Guest opinion: Weighted GPA gives credit where it’s due

What if you and a co-worker received the exact same public recognition from your employer even though the project you chose to tackle required more work, time and effort than your co-worker’s? You shortened your lunch breaks; he did not. You took work home at night; he did not. You came in to the office on the weekends; he did not.

You could have chosen an easier path, just as your co-worker did, but because of your inner sense of drive and responsibility, you wanted to accomplish something more, something bigger, something grander.

However, at the end of the project, you realized too late that the reward was the same for both of you. No more for you, no less for him.

Would you feel cheated? Would you be upset? Would you wonder what the advantage was in giving the extra time and effort to an employer who obviously didn’t care?

That scenario is taking place every year in Washington state high schools. Because Washington does not grant more numerical credit to grades achieved in Advanced Placement (AP) classes, many high school students are choosing to take less challenging classes to maintain their perfect 4.0 grade-point average (GPA), thereby assuring their places as co-valedictorians of their graduating classes.

(Before I go further, everyone should know that I wish to criticize the system, not the students.)

For those who are unfamiliar, the AP program contains nationally standardized curricula for 34 different subject areas, each of which is, according to the College Board Web site, “equivalent to a first-year college course.”

AP teachers must be certified to teach these college-level courses, must have their syllabi audited and approved by the College Board, and must grade the high school students as a collegiate professor would. All in all, these courses are designed specifically for “motivated high school students” who wish to “study and learn at a higher level” than the regular high school curriculum would allow.

In fact, toward the end of each school year, these AP students take nationally standardized examinations to receive college credit in the chosen subject areas if they achieve passing grades.

Given these rigorous guidelines, and given the amount of extra time and work to which the students must commit, it seems categorically unfair that those students who choose to have Jewelry Design, Office Aide, Drama 1, and/or basic levels of core academic classes in their senior-year schedules can compete equally with AP students for the title of class valedictorian.

In order to offset this potential injustice, other states have implemented a weighted point system for all AP classes. In an AP class, an A would be worth 5 points (1 point more than regular high-school-level classes) in the traditional 4-point GPA scale; a B, 4 points; and a C, 3 points. This scale, which is presently not being used in the state of Washington, would both encourage more students to challenge themselves in high school and significantly shorten the lists of those receiving the title of valedictorian.

Don’t get me wrong. Obtaining a 4.0 cumulative GPA over the course of four years of study (straight A’s for semester grades) is absolutely commendable, no matter what classes are taken. In fact, high schools should still recognize all 4.0 GPAs at commencement exercises.

However, the lofty title of valedictorian should be reserved for those select few who rank highest academically in a graduating class; it seems to me that this recognition, therefore, should be attached to those who specifically choose to take more rigorous classes and still obtain straight A’s.

This year at Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane, there will be 14 co-valedictorians. Fourteen! Out of those 14, four students presently have four AP classes in their six-period-a-day schedules, and four have either one AP class or none. And on graduation day, they will all receive the same academic recognition.

But if the state of Washington were to grant five points for every A in an AP class, this list would be shortened to the more manageable and the more accurate number of four – those four seniors who decided to load up their schedules for their final year of high school.

Kudos to anyone who can achieve a 4.0, but extraordinary kudos to those who can achieve above a 4.0, a number that could be achievable if a weighted system were allowed in Washington.