[Blarg]

It has no value if it doesn't measure something concrete. By measuring grades only, it's one of the few things in high school that is about accomplishment rather than popularity. It imposes a real standard, which is probably a welcome relief to people perfectly able to compete but who don't have the right looking face, body, skin color, height, money, or lack of zits to come out on top in yet another popularity contest. In the real world outside high school, people are measured by things other than popularity all the time. In fact for many jobs, popularity counts for little if anything. It does students no disservice to measure them in a fair competition that has nothing to do with popularity.

Especially perverse is turning those things designed to measure things other than popularity into mere popularity contests all over again. High school has no shortage of exalting such things as it is, and certainly doesn't need to make meaningless the concept of valedictorian to create yet another opportunity to show the importance of being popular.