Grade Inflation

If I have one more student "tell" me that they need me to raise their grade so they can get some stupid state scholarship, I'm going to scream! Actually, I think the parents are worse. You can only hear, "If Johnny doesn't get an 'A' he won't go to college, you horrible bastard" so many times. Of course, these are the parents who drive 40k SUVs and never thought of saving any college money. But that's a whole different story. I live in a state run by Republicans, but they were the ones who made this scholarship. Makes no sense. I thought they want to "limit" government.

Government doesn't need to throw education money away like this. Block grants to universities is one thing, but these "standards" just mean that everything gets watered down. They don't see the standards as challenges to meet. They see them as things to get around.

Human nature sucks. We live in an "everyone gets a trophy" society -- so everyone is an A student.

I work at a prestigious women's liberal arts college--you'd recognize the name if I said it. Talk about grade inflation--60% of all grades given here are As. I'm not sure Cs exist. And everyone had 4.0 averages in HS. How, I ask you, can 2400 women have been "perfect" in HS? Indeed, how could *anyone* have been "perfect" in HS?

Grade inflation is the only possible answer.

I think grades should be scrapped altogether and replaced with a pass/fail system like the Navy SEALS. Make it hard to pass.

The problem with the liberal arts is that they are very subjective. It is hard to quantify that shit. I did very well in those subjects, but it was mostly due to my ability to write well. I also think having an essay portion on the SAT is a bad idea.

Science and math are way different. You either get it right, or you get it wrong. Period. If you can't do trig or chemistry, you can't BS your way out of it.

Out.

High School Teacher wrote:

I thought they want to "limit" government.

I don't know where you have been living for the last 4+ years, but the the current Republicans in government are anything but interested in 'limited' government.

Anyways, I agree that grade inflation has gotten horrible. Hey, but at least everyone feels really, really, really good about themselves. Know wonder we are falling behind countries like China, India, etc. in education.

All government funded education should be ended:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/decoster/decoster22.html

Homeschool or Private School wrote:

All government funded education should be ended:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/decoster/decoster22.html

I can't say that I agree with a single thing she said. No one is "obligated" to send their child to a public school. Public school is there for those of us who can't afford private education. Frankly, I think I've become quite a productive member of society.

I can tell you, from personal experience, it is doing a number on grad schools.

The biggest "predictor" of your performance in grad school is your undergraduate GPA. This causes all kinds of problems now that many schools have grade inflation.

What?!?!?!?!? Are you mad?!?!?!?!?!?No more Gentleman's C's?

This is why I love teaching math. No bullshit. And your story is yet one more reason to avoid the suburbs like the plague.

ah yes, the gentlemen's c became the gentlemen's b+ when we stopped wearing sport coats to class. pink shorts still required.

BarryP wrote:

I can\'t say that I agree with a single thing she said. No one is \"obligated\" to send their child to a public school.

In many states it is almost impossible to legally homeschool, and state laws mandate attendance. So, you most are forced to pay, extra money in addition to that robbed from you in socialist taxes, for private schools that are almost as regulated and dumbed down as the government schools.

BarryP wrote:Public school is there for those of us who can\'t afford private education. Frankly, I think I\'ve become quite a productive member of society.

There are always exceptions, those who make it despite government education.

I would agree that many high schools these days seem to have inflated grades but I am not sure about too many colleges do. I mean sure they have the 'bell curve' but they have had that for years. I think part of this situation comes down to the fact that getting into college is much tougher than it used to be. The carrying capasity of universities is not keeping up with the number of students going to college. Thats why I personally fully funding higher education should be one of the gov't top priorities.

I also goto a liberal arts college and want to sat that I went to a public high school and graduated with 3.5+ GPA. The diffrence between my high school and earning a B.A. in biochemisry and math, I was not taught to think about things. I was simply given the facts I thought I needed in life to get by and was told to memorize them. Now, after almost 4 years of a liberal arts education I am confident that I will be able to go out to the "real world" that I would have otherwise. If I hadn't received the edcuation that I did in college, I would have simply accepted the fate of getting married, owning my SUV, buying a huge house in the subarbs of some city, and trying to get my kids into college. High school didn't prepare me to think and resist buying into everything I heard, I learnd to be self reliable when it comes to forming opinons on everything from what shoes to wear while running to whether congress even has jurisdiction to prevent the pulling of a feeding tube from somebody.

Forgive any spelling/grammer errors.

If anybody is up for a good laugh, click here:

http://durrrrr.blogspot.com/

Guest of the Boards wrote:

I can tell you, from personal experience, it is doing a number on grad schools.

The biggest "predictor" of your performance in grad school is your undergraduate GPA. This causes all kinds of problems now that many schools have grade inflation.

Apparently not if the statistics still show that it is the biggest predictor of success. by the way, the teacher was talking about High shcool, not undergraduat studies.

[quote]Homeschool wrote:

In many states it is almost impossible to legally homeschool, and state laws mandate attendance. So, you most are forced to pay, extra money in addition to that robbed from you in socialist taxes, for private schools that are almost as regulated and dumbed down as the government schools.

Apparently you didn't live in one of those states, because your writing is atrocious.

it is not the place of the government to provide education to anyone, in fact it is unconstitutional for the federal government to do so at all. what we should be working on now is to eliminate the need for public schools on all levels, certantly not trying to expand this socialistic culture and reliance on the government to secondary education.

What the... wrote:

Guest of the Boards wrote:

I can tell you, from personal experience, it is doing a number on grad schools.

The biggest "predictor" of your performance in grad school is your undergraduate GPA. This causes all kinds of problems now that many schools have grade inflation.

Apparently not if the statistics still show that it is the biggest predictor of success. by the way, the teacher was talking about High shcool, not undergraduat studies.

What I implied was the statistical relationship is weakening, making it harder for grad schools to select candidates.

I imagine its the same story for undergrads.

grade inflation is definitely a reality in undergraduate education. last year, princeton took public steps towards erradicating the problem. it is definitely still a problem for the ivies; i believe 90 percent of harvard graduates graduate with honors. i heard that stat from a student at harvard so i have no citation for it, but he implied that no one got c's. my brother at princeton said no one got c's there either.

grade inflation exists for two reasons. the first being grad school admissions and job placement. us news rates schools somewhat based on these two statistics which are heavily rooted in undergraduate gpa. harvard doesnt want its student not getting into med school because the student from umass had the better gpa. harvard contends that, in theory, its school is more difficult so, all things being equal, the umass student would have a better chance at obtaining admission. harvard then thinks, "why should the umass kid get in over the harvard kid? the harvard kid is smarter." this thought roots itself in the belief that each student attends the best university he or she can get admitted to. the harvard student is better than the umass student who is better than the cc student. harvard feels its students are being unfairly penalized for going to harvard, though they are better students than those that go to umass and get into med school with better gpas. so, the incoming freshman thinks, would i rather go to harvard and not get into med school or umass and get into med school. harvard doesnt want that decision to have to be made. this is true for job placement as well. goldman sachs and other ibanking jobs, though toolish, have minimum gpas (3.5 i think). same question again: would i rather go to harvard and not get a job or umass and get a job? also, because grad school acceptance and job placement are determining factors in the decision making process of an incoming freshman, they are weighted in the us news rankings. for harvard to unseat princeton as top school they could increase grad school acceptance and job placement by inflating their grades.

the second reasons schools inflate grades is based loosely on the assumption harvard makes in the previous paragraph. believing their students to be better than umass students, harvard thinks they should get better grades. harvard assumes, since their students are all 3.9/ 1500 students, that their students are smarter than those at umass and thus, should get grades equal to those at umass. if these students would be A students at other schools, we shouldnt give them the incentive to do so.

i dont agree with grade inflation, but it exists everywhere. i dont think it will stop either.

are there any schools that dont recieve any government funding? if so, is the education any good? does grade inflation exist there?