107!

I would've loved to have sat in the middle for that class. I think it's interesting that the debate over 107 went from a debate on ethics to that of teacher empowerment. But, I'll begin with the ethics part of it and then get to teacher empowerment.

Firstly, I don't think there was much merit to discussing the value of winning class valedictorian, personally, it was never something I strove for in high school (not that I was one to strive in high school at all, but hey, I did okay). But, who's to say what's important to who, whether it be scholarships, competitive nature, parental pressure, or whatever I think a part of us all know that valedictorian is a little bit more than just a title. True, the importance of the award does impact the pressure on the teacher, but being that it is of a considerable amount of importance, I understand the stress involved.

The ethical problem I had with fudging changing the grade I can now tell you having thought about it more carefully was not that the grade wasn't deserved, or that grades are subjective, but rather the teacher put the decision into their own hands. In a competition such as this one, there are a considerable amount of factors that go into valedictorian, like I said in class, a high school student takes about 28 classes. That is 28 classes worth of data, and it is illogical to weight the importance of one class over ones taken earlier (*note that this is already considering the weight of it being an AP class). Grades are essentially a data set, the more you have, theoretically the more accurate their representation of you will be. If Mary's first teacher wouldn't give her a better grade freshman year because she thought she might be valedictorian, why should a teacher senior year have that power? The power to achieve valedictorian is competition reserved to a student's data set (regardless of how accurate we feel this presentation can be). They control their data set as much as possible, it should be up to them.

Now, if you point to the knowledge of the fact that the other student had the "easier" teacher, then suddenly you come into a bit of a gray area. This starts to point more towards the area of teacher empowerment, but I will refer back to the data set argument. You can take into account that one singular class, but you have to keep in mind the other (roughly) 27 taken. Not having knowledge of the other student forced you to base your knowledge on the fact that the other teacher was an easy grader, this doesn't account for whether or not she deserved a high grade regardless of that fact, whether she would've gotten the same grade in your class no matter how impossible you deemed it to be, and whether or not at some point in the past Mary was given the same or similar advantage(s) that the other student now had. The decision was put in an individual's hands against everything that had come before. A very subjective judgement.

The most valid counterpoint to my argument is the fact that a teacher should be able to decide what a student deserves, and to this I don't disagree. However, this advantage was given to one student. I get that it was senior year and circumstances encouraged the grade change, but how about all the other students that may not have gotten into the college of their choice yet? What about the ones on the wait lists at schools, or those planning on transferring after their first year to a better school? Their senior year grades are almost equally as important to them as they are to the girl already on her way to Harvard chasing valedictorian. Now, I understand why the grade was changed, and I literally would not have a problem with this if something were written into the class syllabus that said you could! How about, the teacher reserves the right to add up to a 5 point bonus on final grades for considered hard work, extra effort, and participation. Of course in order to apply this it would've had to have been done at the beginning of the year, but it would help in future situations. It removes the singularity, gives you the empowerment you need, and I doubt many people would take issue with a point bonus at the teacher's discretion, especially a capped one.