PLEASE SIGN ONLY IF YOU LIVE IN PALM BEACH COUNTY

It has long been the practice of Palm Beach County public high schools to rank students based solely on weighted GPAs, known as HPAs (Honor Point Averages).  Every graduating class is listed in numerical order - first, second, . . . three hundred-fiftieth, etc. This order is often determined by differences in HPA’s so minuscule - three or more places AFTER the decimal, that they are statistically insignificant in almost any other context.

In PBC, only the top 10% of each class is recognized as high achievers. Thus, Class Rank is a zero-sum game – if one student makes it in, another is out. This frequently pits student against student in competition for a coveted 10% spot.  Many experts and educators contend this system is unhealthy – fueling toxic competition, academic pressure, anxiety, specious feelings of failure, and damaging perfectionist tendencies among high-achieving students. And many of these mental health issues have been amplified by the COVID-19 crisis.

Class Rank illogically assumes academic success is a limited commodity – available to just 10%.  But, in some years, more than 10% of students (maybe 11%, 14%, or even 19.3571%) achieve academic excellence.  Class Rank penalizes these students – squeezed out of the 10% by tiny fractions of a point and then overlooked by some colleges and completely barred from applying for many lucrative scholarships.

Latin Honors are fundamentally more equitable. They recognize the academic success of all meritorious students, not just an arbitrary 10%. They are based on uniform standards that are consistently applied – typically defined brackets of HPAs designated summa cum laude (highest honors), magna cum laude (high honors), and cum laude (honors).

Most US high schools, including every sizable private high school in PBC and all public high schools in Miami-Dade County, have abandoned Class Rank for Latin Honors. Meanwhile, our school district continues this outdated ranking system, even though it puts many very good PBC students at a disadvantage in scholarship applications and college admissions. PBC students simply cannot compete with those who are not burdened by Class Rank.

WE ASK THE PBC SCHOOL BOARD IMPLEMENT LATIN HONORS BECAUSE IT IS MORE EQUITABLE THAN CLASS RANK, BETTER FOR STUDENTS’ MENTAL HEALTH AND WILL LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD FOR PBC STUDENTS APPLYING FOR COLLEGES AND SCHOLARSHIPS.

We understand there may be some initial resistance to change, but we hope to convince PBC voters –

1. Some Class Rank proponents contend that competition is good and prepares students for real life. True. And Latin Honors are competitive; summa cum laude is not easy to attain. Moreover, in real life, success is not limited to exactly 10%, and absolutely no more than 10%. In real life, success and failure are not determined by numerical differences so tiny they are statistically insignificant – except possibly in real life Olympic time trials and real life NASA engineers calculating the reentry of real life astronauts. Latin Honors are more like real life than Class Rank.
2. Some Class Rank proponents aspire to preserve tradition – Traditions tend to be familiar and comfortable, but during the 30+ years that PBC has used this Class Rank system, high schools have changed significantly – educational standards have increased; students have infinitely more opportunity for advanced and college-level courses (Honors, AP, IB, AICE, Dual Enrollment, etc.); college admissions are more competitive; scholarships are announced nationwide online; most US high school students are not labeled by Class Rank; and the manipulation of HPAs has become so commonplace that many college admissions offices no longer consider Class Rank a useful measure of academic ability.  Class Rank is a tradition whose time has passed.  Latin Honors are more appropriate for the high schools of today.
3. Some Class Rank proponents believe Latin Honors preclude the recognition of Valedictorian and Salutatorian.  Not true.  While some high schools that have adopted Latin Honors also have chosen to end Val/Sal designations, others continue to award Val/Sal.  Some of these schools determine Val/Sal based solely on HPAs, and some based solely on HPAs of academic classes only.  Some, in an attempt to expurgate the most obvious HPA manipulations, permit any student designated summa cum laude to apply for Val/Sal designation and then appoint a faculty committee to decide based on a variety of supporting factors beyond just HPA. There are numerous options for determining the Val/Sal designations in Latin Honors.  If this issue is important to you, we urge you to email the PBC School Board and express your preferences.
4. Some Class Rank proponents maintain that a very limited number of colleges still require high school Class Rank on applications. True. Although most US high schools no longer rank and almost no US college still requires Class Rank on applications, a very few most selective colleges – namely the five US Military Academies, still require every applicant to submit an exact Class Rank. To accommodate these students, high schools that use Latin Honors still calculate and submit an individual student’s specific Class Rank upon request, but Class Rank is not routinely calculated or reported for all students. 

IF YOU ARE CONVINCED, JOIN US NOW! SIGN this PETITION and ask the PBC SCHOOL BOARD to IMPLEMENT LATIN HONORS. Please only sign if you live in Palm Beach County!

If you still are not convinced, please keep reading – the aforementioned arguments are further detailed below.

In this school year – during this time of pandemic, virtual classrooms, distance learning, extreme uncertainty, and undue stress, our School Board should abandon Class Rank or, at the least, suspend this practice until the pandemic passes.  Latin Honors would reduce student stress and anxiety by decreasing the severe impact small dips in HPAs have on Class Rank.

For years, educators and experts have lamented the negative effects of Class Rank on mental health –

• Class Rank promotes anxiety, academic pressure and specious feelings of failure
• Class Rank incentivizes grades over learning. It discourages students from taking challenging classes just because they are interesting or unweighted classes just because they are enjoyable
• The zero-sum nature of Class Rank encourages students to see classmates as obstacles to their own success and not as friends and allies. It erodes the sense of community and potential for peer support so essential to coping with the everyday stresses of high school and adolescence

When PBC schools closed in March and transitioned to distance learning, some students faced great challenges, and the negative mental health issues commonly attributed to Class Rank were amplified –

• Some students had difficulty adjusting to virtual learning formats and/or getting extra help, and they fell behind with their schoolwork
• Some lacked a quiet space to study or “attend” class
• Some lacked access to reliable technology – slow or erratic Internet service and/or inadequate computers.  Some families had access to only one computer that all the children had to share
• Some felt isolated from friends and were deprived of sports, arts, and extracurricular activities
• Many worried they or family members would contract COVID-19
• Many worried their families could not endure the economic downturn
• Some students’ grades, and concomitant Class Ranks, dropped during last spring’s quarter, and most can never regain their previous ranking. HPA margins in a Class Rank system are too small
• And worse, most of these issues disproportionately affected economically disadvantaged students

During this pandemic, it is unfair to impose Class Rank – a system that already promotes anxiety and stress for many very good students and is completely unforgiving of even minute drops in HPAs.  Latin Honors would go far in reducing these drawbacks

Class Rank categorically disqualifies many very good PBC students from applying for many lucrative college scholarships.  Latin Honors would make many of these students eligible.

Many lucrative college scholarships require applicants to be ranked in the top 10% of their class, but if class rank is unavailable, then applicants must have a 3.75 or better unweighted GPA

• Because PBC public high schools assign Class Rank, many very good students – even those with 4.0 unweighted GPAs and ranked in the top 11%, 12% or even 15% of their graduating classes, are categorically disqualified from applying for such scholarships solely because of Class Rank
• Students from private PBC high schools who have 3.75 or better unweighted GPAs and are designated summa (or even magna) cum laude are eligible to apply for such scholarships simply because they are not burdened by Class Rank

By imposing Class Rank instead of Latin Honors, our School Board has effectively eliminated many very good students from competing for some of the most lucrative college scholarships against comparable students who attend local private high schools, Miami-Dade public schools, and a majority of US high schools that have abandoned Class Rank

Many College Admissions Officers no longer consider Class Rank a valuable measure of academic talent.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling asserts that factors used to evaluate college applications have remained the same for 20 years, but Class Rank has declined in importance

The National Association of Secondary School Principals contends that only 1 in 3 admissions officers consider Class Rank an important factor in the college admissions process

Both the College Board and the National Association for College Admission Counseling affirm that most US high schools no longer report Class Rank on college applications

In recent years, many College Admissions Officers have noted –

• Class Rank has limited value because of vast differences in curricula, grade weighting and grading standards among different high schools
• When Class Rank is determined by HPAs calculated to the thousandth of a point, such tiny differences render Class Rank essentially meaningless and misleading
• In many competitive high schools, Class Rank has become less a measure of academic talent and more a measure of skill in course selection with an awareness of the effects on HPA

Including Class Rank on college applications is no longer necessary for one very practical reason – most US high schools no longer rank their students

Almost no college requires Class Rank to be submitted on an application but, IF CLASS RANK IS SUBMITTED, IT WILL BE CONSIDERED – and often to the detriment of the student.

Most US high schools have abandoned Class Rank in favor of Latin Honors, many because Class Rank

• Harms very good students – those with outstanding HPAs who are squeezed out of the top 10% by minuscule differences in HPAs and then are overlooked by some competitive colleges and barred from even applying for some lucrative scholarships and
• Gives little additional help to the very best students – the ones in the select top 10%

Moreover, the opposite is NOT true – while Latin Honors dramatically helps very good students, it does NOT harm the very best ones

The reason is uncomplicated – if Class Rank is NOT provided, it is not considered.  But if Class Rank is provided, it is considered and, seemingly, as an important factor

Many College Admissions Officers welcome this trend of abandoning Class Rank for Latin Honors –

• They likely are motivated by the ranking methodology of the US News & World Report's Best Colleges annual publication
• USN&WR determines a college’s rank based, in no small part, on the high school Class Ranks of its incoming freshman class
• Consequently, when considering two fairly equal students with similar GPAs, HPAs, curricula, test scores and equally compelling personal stories, a college hoping to maintain “Selective” or better status, is motivated to accept a student WITHOUT Class Rank (no impact on USN&WR calculations) than to accept a student with Class Rank but not in the top 10% (negative impact on USN&WR calculations)

This premise is supported by an analysis of the most recent Common Data Sets for 75 top-ranked USN&WR colleges.  The data suggests that Class Rank is not required for admission to prestigious colleges, but if Class Rank is submitted, the student probably needs to be in the top 10%–

• On average, only 33% of entering freshmen for these 75 colleges submitted applications that include Class Rank – so 66% did not apply with Class Rank
• Of that 33% who submitted Class Rank, on average, more than 84% of them were in the top 10% of their high school classes.  Moreover, if only the top 25 of those colleges are averaged, that number skyrockets to almost 94% of ranked students were in the top 10% of their high school classes.

PLEASE JOIN US! SIGN THIS PETITION! Ask the PBC SCHOOL BOARD to IMPLEMENT LATIN HONORS! Please only sign if you live in Palm Beach County!