Retired urban public high school teacher here. Most teachers I worked with had high standards when it came to grading. Yes, there were exceptions, but most of us wanted our grades to mean something.
However, the pressure to inflate grades was enormous. It really accelerated around the year 2000. This pressure usually came from not from the students or the parents, but from the administration. Administrators get lots of good stuff when scores are high.
High scores + few failures = bonuses and promotions for administrators
The most common pressure was shaming. You’d be called into the principal’s office. “Mr. Jones, I noticed that only 10% of your algebra class received an ‘A’ grade. That’s really not acceptable. What can you do to improve this?”
Older teachers like me heard it all before. We kept on doing what we thought was right. Younger ones would be intimidated.
I’m still teaching. 23 years in....7 more to go. I’m in a Metro-Atlanta school. Pretty much everything you said is correct.
They also get transferred out and usually "busted down" when test scores and/or grades are too low - high school down to middle school, etc., or transferred to a "troubled" school.
Saw it all the time.
If you give too many low grades, you are called onto the carpet in the principal office - and YOU are held responsible for "not teaching to the kids' learning needs," etc.
Never mind the massive rate of absenteeism, parent non involvement, kids never, ever held accountable for not doing homework, studying or even showing up - I always loved the classic administrative question: "Did you call home?" Hell, I called home to the point where the parents complained about ME to the district office.
Thirty-three years of experience in public schools, here - glad I got out when I did, it's FAR worse than when I started.
The "old school" teachers such as myself had high personal standards. You got an "A" from me, you could feel like you'd really accomplished something. Even a "B" from me was something to show Mom. But one chairman told me on the first day back from summer vacation, "If you don't have a 65% passing rate, I'm going to throw you out the f___ng window!" Well, that was clear enough. We knew that principals got a $25K bonus for good passing stats and chairmen got $15K bonuses. They could care less whether students actually mastered the subjects.
Finally, Bloombutt and then DumblASSio wanted to institutionalize this fraud, and started soliciting statements from students against their veteran teachers, often coaching them on what to say. These fallacious statements would then form the basis (think "Russia, Russia, Russia") of a kangaroo court hearing to terminate the teacher. If not terminated, they were at least thrown into the "Rubber Room" to languish, while a younger (and cheaper) teacher got their classes and position. And being untenured, these younger teachers would be all too happy to deliver whatever the admin wanted. Thus, schools turned into useless diploma factories. A disgrace for all involved.
My sister taught math to middle school kids for 45 years, the last 15 in a downtown Baltimore school. She watched the incredible increase in administrators. The administrator to teacher ratio ballooned 10X to 40X during her time teaching depending on the school district and state.
All those administrators do is interfere with teaching and introduce new education fads every year. Not one of them ever educated a kid.
It’s always the same in the federal government, state governments, welfare and education. They grow so big that they suffocate competence, performance, quality, efficiency, and initiative.
If we cut out 90% of them performance would soar.