GPA’s. At he private I don’t think anyone has a 4.0, and if they did, boy would it mean a lot. The public school SAT average is 1150, the private 1370.</p>
<p>Agree, I never knew what an A could take during my kids’ early years at a school that gave a lot of them. Top 10% at our local public high school is over 4.2!</p>
<p>Of course you can go the other way
My daughters college has new students coming in with a 3.8 average GPA and 30 on the ACT ( average)
however the college average GPA is 2.7
I don’t think all the high schools had that much grade inflation- they take kids from all over the country and internationally- but they grade on a curve, and apparently even a C you have to work pretty hard for.</p>
<p>Having 44 Vals diminishes the value of a 4.0…if so many kids have it, that means the school isn’t making it very hard. I mean, are any of these kids really stretched? The appearance is that they are not. They may be, but it doesn’t look it, if you just looked from it as an outsider.</p>
<p>What I want to know is how many were last in their class.</p>
<p>Just think, no matter how they slice it, half the class was in the bottom half. (maybe even some of the vals. ;))</p>
<p>citygirlsmom, my school also would have about 25 or so vals (altough it recently stopped declaring vals.) But my point is that some of the vals probably got a 4.0 through hard work in hard classes. A lot of the others may have coasted through the regular, non-honor, non-AP classes without much effort and ended with the four point. So it really doesn’t diminish the value of a 4.0, just makes it harder to tell who worked and who didn’t.</p>
<p>There are this many vals only because of the way the school weighs an A. A 90 is the same as a 100. Therefore, the students really aren’t equal. Our district did away with this a few years ago. Instead, a 90 may be an A, but is worth 4.0, a 91 is 4.1, a 92 is 4.3, etc. It also weighs AP, Honors as 1 point higher. Our scale is 5.0, and definitely distinguishes all those A students. Being val or sal, etc., really means a lot - not only did you have all A’s, but you had to have all high A’s. This will never happen at our school.</p>
<p>Or, its not that hard to get As…seriously…if the teachers are not grading as hard, or letting things slide. We read about grade padding all the time…so if so many kids are getting straight As, it gives one pause if the curriculam is really challenging. It can’t be helped. Maybe all these kids are super students. But with that many vals, as I said, from an outsiders point of view, it seems as if the school is just handing out As. It very well may be these kids are workling hard, but apprearance, sorry to say, diminishes the word Validictorian.</p>
<p>Or, its not that hard to get As…seriously…if the teachers are not grading as hard, or letting things slide. We read about grade padding all the time…so if so many kids are getting straight As, it gives one pause if the curriculam is really challenging. It can’t be helped. Maybe all these kids are super students. But with that many vals, as I said, from an outsiders point of view, it seems as if the school is just handing out As. It very well may be these kids are workling hard, but apprearance, sorry to say, diminishes the word Validictorian. </p>
<p>It is like< Oh she got a 4.0!!! Wow, but gee, so did everybody else…</p>
<p>I hope you all read the article in the initial post. Lord, please shoot me if I ever consider moving to Seattle! The head of the PTSA is also the fine American who is leading the charge against letting military recruiters into Garfield High School under any circumstances. She also wants to let all 44 vals speak at graduation. And she’s concerned that the minority population isn’t fully reflected in the 44. So, instead of having vals, let’s just eliminate it altogether and make everyone exactly equal. This is the same mentality that wants to get rid of dodgeball in school (too much competition) and use imaginary jumpropes instead of real ones during phys ed (not everyone can jump rope).</p>