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College administrators are scratching their heads trying to figure our how the straight-A students they accepted tanked on the SATs. “The University of California system, for instance, reported a 15-point drop in applicants’ scores but no corresponding dips in other measures of their quality, such as class rank and grade-point average,” Eric Hoover reports in the September 8th issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. “At La Salle University in Philadelphia, SAT scores fell an average of 15 points for applicants and about 10 points for admitted students even though officials had not altered their admissions strategies.” “Robert G. Voss,...

At Beaverton's Westview High School, it'll take a bus to transport all 75 valedictorians to the Class of 2006 graduation ceremony. At Southridge High, the lone valedictorian could get there on a motorcycle. And it's not because Westview has more top-achieving seniors. For the first time, the Beaverton School District is using a new grading system for seniors that gives extra grade points for taking challenging courses. But the district allowed each high school to figure how to apply the new grade system to choosing valedictorians. The result? Wildly different numbers of valedictorians at each school. ------- said Jared Cordon,...

Back in the day, class valedictorian was the standout scholar of the senior class, the acknowledged brain.This year's 406-member graduating class at Garfield High School features 44 valedictorians. Forty-four students with perfect 4.0 grade-point averages who, over seven semesters of mostly honors and Advanced Placement classes, have never earned less than an A.Even for a school with a reputation as an academic powerhouse, it's a record number: Last year Garfield had 30 valedictorians; the year before, 27.Skeptics say that so many students with perfect 4.0 GPAs is evidence of grade inflation; admirers say it's the product of smart, hard-working students...

It was the end of my first semester teaching journalism at American University. The students had left for winter break. As a rookie professor, I sat with trepidation in my office on a December day to electronically post my final grades. My concern was more about completing the process correctly than anything else. It took an hour to compute and type in the grades for three classes, and then I hit "enter." That's when the trouble started. In less than an hour, two students challenged me. Mind you, there had been no preset posting time. They had just been religiously...

Crimson White Give A's sparingly Our View March 21, 2005 When everyone makes an A plus in jogging class, we don't think much of it. On the other hand, if everyone were making such extraordinarily high scores in Calculus, we would wonder when the standards became so lax. Grade inflation is an increasing problem on campuses around the nation, from Chapel Hill, N.C. to right here in Tuscaloosa. Two UA professors - David Beito, an associate political science professor, and Charles Nuckolls, an anthropology professor - are suggesting that grade inflation has been drastically on the rise for the past...

PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) - For students at Princeton University, final exams are even more stressful this year: The Ivy League school decided to make it harder to earn an A. The crackdown on high grades, part of a national battle against grade inflation at elite schools, has increased anxiety, and in some cases, made friendly students wonder whether they should offer study help to their competitors, er, classmates. "Sometimes, your old high school mentality comes back to haunt you," said Monica Saumoy, recalling the cutthroat competition to get the grades she needed to get into Princeton. As she studied for...

This is just a test, sorry to bother everyone.

HOLDING ON TO HOPE: Second in a series on Georgia's enormously popular college scholarship program. HOPE award hinges on a fickle standard ………….Choosing the easy road Many principals admit that some students -- even HOPE scholars -- are unprepared for college. The educators blame relaxed grading. Steven Miletto, principal at Osborne High School in Cobb County, is working with teachers this year on how they issue grades, something colleges of education do not teach well, he said. Among the subjects he's tackling: the danger of giving too much credit for a project done at home (Mom or Dad could have...

Principal Gives Teachers Memo for Grade Requirements Barbara King is in her first year as principal of East High School. King has given her teachers a memo spelling out grading requirements for students. Eyewitness News obtained a copy of the memo from a school teacher. The letter instructs teachers to give grades no lower than a "C". King admits to writing the memo. "It has to do with something going on internally with schedule changes, OK, so teachers know," King said. Memphis City Schools says it needs a chance to discuss the memo with the principal on Friday before any...

Affirmative Action Grading By Walter E. Williams Dr. Mike S. Adams, an associate professor of criminal justice at University of North Carolina's Wilmington campus, has given me an excellent idea for grading students, which appeared in his commentary in the web-based Agape Press newswire. For 35 years, I've taught economics and graded students on the racist, culturally biased standards of individual performance. In today's America, that's unfair and insensitive. Starting next fall semester, in the interest of diversity and multiculturalism at George Mason University, I'm going to change the way my students are assigned grades. In my Ph.D. microeconomics class,...

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Peter Kirsanow, President Bush's recent appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, will speak on Tuesday October 15 at the state conference of the Alabama Scholars Association, to be held in Tuscaloosa. Kirsanow served as the director of the Center for New Black Leadership in Washington, D.C., and is the author of The Healthcare Ghetto. The subject of Commissioner Kirasanow's talk will be "Grade Inflation." It will begin at 7:30 P.M. in the Ferguson Theater of the Ferguson Center at the University of Alabama. Admission is free. See www.alabamascholars.org for details.

L is for lawsuitAngry that little Johnny flunked, increasing numbers of parents are suing teachers. - - - - - - - - - - - -By Janelle BrownJuly 12, 2002  |  One of the students in Elizabeth Joice's senior English class at Sunshine Mountain High School in Peoria, Ariz., was flirting with failure. In fact, it was much more than a dalliance -- she was flunking. The student, whose name Joice wishes to keep private, had plagiarized a test, skipped classes, failed assignments and even missed a make-up session that might have allowed her to raise her grade. Joice...