Non-Fiction: Best in Class

Margaret Talbot’s Best in Class has some articles about high schools that got rid of valedictorians and just recoginize the students who get top ten percent in their class. This is a great plan the high schools are carrying out by not selecting a valedictorian. This will relieve a lot of stress from the students who are up in that region competing for that valedictorian spot. The reason is the students are more focused on being perfect grade wise and not worrying about living life which creates this stress that is not needed. A lot of high schools have AP classes which allows a student to get higher than a 4.0 GPA the maxium grade for regular classes. Some schools have ten or more of these difficult classes for students to take. The students who are competing to be the valedictorian want to take those AP classes to gain an edge against that student who is barely below or above them. The only thing is that the AP classes are college classes with a workload of homework which creates unnecessary stress for the student.

            The parents are another problem with high schools having a valedictorian. Some high schools were talking about how the parents come on the first day asking how their child could be number one. As the student hearing your parents saying that to the principal as even more pressure to be number one.

Also, what if the students loses valedictorian by a thousandth of a point or by a student who made his way around the system. The principal gets the angry call from the parent of how can my daughter or son not be valedictorian they are way smarter than that parent’s child. The incident that happened at Sarasota High School, where the students tied and the student with the most credits will be valedictorian. This allowed Denny Davies to be valedictorian because he found a loop whole on how to get more credits and the parents were furious and protesting. By not picking a valedictorian, a high school can avoid a lot of unnecessary complaints from parents who believe their child should be number one.

There are a lot of postives to not electing a valedictorian. This will set up high schools to focus on more students who are being successful in school. Instead of focusing on just the valedictorian the school can recognize maybe all the students who made top ten percent. This will make the students and parents happier by showing a group of students instead of one.

Instead of having valedictorians speak at the graduation who most likely doesn’t want to.  The schools could have people who want to speak for their class and this would be a more amazing touching speech for graduation. By opening this spot up, this could make a student who maybe wasn’t the brightest in the class contribute something special to their class.

            High school can be a lot less stressful and more fun for students and the faculty by not having a valedictorian position.

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