The dumbing down continues:
There will be no valedictorian when Burlington High School's Class of 2007 graduates Friday. There will instead be two seniors graduating with summa cum laude honors, meaning their grade point average is between 4.1 and 4.3. Nine seniors will graduate with magna cum laude honors (3.8 to 4.09 GPAs), and roughly 35 will receive cum laude honors (3.5 to 3.79).
Burlington is the first public high school in the area to ditch the valedictorian tradition and the public student ranking that goes with it. The school made the change to reduce competition among students and do away with what some say is a false distinction -- selecting one student as the best in the class when the next-best is a statistical hair away.
Yes, by all means, let's get rid of that nasty competition, then send the kids out into the real world, where they will get gold stars for cooperation and never, ever be judged based on their performance. And the world, deprived of the advances that come from people who strive to do something better or first, will be such a nicer, friendlier place as it spins into chaos.
