HowMany
HowMany
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June 3rd, 2015 at 7:16:09 AM permalink
An Ohio school named 222 valedictorians (20% of the graduating class).

Liberals never cease to amaze me.

Just more of the "Give Everyone A Trophy" mentality.

Perhaps in the near future, the NFL will be run by liberals, and they can award the Lombardi Trophy to around 6 or 7 Super Bowl Champions each season?

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/06/03/best-of-class-in-dublin-222-grads-tie.html
terapined
terapined
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June 3rd, 2015 at 10:31:24 AM permalink
Quote: HowMany

An Ohio school named 222 valedictorians (20% of the graduating class).

Liberals never cease to amaze me.

Just more of the "Give Everyone A Trophy" mentality.

Perhaps in the near future, the NFL will be run by liberals, and they can award the Lombardi Trophy to around 6 or 7 Super Bowl Champions each season?

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/06/03/best-of-class-in-dublin-222-grads-tie.html



Conservatives never cease to amaze me.
Lets blame everything on liberals LOL.

I admit I am a social liberal that supports gay marraige.
I have never ever taken a govt handout, worked my whole life.

I certainly dont support a trophy for everyone
I certainly dont support 6 or 7 super bowl champions.
dont support 20% valedictorians.

Liberal vs conservative
its not one side wrong and one side right.
Its a different world view.
I am well off because I worked hard my whole life
My word view is I dont mind higher taxes to help those not as well off as me.
ThatDonGuy
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June 3rd, 2015 at 10:59:03 AM permalink
It's not so much "give everyone a trophy" so much as "we don't want to invent some arbitrary method of ranking the top students." If ten students score 2400 (actually, it's going back down to 1600 starting in a year or two) on their SATs, how do you rank them?

Granted, if 20% of the students reach the valedictorian bar, then maybe it's set a little low. Call it something else. Here's a thought: let the other graduates decide - every graduate not "on the list" lists one name, and they're ranked from most votes to least; take as few as possible, starting from the top, where the total number of votes they received > half of the total votes cast.
ams288
ams288
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June 3rd, 2015 at 11:56:37 AM permalink
How the heck does this have anything to do with liberals?

If you view every single thing in life through a liberal v. conservative frame, you may need a hobby...
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead
Gabes22
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June 3rd, 2015 at 11:58:44 AM permalink
Quote: terapined

Conservatives never cease to amaze me.
Lets blame everything on liberals LOL.

I admit I am a social liberal that supports gay marraige.
I have never ever taken a govt handout, worked my whole life.

I certainly dont support a trophy for everyone
I certainly dont support 6 or 7 super bowl champions.
dont support 20% valedictorians.

Liberal vs conservative
its not one side wrong and one side right.
Its a different world view.
I am well off because I worked hard my whole life
My word view is I dont mind higher taxes to help those not as well off as me.


It's one thing to believe paying higher taxes helps those who are not as well off as you, it's another to actually believe that your tax dollars are being distributed in an efficient manner. Me, I would rather keep my taxes low and donate to to the organization or causes which I believe will help those that need them
A flute with no holes is not a flute, a donut with no holes is a danish
MathExtremist
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June 3rd, 2015 at 12:12:50 PM permalink
I don't think anyone is arguing that tax revenue distribution is efficient. The argument rather is that without that inefficient revenue distribution, organizations that do not currently need to rely on philanthropy suddenly would, and that would introduce a different and more socially harmful inefficiency. It would essentially shift the burden away from everyone (the taxpayers) and focus it on the non-profit organizations. That's a worse outcome than taxation.

Back to the OP and the Ohio school, I don't see how having an absolute threshold is the proper way to determine the valedictorian. That's supposed to be a superlative, not everyone who scores X or higher on some numeric scale. That'd be like saying each MLB team who wins 95 or more games in a season wins the World Series, so last year the Angels, O's and Nationals all won (which would be ironic because none of those are the teams that were actually in the World Series).

People, especially children, need to understand what it means to lose. Otherwise they can't understand what it means to win.
"In my own case, when it seemed to me after a long illness that death was close at hand, I found no little solace in playing constantly at dice." -- Girolamo Cardano, 1563
EvenBob
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June 3rd, 2015 at 12:24:56 PM permalink
My daughter was Valedictorian of her HS
class and got a full ride scholarship all
the way thru graduate school. That was
the point of why she had perfect grades,
most schools do this. Does that mean
222 kids get scholarships? I don't think
so. The article says some are eligible, some
will get one and some will not. My daughters
was guaranteed.
"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
SanchoPanza
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June 3rd, 2015 at 12:29:30 PM permalink
Quote: ThatDonGuy

It's not so much "give everyone a trophy" so much as "we don't want to invent some arbitrary method of ranking the top students." If ten students score 2400 (actually, it's going back down to 1600 starting in a year or two) on their SATs, how do you rank them?

Then the pompous bozos at the College Board and the Educational Testing Service should be fired for abject incompetence. It's bad enough when they screw up their questions and answers so often.
Quote: ThatDonGuy

Granted, if 20% of the students reach the valedictorian bar, then maybe it's set a little low. Call it something else.

It is called something else. Mostly it's called the National Honor Society, although some places use other labels like Arista.
Quote: ThatDonGuy

Here's a thought: let the other graduates decide - every graduate not "on the list" lists one name, and they're ranked from most votes to least; take as few as possible, starting from the top, where the total number of votes they received > half of the total votes cast.

Academic rankings are not popularity contests for homecoming queen or class president. They are used to determine major benefits like admissions, scholarships and hiring.
ThatDonGuy
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June 3rd, 2015 at 2:06:09 PM permalink
Quote: SanchoPanza

Academic rankings are not popularity contests for homecoming queen or class president. They are used to determine major benefits like admissions, scholarships and hiring.


"Valedictorian" and "first in your class" aren't necessarily the same thing - especially if the former takes extracurriculars into account.

At my high school, the policy was, the student with the highest GPA was the valedictorian. The class before mine had only one 4.0 (this was in the days before you got "bonus points" for honors courses); mine had five, and all of them shared the honor.

Then again, at my high school, there was a time when, in order to be homecoming queen, first you had to be one of the "homecoming princesses" selected solely by that year's varsity football team.
HowMany
HowMany
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June 3rd, 2015 at 2:15:53 PM permalink
Where my kids went to school, there's ZERO chance of becoming Homecoming Queen if you are a normal, pretty, popular girl.

Of the last five Homecoming Queens:
3 were retarded,
1 was 400+ pounds, and
1 was a gay male
terapined
terapined
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June 3rd, 2015 at 2:20:17 PM permalink
Quote: Gabes22

It's one thing to believe paying higher taxes helps those who are not as well off as you, it's another to actually believe that your tax dollars are being distributed in an efficient manner. Me, I would rather keep my taxes low and donate to to the organization or causes which I believe will help those that need them





Below headline from Fark "-)
"Red Cross raises half a billion for Haiti...and builds six houses with it. In other news, Red Cross names Sepp Blatter as new CEO"

Maybe the govt can do better, maybe worse

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes
CrystalMath
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June 3rd, 2015 at 2:30:39 PM permalink
At my high school, there was a single valedictorian, which is how it should be. Actually, in the top 15% of the class (50 students) there was only one tie in GPA which was for the bottom two spots. One of those two students was a girl who took all regular classes and got all A's. Everyone else in the top 50 took honors, gifted, and AP classes. It was a funny grade point scale, but it makes sense to add points to harder classes. Additionally, there was an A+, A, and A- to help differentiate the GPAs.
I heart Crystal Math.
EvenBob
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June 3rd, 2015 at 2:41:53 PM permalink
Quote: ThatDonGuy


At my high school, the policy was, the student with the highest GPA was the valedictorian.



Ever see Alex on Modern Family? That's
how my daughter was, always striving
to get the best possible grade in every
class. She never got less than 100% in
any class, on any test or project. She was a
learning machine. Not that she teaches
college math, she's the least popular
professor because she expects out of her
students what she was as a student.
Good luck with that..
"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
HowMany
HowMany
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June 3rd, 2015 at 2:43:33 PM permalink
At my high school, we had ONE valedictorian, too.

He went on to graduate with honors at our state university. He later became a pharmacist, and was busted twice for stealing Oxycodone.

He ain't no pharmacist no more. Pretty decent golfer though, and an all-around nice guy.
SanchoPanza
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June 3rd, 2015 at 2:56:16 PM permalink
Quote: ams288

How the heck does this have anything to do with liberals?

It is a given that most educators are liberals. And conservatives tend to oppose rather fervently any moves to equalize rankings, earnings or assets.
ThatDonGuy
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June 3rd, 2015 at 3:01:14 PM permalink
Quote: HowMany

Where my kids went to school, there's ZERO chance of becoming Homecoming Queen if you are a normal, pretty, popular girl.

Of the last five Homecoming Queens:
3 were retarded,
1 was 400+ pounds, and
1 was a gay male


Where did they go - McKinley (soon to be McKinley School of Performing Arts) in Lima, Ohio?
djatc
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June 3rd, 2015 at 3:01:52 PM permalink
Quote: HowMany

Where my kids went to school, there's ZERO chance of becoming Homecoming Queen if you are a normal, pretty, popular girl.

Of the last five Homecoming Queens:
3 were retarded,
1 was 400+ pounds, and
1 was a gay male



I blame modern family the TV show
"Man Babes" #AxelFabulous
OzzyOsbourne
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June 3rd, 2015 at 5:57:08 PM permalink
Quote: djatc

I blame modern family the TV show



Modern Family???? You're joking right?!

This is clearly Obama's doing!
casino's money disappears the execs worry when the wizard is near He turns tears into joy Everyone's happy when the wizard walks by
djatc
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June 3rd, 2015 at 8:54:27 PM permalink
Quote: OzzyOsbourne

Modern Family???? You're joking right?!

This is clearly Obama's doing!



Ok modern family 50%
Obama 50%
"Man Babes" #AxelFabulous
Twirdman
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June 3rd, 2015 at 9:40:15 PM permalink
Quote: ThatDonGuy



At my high school, the policy was, the student with the highest GPA was the valedictorian. The class before mine had only one 4.0 (this was in the days before you got "bonus points" for honors courses); mine had five, and all of them shared the honor.



This is basically impossible to do now given some competitive high schools. I mean high school I went to was fed by a magnet middle school and there were a significant number of students on the order of at least a few dozen who had a 4.32 GPA which was our max. This was As in all your classes and at least 4 AP classes. A significant number of those took basically every AP class they could and still score straight As in all of those. We had all 4.32 GPAs have summa cum lauda honors since it is impossible to differentiate them especially given how many extra curriculars and things these students did. I mean plenty of these were IVY league bound or at least bound for schools on the order of UC Berkeley.
TomG
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June 3rd, 2015 at 9:48:10 PM permalink
Quote: SanchoPanza

Quote: ams288

How the heck does this have anything to do with liberals?

It is a given that most educators are liberals. And conservatives tend to oppose rather fervently any moves to equalize rankings, earnings or assets.



That must mean anytime a school doesn't have 222 Valedictorians it is an example of liberals being better than conservatives
tringlomane
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June 3rd, 2015 at 10:15:05 PM permalink
Quote: CrystalMath

At my high school, there was a single valedictorian, which is how it should be. Actually, in the top 15% of the class (50 students) there was only one tie in GPA which was for the bottom two spots. One of those two students was a girl who took all regular classes and got all A's. Everyone else in the top 50 took honors, gifted, and AP classes. It was a funny grade point scale, but it makes sense to add points to harder classes. Additionally, there was an A+, A, and A- to help differentiate the GPAs.



I was one of 3 Valedictorians. No +/- system, but bonus points for "college-prep" classes. We all made As and we took all the college-prep classes. If you want to be technical, I had the highest GPA because I took the fewest amount of classes to graduate (I took a "release hour" my 2nd semester senior year while taking Calc 2 at a community college). But correctly, our school considered us tied. I'm cool with that, because I wasn't pushed to give a speech...lol Ironically, I caught up with one of them briefly on my Feb. 2014 Vegas trip at the Mirage Sports Bar as he was in town at the same time. He's doing way better than I am; he's an ER doctor in Colorado now. That same trip two days later, I bumped into a student I taught in grad school at Flamingo with no warning. Completely shocked on that one.

There is nothing wrong with some ties, imo, but 222 Valedictorians means the grading scale needs to be changed.
RonC
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June 3rd, 2015 at 10:18:08 PM permalink
Just some folks trying to game the system by conferring a title on a whole bunch of people that don't deserve it. They may get some more scholarships but, if this idea spreads, it could be that being a valedictorian will mean less to colleges and lead to less automatic scholarships.
tringlomane
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June 3rd, 2015 at 11:47:00 PM permalink
Quote: RonC

Just some folks trying to game the system by conferring a title on a whole bunch of people that don't deserve it. They may get some more scholarships but, if this idea spreads, it could be that being a valedictorian will mean less to colleges and lead to less automatic scholarships.



Oh I forgot to add, I got zero automatic scholarships just for being a Valedictorian back in 1998 for the schools I applied to. I did have close to a "full-ride" to Mizzou, but it wasn't because I was a Valedictorian. Did all of these 222 people get automatic scholarships somewhere for being considered the Valedictorian?
EvenBob
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June 4th, 2015 at 12:14:53 AM permalink
Quote: tringlomane

Did all of these 222 people get automatic scholarships somewhere for being considered the Valedictorian?



No. It said they could 'apply' for them,
as of course anybody can.
"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
Joeman
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June 4th, 2015 at 5:36:18 AM permalink
Quote: tringlomane

There is nothing wrong with some ties, imo, but 222 Valedictorians means the grading scale needs to be changed.

+1

I think it's the aversion to competition, to having winners & losers that I have a problem with. This is along the lines of giving out participation trophies or not keeping score in games. For many, competition drives us; makes us become better. If results don't matter, there is no reason to improve.

Quote: MathExtremist

People, especially children, need to understand what it means to lose. Otherwise they can't understand what it means to win.

Exactly. When I played baseball growing up, I remember being on teams that would beat the best team in the league, but also lose to the worst team, and finish about .500. It taught us much about winning and losing.

It also taught the other teams as well. The winless team that beat us got to feel the joy of victory, while the undefeated team that lost to us got to feel the sting of defeat. I remember one game in particular where members of the formerly unbeaten team cried. I thought it was ridiculous to cry about losing a baseball game. What babies! Then, I thought about how I cried the very first time I struck out in a game. I learned from it, got over it, and it never happened again (at least the crying part). Those kids probably learned the same lesson that day.

The bottom line is, if 20% of your class are "valedictorians," most of those would have benefited from being challenged more. You have short changed them with their education.
"Dealer has 'rock'... Pay 'paper!'"
HowMany
HowMany
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June 4th, 2015 at 5:50:31 AM permalink
Joeman- great post, man.
ams288
ams288
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June 4th, 2015 at 5:53:49 AM permalink
I was 16th in my class of 260-ish students with a 4.3 GPA.

I had a full ride to 3 colleges.

Scholarships don't care about class rank. It's more about GPA + ACT/SAT score.

I got a 33 on my ACT which was basically an automatic full ride generator at every college I applied to.
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead
hwccdealer
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June 4th, 2015 at 6:11:53 AM permalink
My high school did the same thing - if you got at least a 4.0, you were a valedictorian. We had 26 of them.

At the very least, it wasn't "just make EVERYBODY a valedictorian"; it was "just make EVERYBODY who does X which is hard a valedictorian."
odiousgambit
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June 4th, 2015 at 6:29:16 AM permalink
I have this concept that a valedictorian is someone who gives the farewell address. Anybody with a tiny bit of Latin in that high school?

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=valedictorian

Did they have 222 farewell addresses?
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RonC
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June 4th, 2015 at 6:49:29 AM permalink
Quote: ams288

I was 16th in my class of 260-ish students with a 4.3 GPA.

I had a full ride to 3 colleges.

Scholarships don't care about class rank. It's more about GPA + ACT/SAT score.

I got a 33 on my ACT which was basically an automatic full ride generator at every college I applied to.



They do matter in some places:

"The Highest Ranking Graduate program provides a tuition waiver for the student graduating at the top of their high school class for their freshman year of college. The program is described in Texas Education Code § 54.301"

http://tea.texas.gov/HRG/

It does note that they allow ties for up to two students, which is reasonable.

Some things (33 ACT) will automatically get you top scholarships and other scores will get you something, but competitive scholarships do look at everything on the application. Class ranking is asked for, so it is used at least some of the time.
ams288
ams288
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June 4th, 2015 at 8:07:41 AM permalink
I am in full agreement that 222 valedictorians is ridiculous. But it's clearly not the norm.

My cousin just graduated last week, and he was valedictorian. But he lives in a small rural town and his class had less than 30 students. So is that really that impressive?
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead
Doc
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June 4th, 2015 at 9:02:24 AM permalink
Quote: odiousgambit

I have this concept that a valedictorian is someone who gives the farewell address. Anybody with a tiny bit of Latin in that high school?

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=valedictorian

Did they have 222 farewell addresses?


Back in the dark ages when I finished high school, we had 100 in the graduating class, with a total of four designated as honor graduates, including one valedictorian and one salutatorian. They did not present one welcoming address and one farewell address. Instead, all four honor graduates spoke sequentially during the ceremonies, but I do not remember the order.
SanchoPanza
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June 4th, 2015 at 10:36:44 AM permalink
Quote: ams288

Scholarships don't care about class rank. It's more about GPA + ACT/SAT score.

Financial aid in all its formats does depend on class rank, if the caliber of the secondary school is known to the admissions office and/or the financial aid office. The SAT's have become such a farce because of the pressure to dumb down that colleges find that they can no long depend on them to provide a reliable gauge of the rigor of a high school.
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