Current grade system in need of adjustment

Our View

The Tiger Hi-Line staff here at Cedar Falls High School is a group of above-average students. As such, it is our belief that Cedar Falls High School needs to implement a weighted grade scale to accommodate our tough schedules and effort.

On the ground level, it makes sense. Students taking five honors classes and working hard on a variety of extracurricular activities deserves to be recognized for their achievements.

As our grading scale currently stands, a student taking four classes can still achieve a 4.0 — a grade indistinguishable from the honors students working their tails off. These students deserve to be recognized for their achievements with a GPA above 4.0.
It is our belief that Cedar Falls High School has the wrong policy regarding weighted grades.

Students excelling in the classroom and taking classes like AP biology or AP calculus deserve a GPA that reflects these accomplishments. The current system is unfair to those students going the extra mile in school.

Not that a new system would be without its flaws. For students pressured to do well, weighted grades may provide additional stress as students struggle to get the highest GPA possible, but this is far better than the alternative, which places gifted students and sub-par students on the same level.

The editors believe that the future is our students. If students do not feel a pressure to excel, they will settle for less. If a student really wants to maintain a 4.0, what class are they more likely to take: Intermediate Language Arts or Language Arts Enrichment? Keep in mind ILA is the significantly easier of the two, though such information will probably not show up on a high school transcript. The answer is obvious; with a higher chance of a B in LAE, they will take ILA. The administration needs to push its students, and a weighted grading scale would help.