Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Let’s stop pretending about grade inflation


The Washington Post just put another stick in the eye of the folks who like to believe that grade inflation isn’t real. See it here.



There’s a great chart in the posting on WashingtonPost.com. It shows that for a sample of 400 four-year colleges—big and small, Ivy and not, public and private—45% of the grades in 2013 were As. Almost 34% were Bs.

In her commentary, Catherine Rampell said:
“These findings raise questions not only about whether the United States has been watering down its educational standards — and hampering the ability of students to compete in the global marketplace in the process. They also lend credence to the perception that campuses leave their students coddled, pampered and unchallenged, awarding them trophies just for showing up.”

In the last 75 years, the percentage of As has tripled while the percentage of Bs has stayed about the same. Why isn’t that a great big scandal?

If you were a straight-A student in 1940, you were something.

Now, a straight-A student is something else.








Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

No comments:

Post a Comment