by Carl Azuz, CNN

(CNN) The iconic Highlander line, “There can be only one” might apply at most other high schools.  But at Vanguard High School in Ocala, Florida, as many as 25 students could be classified as “valedictorian.”

What this means is that there are expected to be 25 straight-A students.  Since they have taken college-level courses, which carry weighted credit, the result is a 5.0 GPA for dozens of seniors.  And that’s not exactly unusual at Vanguard; last year, the school had 11 valedictorians.

So why is it graduating so many people at the top of the class?  The school’s ranking policy dates back to 2004, when there simply weren’t as many college-level courses available.  So with more of those to take and more students taking them, multiple 5.0 (perfect) GPAs are possible.  And the school uses GPAs – not numeric class scores – to rank its students.

Sharing a top-of-the-class honor doesn’t bother students like Preston Culbert.  “We weren’t trying to get a leg up on each other,” he said, “but you get towards the end and suddenly look at all these people who have succeeded just as well as you have.  I think it’s really great we can be rewarded in this way.”
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By Julie Peterson, CNN

(CNN) Slammed into lockers, isolated in darkened schoolrooms, vulgar language by a teacher – it was just another day at school for special needs student Alex Williams.

Recently released court documents say Alex, who has cerebral palsy, was routinely abused by teacher Melanie Pickens at Atlanta-area Hopewell Middle   School between 2006-2007. Despite extensive abuse of Alex and other students that was substantiated by a Fulton County School district investigation in 2007, no charges have been filed against teacher Melanie Pickens or then-Principal Frances Boyd. None of Pickens’ special needs students had the verbal abilities to tell anyone they were being physically and emotionally hurt.

You might expect that documented child abuse, in a public school, with many reports by teachers, school nurses, and staff, would automatically result in criminal charges -at least against the teacher actually doing the abusing.

Parents of Melanie Pickens’ former students say: Think again.

The way the Williams family learned of their son’s mistreatment was circuitous and indirect, according to Lisa and Doug Williams of Atlanta suburb Alpharetta. The parents of another student, Jake Marshall, informed the Williams, according to court documents released earlier this year. That’s because the abuse of student Jake Marshall was the first to be uncovered. Now 19, Jake lives with Angelman Syndrome and is non-verbal.

Back in 2004, special needs teacher Melanie Pickens taught a class of middle school students, at Hopewell Middle School, in the Atlanta suburb of Milton. She taught in an area of the school called G Hall, which is the section of the school used solely for special needs students.

In May 2007, another special needs teacher, Susan Tallant, says she found Jake isolated in a room, alone and strapped in a chair. She says it was obvious he’d been there a long time, because he was covered in his feces. “He had defecated and actually gotten it everywhere. All over him, all over the chair he was sitting in, all over the floor,” Tallant said in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Julie Peterson.
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Here's what the editors of Schools of Thought are reading today:

Los Angeles Japanese Daily News: USC Honors Nisei at Graduation
Nine Japanese-American students who were forced into internment camps while they were students at University of Southern California during World War II graduated from USC on Friday. A small group protested the graduation because the honorary degrees are only being conferred upon the living, and because some were denied their transcripts if they continuted their education elsewhere.

AZCentral.com: Some schools removing valedictorian title
Some Arizona high schools are honoring more of their best students, not just the top two who used to earn the titles valedictorian or salutatorian. Some top students prefer the competition for the title and are afraid the lack of one hurts them in the hunt for college scholarships.

Education Week: Charters Bills Go Down in Alabama, Mississippi
Recently, charter school bills have been popular in the Deep South. However, in Alabama and Mississippi this legislative session, charter school measures died before they could hit pro-charter school governors' desks.

U.S. News: 3 Etiquette Tips for New PTA Members
Parent-Teacher Associations can have an impact on school budgets, curriculum, and other activities. The article offers advice on how parents who are new to a school can introduce themselves to the PTA.

Wired.com: Girls Impress FIRST Championship With Project That Could Save Lives
Thousands of students gathered in St. Louis recently to compete in a national robotics competition, which includes the Junior FIRST Lego League. The Hippie Pandas, an all-girl team from New York, invented a way for people to pasteurize milk safely, and their invention is already in use in Nicaragua.

CNN's Carl Azuz speaks with Richelle Carey about the good, the bad and the outrageous when it comes to graduation gifts.

from Starting Point

(CNN) More than 2 million kids are enrolled in charter schools, 32% of which are African American – and of that 32%, more that half attend schools comprised mostly of minority students. This morning, CNN education contributor Steve Perry explains the lack of diversity, saying "We had to convince white people to come to a very good school in the hood."

Perry is the founder of charter school Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, CT. The demographic of his school has, in the past, been primarily black, poor students–until they were given a quota to provide some semblance of balance. Perry explained the reasoning for the so-called "segregation."

"The children who are typically choosing charter schools are the children who don't have the best education options in the nearby neighborhood, which in many cases are people of color and/or low-income students. They choose the schools they feel are going to give the best opportunity to fulfill what they believe is their true potential. So, many of those families choose charter schools and overwhelmingly they are people of color," he says.

But, he vehemently refutes the segregation claim, saying there is a fundamental difference between choice and segregation.

Eighth grader Chad Qian of Indiana took the top prize in the Raytheon MATHCOUNTS national competition which included an $8000 scholarship.

By Brooke Holmes, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Brooke Holmes teaches the history of medicine and Greek literature at Princeton University. She writes with The Op-Ed Project .

Earlier this month, high school students across the country made their final decisions about where to go to college. For the ones who plan to become doctors—as many as a third of the incoming class at my own university—the landscape this fall will look different in more ways than one: The class of 2016 will be the first cohort to navigate pre-med tracks geared to the new MCAT, the gateway test to medical school.

The revised exam, approved in February by the Association of American Medical Colleges, will still test aptitude in the physical sciences. But it’s engineered to gauge, too, how well aspiring doctors understand the social and behavioral side of medicine. And it tests for critical reasoning and reading skills.

The revamped MCAT confronts a problem that’s only getting worse. For all the strides we’ve made through technological innovation, medicine is failing at the very human art of treating patients. Doctors are ill-equipped to deal with factors like diet and poverty, which are now responsible for over half the cases of premature disease and death in theUnited States. Armed with state-of-the art drugs and machines, they don’t always consider whether using these resources will cause more harm than good. In many cases, it no longer makes much sense to call what physicians and patients have a “relationship” at all.

The AAMC hopes to reverse these trends by helping medical schools select for applicants capable of practicing, not just the science, but the art of medicine. There’s plenty of skepticism about whether a multiple-choice exam can screen for qualities less tangible than scientific competence. But there’s another question raised by the exam: how to prepare for it. Can we educate future doctors in a way that will make them more effective caregivers down the road? If so, how?

Let’s back up and ask an even more fundamental question: What do we want from our doctors? In a word: communication. By this I mean that we urgently need doctors who can talk to patients. But my understanding of communication is also broader. It’s the ability to navigate between two poles. There’s the body and the machines we’ve built to read its signs. Then there’s the person, together with his or her experience of pain and distress, cultural background, personal history, socioeconomic situation, and so on. We desperately need doctors who speak the language of the body and the language of the person.
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by AJ Willingham

Wake up! Life is happening here. Right now.

Sometimes we forget that, and if wisdom truly is wasted on the young, the worst time to impart wisdom is to a bunch of exhausted twenty-somethings in rickety folding chairs trying not to scratch where that rented gown is making them itch.

Whether or not you've walked across that stage, commencement speeches are best enjoyed like fine wine: thoughtfully, and with a little age. Here are some of our favorite graduation quotes to inspire your day:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition… Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” – Steve Jobs, Stanford University, 2005

by Tomeka Jones, CNN

(CNN) Former NBA Superstar Shaquille O'Neal says, “If Shaq can do it, you can do it.” He’s spreading this message to today's youth after recently receiving his doctorate degree in education. In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, O'Neal sat down with CNN Student News to talk about his most inspirational teachers and his passion for education.

by Sarah Springer, CNN

(CNN) During Teacher Appreciation week, the ladies of ABC shows “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal” spoke a little bit about the teachers that impacted
their lives the most.

Chandra Wilson, who plays Dr. Miranda Bailey on “Grey’s Anatomy”, told CNN her favorite teacher taught her to believe in her abilities, while television writer and series creator, Shonda Rhimes, told CNN about a teacher who made her look forward to the future.

“Her name is Mrs. Hanks. She taught 5th grade,” said Rhimes. “We watched Luke and Laura’s wedding on ‘General Hospital’ in her classroom one day after school when I had to stay after school waiting for my mom to pick me up. We closed all of the blinds and watched Luke and Laura get married, which was very serious for me.”

However, it wasn’t the show that made Rhimes think about her future, it was her teacher’s youthful nature and ability to make her students care.
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