I’d love to hear from some educators on this one. There are three physics teachers in my son’s grade. Recently there was a major test that resulted in an average grade of D (across all three classes). After conferring about it, one of the teachers decided to curve her class’ grades, while the other two did not. This means that my son’s friend, who got a D on the test originally, ended up with a B. My son, who also got a D, is stuck with the D.
The professor’s reasoning was that since his class’ grades did not represent a true bell curve, it was fair to keep his grade book as is.
How is this fair to the two-thirds of the kids whose grades are now lower than their peers whose were curved?
If this is a high school, in my opinion this is a sign of poor supervision by the administration. It’s obviously unfair–whichever approach one prefers.
I agree, and feel your pain because we have experienced stuff like this for years with all three of our kids. It would be one thing if each teacher created his own curriculum and tests (which of course is problematic in other ways), but when the exam is a departmental one and thus is supposed be consistent across the various sections, then a differing grading policy is clearly wrong.
D’s AP science teacher announced that she doesn’t feel like grading their massive summer assignment. All six sections (3 different teachers) gave the same summer homework and all told the kids that the grade for it would be entered in the final marking period, since after the AP exam there isn’t much work. Also, this way it could provide a grade boost as needed. D really needs a boost, but now won’t get it while kids from other classes will. That darn homework was 45 pages!
I would talk to the department head…
But first find out:
was the same test given to all students in all classes
How do you know the average grade was a D
Why was the average a D? Are the teachers not teaching effectivly or is it almost summer-itis?
But then ask what is the department’s policy on curving and why isn’t it standard?
Here’s more info: The three classes did not get the same test, because the teachers are concerned that students taking it earlier in the day will give the answers to later test takers. I did approach the department supervisor with my concerns initially, and I was thanked for making him aware of the situation and then steered to talk to the teacher himself. So I did.
The teacher is the one who told me (in addition to my son telling me) that the average grade was a D. He said it was the most difficult test of the year and very hard to get an A if you didn’t have a firm grasp on all the material. (I don’t think this is a good reason to accept an average grade of 65; perhaps he’s not teaching it effectively, although my son has not had any prior problems.) He also explained to me his reasoning for not curving the grade. Since I’ve already reached out to the supervisor and the teacher, I don’t know what other recourse I have here. My son is inclined to just let it go and perhaps he’s right.
I feel your pain. DS had dreaded AP Lang teacher this year… at the beginning of the year he got a 30 on a paper. He took it to the other AP Lang teacher for guidance on how he could improve. She told him what to work on and also told me that she would have given him a low 90… Thank god he ended up with a B in that class but I bet that if he had the other teacher it would have been a A… I’m not sure you can do anything other than what we did and that’s breathe and move on.
Is this AP physics? Are you aware that a 65% is at or close to the cutoff for a 5 on some of the STEM APs? AP teachers face this problem because an “A” on the exam they are supposed to be teaching to is a D in the grading scale they are supposed to be using.
@hunt-Some teachers teach the AP classes as if they were real college classes but grade them on the HS scale. My oldest son had a teacher for AP Calculus who was like that. She used questions that are similar to those on the AP exam and graded the class with a 90 being an A-, 93 an A, 97 an A+. Most of the kids got B- in that class and 5 on the AP exam.
When my son went to college he got As in all of his Calculus classes because the college professors graded differently.
Grades that resemble a normal distribution are something you might expect to see in large samples, but a single high school class is unlikely to be that large. That is my usual argument when someone seems to think there is something desirable about the bell curve. I have had grades cluster around both Bs and Ds, so I have never been wedded to a bell curve shape.
@sylvan8798, what would you do if one of your colleagues wanted to curve her students’ grades? That is my problem with this. Obviously it was a tough test for all the kids. But how do you have one teacher curve and the others not?
^It’s college. My colleagues do whatever they want. There is no real coordination among us, other than the general material we cover. We don’t even all use the same textbook. We don’t have the same grading policies. We don’t do the same labs.
This is a problem at our HS as well and one of the issues I have with class rank. My D has had the advantage of having the “easier” AP lit teacher the “average” AP physics teacher and the “brutal” APUSH and AP econonmics teacher. In our district all AP exams are standardized but some teachers give extra credit and/or curve and others don’t.
It is frustrating when peers get lower scores but end up getting help to curve them higher in different classes. The GPA spread is so close that every little score matters. She hates it in the opposite direction as well - while she has a “A” in physics (helping her GPA) she is not sure about her AP exam score – not sure she learned as much as her friends with a harder teacher. She had to work and study 3X’s as hard as her friends in AP econ (for a B+) and for APUSH since she had the toughest teacher – no curves, no extra credit, no gimme grades, and plenty of extra papers/projects/research. Her GPA and time for ECs suffered but she learned the material really well.
In HS it is hard since they can’t really choose their teacher and they can’t drop a course. Of course there are some well connected kids with vocal parents who get the easiest teacher every time but for the average kids they just have to deal with the reality that sometimes you get the good one and sometimes you don’t in life.
I hate this kind of stuff and my daughter’s high school was filled with it. Like the AP english teacher who only gave as the highest grade a 95 because “no paper is perfect.” The AP euro teacher who had on every test only questions from old AP exams and did not curve the grades (although the AP is curved). You had to do an extra credit assignment each marking period to get an A.
We did not see much of this in college except one incident. A Computer Science class in which the work (labs, homework, tests, and quizzes.) was identical for all three sections but was taught by two different teachers. The grading rubric for the class include 5% at “the teacher’s discretion.” and one of the teachers told his classes he was not giving anybody the 5% and the other gave them the 5% based upon attendance, class participation, having gone to extra help, etc. My daughter was in the class where the teacher gave the points but felt badly for those in the other sections.
Not an educator but I’ve had plenty of stem courses both HS and college. I hate to think how many…
A “D” as an average on a test for a class is not a testament to how great a teacher you’ve got.
There are only two scenarios in my opinion.
The first is that the test was very difficult. That’s okay. I’ve had plenty of professors with difficult exams but none who never curved the grade in those instances. It doesn’t mean they can’t still establish minimum standards for a grade.
The second scenario is that the professor didn’t teach the subject properly and doesn’t really care or seem to realize that their primary objective is to actuyally teach a subject so students can master it. And then test them for those parameters.
I’ve three examples from college:
The curved grade–my 56 happened to become an “A” for organic chem. Tough class. Hard test.
The professor who was hounded by administration for giving too many "A"s for what was essentially an easy math class. But extremely important. He had no curves–administration thought he should curve grades.
His response was that if the students couldn’t make an “A” in the class that they shouldn’t graduate. Period.
His job was to make sure they knew how to make calculations to save people’s lives. So the more A’s the better. And if you couldn’t make an “A” you needed more help.
The prof who was just a jerk. Truly a narcissist. He didn’t teach Didn’t do anything but give a super difficult test and I believed reveled in it. He was literally presented with a bucket of tar and feathers on the auditorium stage at the end of the teaching period. (No, I wasn’t involved but relished it–big auditorium). Yes, the paint brushes were present. No, it wouldn’t be acceptable today. But so very satisfying.
No, he didn’t quit. He was fired.
If your college student can’t do their homework and look on Ratemyprofessors.com, and ask around, yeah, if one professor curves and others don’t, that’s a shame.
My orgo class had our average rounded down so it was “fair”. Because the other two classes weren’t doing as well. Because our teacher was excellent and a great motivator.
It wasn’t clear to me from the OP whether their child was a HS or college student. In either case, your child (college) or you (HS) should contact the chair and inquire about it. If they had different exams, it may be valid for one to curve and other not to. Don’t be defensive, literally just ask. Any chair who is worthwhile would find out about it, and reign it in.
It make me mad when a student asks “what was my grade on this exam?” The only grade that matters is the one at the end of the semester. I had this student who thought if the average is 50, that would be a B. I laughed. I had to work harder to get them to learn the material better. After I did that, if they still didn’t get it, I would fail them all if I had to.