Whoa there FRiend.
My dad has taught at the same school, using this same curve, for 47 years. Its a small private boarding school, where some of the most gifted students from the region (and abroad) go. These students could easily attend public school and make straight 'A's...the whole point of attending the school is for gifted students to challenge themselves. There is nothing wrong with trying to teach kids as much as possible.
And it all comes out in the wash - their average grades are coupled with max scores on AP exams and near max scores on the SAT...and they get into college just fine...because the colleges are quite aware of grade inflation. The reverse, straight As but middle of the road SATs, are likely a much bigger red flag to colleges.
see, your explanation seems to illustrate my point well.
These are elite kids, and their AP and SAT scores get them into college. Apparently because their grades are known to be meaningless in context, and the colleges are smart enough to ignore them.
But the fact appears to be that all these kids would be getting “A” grades if they were in classrooms with the “normal” group of kids you find at a typical school And that would be true even if they were being taught the same really hard stuff you suggest they were getting taught.
You are suggesting that the “curve” makes them learn better. I guess it is possible, in the sense that the “curve” sets up a competition where they don’t just have to know stuff, but they have to know it better than the person sitting next to them.
But if the grades are anything that is going to be looked at as indicative of some “absolute” standard, it is stupid.
Because that kid sitting there with the “A” in that class, he could have learned EXACTLY the same stuff, and gotten EXACTLY the same grades on the tests as he did, but gotten a “C” grade, if there just happened to be 5 other people in the class that were even smarter than he was.
So his grade “A” or “C” is meaningless to determine what he knows — it only tells me how he compared to other people in that class.
And if every other class has their own teaching, their own standards, their own curves, the grades are meaningless, they don’t compare this one “C” student in this one class with a “B” student in another class teaching the same subject even.
But as you say, these grades are meant to be ignored. Which is fine then, if you are giving out grades just for a competitive thing, and nobody is going to care what they are, I guess it works. You could do the same with gold stars though.
And it certainly wouldn’t work if you did it for every classroom in every public school, unless “work” means “make grades meaningless so we have to rely on standardized tests”
Which interestingly seems to be the end result of your discussed approach, because these students you talk about apparently are judged not on any grades they get, but on their ACT and SAT tests. Which we could do for ALL students, and then “grade inflation” would be meaningless, just like the grades you mention above on a curve are meaningless.