Sunday, June 26, 2005
Grade Inflation!
Back in the day, class valedictorian was the standout scholar of the senior class, the acknowledged brain.This Seattle Times piece really does examine the issue of grade inflation, but it does so in the most trivial manner, and when it does touch on the important points, it glosses over them so quickly as to render them unimportant.
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.
Here's the bottom line on grade inflation -- teachers are evaluated on the performance of their students, and in a system where grades measure that performance, and teachers give those grades, they are going to make sure as many students as possible get good grades. Consider this
But some national grading experts say that multiple valedictorians reflect a shift toward evaluating students based on mastery of course content, not in comparison to each other, as in the traditional bell curve.The bell curve assured that C was an average grade, which means that most students got C's, which made a teacher also look average -- get the idea.
In the end, all this does is devalue education.
