Word: grades
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There is no question that grades are on the rise in America, and have been for years. A report out of Princeton last week that--surprise--the "gentleman's C" has been replaced by B's and A's for standard work at that institution has returned grade inflation to the national stage...
Many seem to skirt the "So what" and assume rising grades are a problem. Critics both within and outside the academy claim grade inflation is a byproduct of a society uncomfortable with rejection, lacking in moral fiber and dedicated to the maxim that the customer is always right--a society in which professors and graduate students care more about keeping their jobs than about academic standards...
...wonder whether the motives of these grade hawks are genuine. The pride of an older generation, it seems to me, is in large part keeping this issue in the news. As it is reported that college students are being highly rewarded for meager work, somewhere a grumpy big wig is reclining in his leather office chair and saying to himself, "I worked so hard for those B+'s way back when." Those of us who took the SAT before it was "recentered" know the feeling well. How often have we heard someone's score of 1600 only to discount...
...solutions" for grade inflation are generally bandied about by these doomsdayers. The first option, already adopted by Dartmouth and Columbia, is to include the percentage of As in a given class and enrollment figures on all transcripts. But adding more numbers is not the answer. What if a class of 30 happens to enroll 20 students who work very hard and turn out very strong work? Transcript readers who see that two-thirds of those in the class received As would then wrongly discredit those grades. The only good that might come out of this proposal is that Harvard might...
...these solutions even necessary? That is, is grade inflation a problem at all? Nope...