From : Outside The Beltway : Grade Inflation at Cornell

Cornell educators thought by publishing accurate grading information, students would be encouraged to take more challenging courses (did these educators ever go to school themselves?). The Law of Unintended Conseqences rears its ugly ahead yet again:

In 1997 Cornell University began posting median grades for every course online, so that students could put their own grades in a larger perspective. The university’s theory—which reveals an astonishing naiveté about human nature—was that this would encourage students to choose more-challenging courses. Instead, according to a paper published early this year by two Cornell economists, the policy provided a case study in how to pump up GPAs. Armed with accurate, official grading information, students used it to pick easy classes and avoid difficult ones: once-hidden guts were now readily identified, enrollment in them ballooned, and since the new policy was instituted the overall rate of grade inflation—already a subject of concern at Cornell, as in the academic world in general—has more than doubled.

“Quest for Knowledge and Pursuit of Grades: Grade Information and Inflation at an Ivy League School,”

Talia Bar and Asaf Zussman, Cornell University

So like pretty much every university in the country, Cornell is experiencing grade inflation. Notwithstanding the niave policy above, why do university grade averages continually rise? One blogger compiled a list of the leading theories which include:

Vestigial Draft Dodge Theory: This theory ties the birth of grade inflation–especially at Harvard–to Vietnam. In order to help men students avoid the draft, the theory goes, the professoriate began dealing out high grades in order to make them look like serious scholars who deserved to stay in school.

White Guilt Theory: This theory says that as affirmative action began increasing the numbers of minorities on college campuses, professors relaxed their grading systems in order to cover over the fact that these populations a) were not as prepared for college-level work as their white male counterparts, b) did not, as a group, perform as well as their white male counterparts. Predictably, people who espouse this theory are labelled racist–Harvard’s Harvey “C-” Mansfield is a case in point. But according to the Harvard Crimson’s own in-depth study of the origins and history of grade inflation, the theory actually does hold water.

Vulnerable Teacher Theory: The idea is that grad students sell out because a) they lack the experience and the training to handle grade-grubbing students, and b) giving honest grades could hurt their job prospects by hurting their evaluations.

The Commodity Fetishism Theory: Education has become a commodity, universities sell a product that students consume, and students willingly pay for high status educations: designer degrees cost several times what serviceable ones do, without reliably offering much more in the way of quality. In this logic, the customer is always right, and the customer also has the power to dictate how she wants her product delivered.

The Degeneration Theory: This school of thought sees grade inflation as a sign of a much broader and deeper cultural degeneration, one that includes the decay of morals, the erosion of family values, the displacement of meritocracy by affirmative action and political preferment, the death of taste, and an overall decline in standards.

The Status Quo Theory: A monument to the stasism that inevitably arises from “consensus-based” (i.e., bureaucratic) approaches to change, this theory says that no one can stop inflating grades because everyone inflates grades. The logic is that no one can change unless everyone does, because to do otherwise would be to penalize some students unfairly. Because there is no way to get everyone to agree to stop inflating grades all at once–or to ensure that everyone deflates grades in the same way and to the same degree–grade inflation must be allowed to persist as the lesser of two evils (the greater evil being a scenario in which individuals address grade inflation in their own way according to the dictates of their imaginations, consciences, and experiences).

Closely tied to the Status Quo Theory is the Why Bother Theory, which argues that since grades are meaningless, a) they can’t be inflated, b) it doesn’t matter what grades we give, and c) therefore we might as well give out all A’s.

Which is closely tied to the Denial Theory, which argues a) that we don’t need to use the full grade scale in order to differentiate among students; b) that through its array of A+’s, A’s, A-’s, B+’s and B’s the inflated scale tells us all we need to know about a student’s performance; and c) that therefore grades are not actually inflated, and the grading scale is as rigorous as it ever was.

Independent Sources’ take on this subject was summarized in our Educational Primer posting;

…it mirrors a general trend we have in society. We solve the problem of kids failing tests by making the tests easier and not by teaching them more. We fight standardized tests on the grounds that they are biased against the kids (or schools) who don’t do so well. We stop scoring in games to protect those who don’t score as much. We give everyone trophies or no one trophies. By making sure that we have no losers, we also insure that we have no winners.

The (only) good news out of this is that parents having children today are pretty much assured that they’ll be straight “A” students by the time they get into college, not that it will mean all that much.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 24th, 2005 at 8:14 am by Insider and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable, (Un)education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.