United States Academic Decathlon
The Academic Decathlon is an annual high school academic competition organized by the non-profit United States Academic Decathlon. The competition consists of seven objective multiple choice tests, two subjective performance events, and an essay. Academic Decathlon was created by Robert Peterson in 1968 for local schools in Orange County, California, and was expanded nationally in 1981 by Robert Peterson, William Patton, first President of the new USAD Board; and Phillip Bardos, Chairman of the new USAD Board. That year, 17 states and the District of Columbia participated, a number that has grown to include most of the United States and some international schools. In 2015 Academic Decathlon held its first ever International competition in Shanghai, China. Once known as United States Academic Decathlon, on March 1, 2013, it began operating as the Academic Decathlon.
Academic Decathlon is designed to include students from all achievement levels. Teams generally consist of nine members, who are divided into three divisions based on a custom calculated grade point average: Honors, Scholastic, and Varsity. Each team member competes in all ten events against other students in their division, and team scores are calculated using the top two overall individual scores from each team in all three divisions. Gold, silver, and bronze medals are awarded for individual events and for overall scores. To earn a spot at the national competition in April, teams must advance through local, regional, and state competitions, though some levels of competition may be bypassed for smaller states. Online competitions, separated into small, medium, and large categories, are also offered. USAD has expanded to include an International Academic Decathlon and has created an Academic Pentathlon for middle schools.
The ten events require knowledge in art, economics, language and literature, math, music, science and social science. These topics, with the exception of math, are thematically linked each year. One of the multiple choice events, alternating between science and social science, is chosen for the [|Super Quiz]. In addition to the seven [|objective events], there are three [|subjective events] graded by judges: essay, interview and speech.
Over the years, there have been various small controversies, the most infamous being the scandal involving the Steinmetz High School team, which was caught cheating at the 1995 Illinois state finals. This event was later dramatized in the 2000 film Cheaters. Academic Decathlon has been criticized by educators for the amount of time it requires students to spend on the material, as it constitutes an entire curriculum beyond the one provided by the school. Around the turn of the millennium, several coaches protested the USAD's decision to publish error-ridden Resource Guides rather than provide topics for students to research.
History
Academic Decathlon was founded in 1968 by Robert Peterson, the superintendent of schools in Orange County, California. Marvin Cobb, the executive director of the California Academic Decathlon in 2003, said after Peterson's death that Peterson intended the competition to encourage not only the highest-level students who already competed in academic competitions, but also to "change C students' lives". The inaugural competition, held in December 1968, hosted 103 students from 20 local high schools. At first only regional contests were held, organized by the Orange County Academic Decathlon Corporation with the assistance of the Orange County Department of Education. In 1971, when the grand jury recommended that the Orange County Department of Education should no longer play a part in the competition, full control was handed over to the OCAD.In 1979, the first statewide competition was held, and just over two years later, the newly formed United States Academic Decathlon Association held the first national competition in April 1982 at Loyola Marymount University in California—200 high schools from 16 states and the District of Columbia competed for the chance to attend. Peterson, inspired by the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, hoped to make Academic Decathlon an international event. At the 1984 Nationals, 32 states as well as Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and South Korea fielded teams. The inclusion of foreign countries did not become a regular occurrence, however. There was no more international participation until 1989, when teams from Northern Ireland and Rio de Janeiro competed. Since then, only a handful of international schools have competed.
After a 1986 trial competition, Dr. Peterson founded an "International Decathlon for Academics" in 1990. Competitions were held in 1990, 1991 and 1992, but for a number of reasons the competition did not continue. In April 2009, USAD announced that it would be regularly hosting an online international competition, the International Academic Decathlon, after a successful trial event in 2008; however, all 2009 participants but Southbank opted out, leading USAD to issue Southbank an invitation to attend the 2009 U.S. National Competition instead.
Academic Decathlon was originally organized differently than the current competition. The original ten events were aesthetics, conversation, essay writing, mathematics, practical arts, formal speech, physical science, social science, current events, extracurricular activities, and English literature, grammar, and reading. Over time, those events evolved into: economics, essay, fine arts, interview, language and literature, math, science, social sciences, speech and Super Quiz. It was not until 1998 that fine arts was split into its two constituent tests: art and music. Due to this division, the Super Quiz took the place of one of the other subjects each year. In 1998, Super Quiz replaced economics; from 1999 until 2012, it replaced either science or social science and alternated replacing the two from 2003 to 2012. Beginning with the 2013 season, the Super Quiz consisted of a relay portion only, encompassing questions from the respective year's Science, Language and Literature, Music, Social Science, Art, and Economics curriculum.
More than just the events were changed during the 1998–99 season—the style of study required of students changed. Prior to that season, students had performed their own research for each event, and test writers did not have to base their questions on material USAD published. However, after a policy change at the beginning of the 1999–2000 competition year, test writers were required to base the tests on official USAD materials. After the change in policy, scores vastly increased across the country. That year at Nationals, James E. Taylor High School had the highest team score yet seen at the competition. The following season, USAD once again altered their testing policies; 50% of test questions were to come from USAD published "Resource Guides" and 50% were to come from unspecified sources. Economics focused on business organizations and profiles in individual enterprise rather than macroeconomics and microeconomics as it had for the previous 19 years. A decrease in scores followed these changes; the national winner that year, El Camino Real High School, scored 5,923 fewer points than James E. Taylor High School had the previous year. The following year, USAD settled on an organization of test materials that it would use for almost a full decade, with a mixture of questions from the provided material and independent research. A number of curriculum changes were reversed.
Though the events finally stabilized during the 2000–01 season, the USAD administration changed dramatically that year when the program's executive director, James Alvino, resigned. Alvino had written a religious article that had been included in that year's Super Quiz Resource Guide. His critics and the USAD Board regarded the inclusion as a conflict of interest, as the material was a persuasive essay that heavily pushed Alvino's point of view. The season was also significant in that it was the first year that states were allowed to send both their large and small school champions to the national competition. However, this practice was short-lived and was discontinued after the 2002 season. Instead, a small school e-Nationals was introduced during the 2005–06 school year. The medium school e-Nationals was established two years later for those schools with between 650 and 1,300 students. In 2010, California Academic Decathlon announced that a large school e-Nationals would be held for the second-highest performing school in each state.
In 2009, USAD announced the launch of an "Online Middle School Pentathlon Program", a competition similar to Academic Decathlon, with only essay, language and literature, mathematics, geography or social science, and science as events. Either science or social science would be designated as the Super Quiz topic.
In 2010, it was announced that high school students who don't have access to a school team or whose team has been eliminated in an earlier round can participate in an online individual competition.
Participation
Team makeup and eligibility
The USAD requires a diversity of achievement within each team; teams must have students who fall into three categories determined by GPA. The Honors category is composed of students with GPAs between 3.80 and 4.0. The Scholastic category consists of students with GPAs between 3.20 and 3.799. The final group, the Varsity category, contains students whose GPA ranges from 0.00 to 3.19. USAD uses a modified GPA scale in which performance-based classes such as music, art or physical education are omitted from the GPA calculation. A grade counts for face value regardless of whether it is from an advanced placement, honors, regular or remedial class. An A is counted as a 4.0, a B as a 3.0, a C as a 2.0, a D as a 1.0, and a F as a 0. Only final grades taken from the previous two complete school years are used to calculate GPA.A team typically consists of nine competitors: three honors, three scholastic and three varsity. However, since only the top two scores from each category count towards the team's total score, a team can compete with as few as six students without any point deduction. Students may compete in a higher category than the one they are assigned to, but generally it is to the students' advantage to compete in the lowest category they can. Scores in Varsity are typically lower than those in Scholastic, and those in Scholastic are typically lower than those in Honors.