Thoughts on Grades and Grade Inflation

Zian Jiang

Professor Lynn Stevens

ENG3

10 November 2015

Thoughts on Grades and Grade Inflation

        There has been great discussion about grades and grade inflation in college. Would a harsh grader discourage students to study harder and lose their self-esteem? Or is that only harsh grading system would motivate college students, whose lives are already filled with distractions like parties, relationships and extra-curriculum activities, to focus more on academics and study harder? My opinion is that, given this is a complicated issue, we haven’t reached any hasty conclusion yet, but I think one seemingly promising is that schools rule the minimum numbers of A of each class and the instructors can still give out more As if they think the class deserves that. Thus, it is guaranteed that there is always at least certain students can get As and the situation where the whole class gets unsatisfying grades can be avoided.

        Some scholars have concluded that given the situation in United States, currently the teachers are not harsh enough on grades, which boosts students’ self-esteem necessarily and makes students super under-prepared but with high GPAs. According to Randy Moore in his essay “Grades and Self-Esteem”, “only 11% of eight-graders in California’s public schools can solve seventh-grade math problems”, and “more than 30% of U.S. 17-year-olds don’t know that Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. Almost half do not know who Josef Stalin was, and 30% can’t locate Britain on a map of Europe. (118)” Then he argues that schools have too many prepackaged excuses for failures, some of which are partly valid and others that are self-delusion, and the problem is that the mission of many schools has shifted from education to building self-esteem. In other words, in order to make teachers feel bad, the teachers, when giving out grades, will lower their standards so that all students, regardless of their performance, meet the standards. However, they are also scholars who hold opposite opinions. Alfie Kohn, in his journal “Confusing Harder with Better”, argues that schools are being ill-considered in the name of raising standards and turning schools into test-prep centers, not knowing that being harder doesn’t necessarily mean better (121). Kohn and Moore’s views on grade inflation are completely different: one holds that grade inflation means incompetency, and the other doubt if limiting grade inflation is any better.

The two international students that I interviewed had their own view on grade inflation. They said that school often ignored the difference in knowledge background between international students and local students because of the different curriculum they took. For example, Chinese students’ learnt much less history in high school compared to their American classmates. It is very challenging for an average Chinese student to go to an Intro-level college history class, while Americans students might not feel it as challenging.

        As Moore points out, the low standards of the teachers when giving out grades have done damages to this generation, as students are not competent and under-prepared when they graduated. But this is only one extreme. The other extreme is where the teachers are super harsh on grading, giving out no curves after every exam, and students have to study very hard for good grades.

        One perfect example is most Chinese high schools. There are no curves in exams, and students’ scores are reported as what they were on the Grade reports. The test is also very hard, with an average score around 70 out of 100 generally. Students then have to study for every exam, and they barely could get 5 hours of sleep during mid-term or finals. Of course under such pressure, they probably know who Josef Stalin was, but is that necessarily better than the situation in American educational system? First, even though students are working very hard to learn knowledge, one foundational problem is that knowledge that they try so hard to learn might now be useful at all. Whether or not schools are teaching students useful knowledge has been in great debate for a long time, and this is not a Chinese problem but one of every educational system. Given that, it might be better to give Chinese students better grades to boost their self-esteem, reward their hard work, and compensate the partially useless knowledge that is instilled into them. And I think this is the right balance.

        In American colleges, the debate on grade inflation also includes more to consider. People have been saying that the inflated GPA some schools give out has made other’s hard-earned GPAs seem less awesome and devalued them. I do agree with that, but I also want to highlight the complexity of the issue.

        First, we need to be clear about the costs of grade inflation. Because grades are capped at A, grade inflation results in a greater concentration of students at the top at their schools, which diminishes their value as an indicator of students’ academic abilities. Without grade inflation, a truly competent student might get an A, while a decent student would receive a B or B+. With great grade inflation, both students get As, making it hard for firms, companies and graduate schools to differentiate them.