Free Republic

Educators on the right and left condemn grade inflation in K-12 and universities. Inflated grades mark the transformation of education from actual learning to credentialing. Grade inflation at America’s universities is a national scandal. GPAs were already inflated in the 1980s. According to a 1991 study, GPAs increased from 2.38 to 2.91 between 1962 and 1985 in select departments at eight prominent schools. Only 13 percent of course grades were above a B+ in 1962, a number that doubled by 1985. In 2012, 42 percent of grades were A’s. More than 50 percent of students routinely exceeded B+ in their...

The story we’re about to share reveals a failed ten-year experiment by officials in San Francisco, who tried desperately to prove that whites and Asians aren’t better than anyone else when it comes to math. Needless to say, it failed miserably. The truth—one most people are afraid to say out loud—is that the left was, once again, covering for black students, who tend to score much lower in math (and other subjects). This isn’t “racist”; it’s just facts. Brookings:African Americans score lower than European Americans on vocabulary, reading, and math tests, as well as on tests that claim to measure...

After 20 years of teaching, I thought I’d heard every argument in the book from students who wanted a better grade. But recently, at the end of a weeklong course with a light workload, multiple students had a new complaint: “My grade doesn’t reflect the effort I put into this course.”High marks are for excellence, not grit. In the past, students understood that hard work was not sufficient; an A required great work. Yet today, many students expect to be rewarded for the quantity of their effort rather than the quality of their knowledge. In surveys, two-thirds of college students...

As political pressures for equity—equality of outcome—have grown in recent years, traditional methods of evaluating college students have come under threat. As the proportion of the population going to college has increased, the proportion of students who are not equipped to succeed has also increased. Dealing with an increasing number of marginal students in an equity-charged environment is one factor that has favored grade inflation. But there is a contributing factor that is built into the American system and has taken some years to reach fruition. When I first came to this country from Britain, I was surprised to find...

Teachers’ grading practices have changed and students’ grades have drifted up in recent years, a pandemic-era legacy that is being met with mixed reaction from educators across the country. Dating back to 2020, when the pandemic upended American education overnight, many schools have adopted a more lenient approach to grading. Some eliminated zeros or removed penalties for late work. Many teachers report “giving grace” to struggling students. Others say they have felt pressure from administrators to limit failure rates. Higher grades have come even as students’ test scores and attendance rates have dropped. A study in Washington state found that...

On January 5, 2024, Western Oregon University (WOU) announced a bold change to its grading regime: “The letter grades of D- and F” have been axed in favor of a mark of “No Credit (NC)” for undergraduates. WOU’s provost, Jose Coll, clarified that this new system will not lower the university’s academic standards but, rather, “increase retention and graduation rates.” The university will no longer “mask” students’ “demonstrated abilities” with a slew of poor marks, following the likes of Brown University and Hampshire College, which have already exchanged letter grades for alternative measures in some instances. By removing troublesome grades,...

The university's VP of Academic Affairs said the changes will no longer 'mask' students' 'demonstrated abilities'.. An Oregon university announced they will abandon failing letter grades, citing a "GPA fixation" that negatively impacts students. Western Oregon University issued a news release earlier this month that revealed the school would be replacing "D-" and "F" grades with "no credit" to discourage undergrads from dropping out. ... The difference is that the grade of NC will not negatively impact student GPAs, ... the decision came after data from the university showed that 65% of freshman students who dropped out had earned at...

A record number of students are failing to reach college-readiness benchmarks. The data, from testing giant ACT, come as scores fall for the sixth straight year. ACT’s college-readiness benchmarks aim to predict student preparedness by setting scoring standards commensurate with a reasonable degree of success in college courses. ACT claims that students meeting the benchmark for a particular subject on its flagship test have a 50-percent chance of attaining a B and a 75-percent chance of attaining a C in the corresponding college class. However, a record number of students are failing to meet any of the ACT’s benchmarks. 43...

A columnist covering K-12 education, I come to you, dear reader, with a warning: There’s a coming wave of college-freshman failure that will stress the institutions and systems of our universities. Grade schools haven’t and likely won’t recover from pandemic-era learning losses, and so, ready or not, a poorly educated generation is soon to flood your campuses. We’ve all read the statistics. Students lost out on months’ worth of education, obliterating two decades’ worth of academic improvements. What’s more, we’re experiencing something of a “long Covid” in education. According to the testing company NWEA, students aren’t just not catching up....

We recently discussed the runaway grade inflation at Harvard where roughly 80 percent of grades were As. Now the Yale Daily News is reporting the same percentage of As. Indeed, the percentage is virtually identical. Harvard is handing out 79 percent agrees where Yale is apparently more rigorous at 78.9.The report is apparently an embarrassment to the university since the dean of Yale College said that professors are not adhering to guidelines for grading.Yet, this could hardly be a surprise to the dean since these grades are reported and issued by the records office.Indeed, this average is reportedly down from...

When people think of elite higher education, we think of Harvard University. But, if one academic trend is anything to go by, Harvard is turning into a joke. A recent column in the Harvard Crimson makes it clear that the university is becoming a glorified academic daycare where every student gets a trophy or, in this case, an A. The average GPA at Harvard is now 3.8 ... out of 4.0, according to Crimson data analyst Aden Barton. That’s up from 3.3 in 1991. Are we supposed to believe that college students are just that much smarter now than decades...

Education has absolutely changed.One component of conversion: the value of being educated.Not many decades past, a high school diploma was considered academic achievement enough.College was reserved for elites and those seeking special skills.But these days, even secretaries have Bachelor’s degrees.From the looks of things, we’re a more educated society.But what if somewhere along the way, school became a suitable place for slackers?Apropos of such a scenario, a research team comprised of folks from a scholastic trio — Brigham Young University, Stanford University, and Purdue University — found that contemporary graduation rates may be bolstered by (Trigger Warning) “grade inflation.”Prior to...

This year's education scandal saw parents shelling out megabucks to gain college admittance for their children. Federal prosecutors have charged more than 50 people with participating in a scheme to get their children into colleges by cheating on entrance exams or bribing athletic coaches. They paid William Singer, a college-prep professional, more than $25 million to bribe coaches and university administrators and to change test scores on college admittance exams such as the SAT and ACT. As disgusting as this grossly dishonest behavior is, it is only the tiny tip of fraud in higher education. According to the Bureau of...

politicized atmosphere of today’s factory-style government-monopoly schools. ... many students did not understand English grammar ... Poor preparation, however, was only the tip of the iceberg. Students did not bring books to class, relentlessly complained about homework, and expected high grades regardless of proficiency. ... A department head had been demoted for teaching at a pre-college level and refusing to lower his standards. Senior teachers were dropping out in disgust. ... the school embraced grade inflation ... administrators tacitly urge teachers to lower standards, despite proclaiming the opposite in public. Like the Dodo in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:...

In today’s edition of “What’s Wrong With America?” we focus on education. Nearly half of all U.S. students graduate with an “A” average.  That’s right: Nearly half of America’s Class of 2016 are A students. Meanwhile, their average SAT score fell from 1,026 to 1,002 on a 1,600-point scale — suggesting that those A's on report cards might be fool's gold. – USA Today That’s up from 38% in 1998. At this rate 100% of the progeny of Gen Z should be A students. All dumber than a box of rocks. So maybe they’ll be able to figure out how to...

In July, I wrote about the pressure that University of Wisconsin officials have been exerting on the faculty for greater “equity” on campus. My “Madness in Madison” essay pointed out that university administrators are so caught up in egalitarian groupthink that they want to reduce or eliminate differences in students’ choice of majors and in the distribution of grades. That essay elicited a defensive reaction from the university. Chief Diversity Officer Patrick Sims stated in a July 22, 2014 press release that UW’s diversity plan does not entail “a quota system for apportioning grades by race.” Bringing up quotas, however,...

... Education thus has degenerated into a game of "trap the rat," whereby the student and instructor view each other as adversaries. Winning or losing is determined by how much the students can be forced to study. This will never be a formula for excellence, which requires intense focus, discipline and diligence that are utterly lacking among our distracted, indifferent students. Such diligence requires emotional engagement. Engagement could be with the material, the professors, or even a competitive goal, but the idea that students can obtain a serious education even with their disengaged, credentialist attitudes is a delusion. The professoriate...

The median grade at Harvard College is an A-, and the most frequently awarded mark is an A, Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris said on Tuesday afternoon, supporting suspicions that the College employs a softer grading standard than many of its peer institutions. Harris delivered the information in response to a question from government professor Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 at the monthly meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “A little bird has told me that the most frequently given grade at Harvard College right now is an A-,” Mansfield said during the meeting’s question period. “If...

Many of the schools Mr. Brandon describes are education-free zones, where students' eternal obligations—do the assigned reading, participate in class, hand in assignments—no longer apply. The book's title refers to the fact that only 30% of students enrolled in liberal-arts colleges graduate in four years. Roughly 60% take at least six years to get their degrees. That may be fine with many schools, whose administrators see dollar signs in those extra semesters.

The Testing MessThe fastest way to “improve” students’ performance: Lower your standards.  The only thing surprising about last week’s revelation that the fraction of New York City students passing the state’s reading and math tests had dropped by an average of 25 percentage points is that anyone was surprised at all. Student pass rates dropped precipitously all across New York State for one reason, and one reason only: State education commissioner David Steiner and Board of Regents chancellor Merryl Tisch decided to make the tests less predictable this year, and to raise the “cut scores” required for students to reach...