<p><a href="http://www.ajc.com/today/content/epaper/editions/today/news_143f8405d3a8a1510049.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ajc.com/today/content/epaper/editions/today/news_143f8405d3a8a1510049.html</a> (oops-- see post # 3 for full article. Didn't realize the link required a subscripton-- sorry. It is copied in its entirety in post # 3)</p>
<p>Thoughts???
How do you feel about quotas of any kind??</p>
<p>I didn't read the article because I am not a subscriber, but I know many colleges are beginning to rebel against grade inflation. Wellesley has decided to lower class averages (with exceptions allowed) to counter the everyone gets an A attitude.</p>
<p>Grade inflation is a problem because it undermines the credibility of the institution and denies the super students their Valuable A.</p>
<p>Princeton tries to keep grades in check
Geoff Mulvihill - Associated Press
Sunday, January 23, 2005</p>
<p>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...</p>
<p>Maybe what schools really need to do is do away with grades all together and focus on giving students more detailed information about how they have done in mastering the information presented. New College in Florida does this. And Reed has a system where students only get grades if they ask the professor for them. Unfortunately, giving students this kind of indepth feed back is very time consuming. Just some thoughts.</p>
<p>When we visited Princeton last spring, our student tour guide was very, shall we say, stressed about the new policy. In his opinion, Princeton students are a hard-working group of people. This new policy was just adding more stress and anxiety to all the students' lives. He openly expressed worries about the policy causing a cut-throat environment and stated that students were not happy.</p>
<p>Last year, my S took a math class at H. The prof gleefully reported in a global email that the class had done very well, and "since this is not Princeton,I have no compunction in giving As to more than 1/3 of the class" or words to that effect. This year, he's been in study groups and lab groups with no hint of competitiveness over grades. Grade inflation should be combatted, but setting a quota for grades is counterproductive.</p>
<p>Grading is a difficult process. Should an A from one year represent the same quality of work as an A from another year? I think so, but some curve their grades and people on the top get A with very little continuity. I prefer a grading rubric that indicates if you met the standards for the class, or for some classes a list of requirements for each grade level. Pass all the tests get a C. Pass all the tests with a high degree of competency get a B. Accomplish a B and turn in a respectable term paper or project and get an A.</p>
<p>Rather than putting a quota on the number of high grades, I think they should just make classes and exams more difficult. This will stratify the class in a more natural way, automatically leading to smaller numbers of As. Give out killer tests and most people will probably be lumped in the middle together, while the geniuses and really hardworking students will receive one of the rare As. It won't artificially cap anyone or "cut off" anyone.</p>
<p>There's just one problem--graduate schools. Especially medical and law schools. They're incredibly number-driven and really don't give a damn if your school was tough. Undergraduate institutions need to work together, in unison, simultaneously, if grade inflation is ever going to be killed for good. Otherwise you have a couple of kids with deflated GPAs who are brilliant relative to everyone else who can't get into the professional/graduate school that they deserve.. and a vast swarm of people who went to easy schools and got A+s in basketweaving and get into Harvard med without breaking a sweat.</p>
<p>I'd rather see them limit the number of students who graduate with honors, as some of the Ivies do. (Columbia, for example.) A's represent the quality of work you do in a class. Honors represent how you compare with your classmates, and may also take into consideration the difficulty of your courses and courseload at some institutions. It's the 91% who graduate with honors from Harvard that's ridiculous, not the number who -- given the quality of student Harvard admits -- ace the material in any given class.</p>
<p>From Princeton Weekly Bulletin, October 4th 2004:</p>
<p>Malkiel reports on steps taken to implement new grading policy</p>
<p>By Ruth Stevens</p>
<p>Princeton NJ -- Following faculty approval in April, University officials began working over the summer to implement a new policy to establish a common grading standard across all departments and programs.</p>
<p>Reporting on the process at the Sept. 27 meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community, Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel noted that the new policy mirrors grading standards at the University as recent as the early 1990s and that one-quarter of the departments already meet the standard.</p>
<p>Grading Definitions</p>
<p>A+ Exceptional; significantly exceeds the highest expectations for undergraduate work.</p>
<p>A Outstanding; meets the highest standards for the assignment or course.</p>
<p>A- Excellent; meets very high standards for the assignment or course.</p>
<p>B+ Very good; meets high standards for the assignment or course.</p>
<p>B Good; meets most of the standards for the assignment or course.</p>
<p>B- More than adequate; shows some reasonable command of the material.</p>
<p>C+ Acceptable; meets basic standards for the assignment or course.</p>
<p>C Acceptable; meets some of the basic standards for the assignment or course.</p>
<p>C- Acceptable, while falling short of meeting basic standards in several ways.</p>
<p>D Minimally acceptable; lowest passing grade.</p>
<p>F Failing; very poor performance.</p>
<p>Do we think theres a high probability that this [policy] is reasonable, sensible and achievable? she said. We think so.</p>
<p>The policy, intended to assist faculty members in bringing grade inflation under control, sets an institution-wide expectation for the percentage of grades in the A range (A+, A, A-): In undergraduate courses, As should now account for less than 35 percent of the grades given in each department or program; for junior and senior independent work, the expectation is that less than 55 percent will be As.</p>
<p>These percentages resemble the grading patterns at Princeton in undergraduate courses and independent work from the 1970s through the early 1990s. More recent percentages of A grades given in undergraduate courses at highly selective institutions, including Princeton, fall in the 44 to 55 percent range.</p>
<p>In addition to speaking at the CPUC meeting, Malkiel sent an e-mail message to undergraduates on Sept. 23 regarding the policy, and invited them to attend an open meeting with her from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 4, in McCosh 10.</p>
<p>Its important to emphasize that we are NOT telling the faculty to fail to give an A to a student who deserves it, she wrote in the e-mail. Students who are doing outstanding academic work need to receive As. The policy does suggest, however, that the faculty can be more discriminating in the way they grade.</p>
<p>She spelled out for the students the advantages of the new policy. We expect the new grading policy to benefit you by giving you more carefully calibrated assessments of the quality of your course work and independent work. (In the old system, when most students got the same grades, no matter whether their work was good, very good or excellent, it was not very informative and it did not encourage students to stretch to do the best work of which they were capable.) Grading the same way in all departments is fairer to you, and it removes the incentive or disincentive to choose courses or concentrations on the basis of different grading practices in different departments.</p>
<h2>(article continues with how this came about, and further details, if you care to google it)</h2>
<p>I have to admit that grades were one of my concerns as a parent--this is a competitive school where most of the kids were 'straight A' students in their high schools. First-semester exams just ended this week, so I only know of mid-term grades, but I felt quite relieved after knowing those. Hard work, yes, we expected that, but actually I was surprised by how much studying together there is. Doesn't seem cut throat at all from my (or my freshman's) perspective. Still early, and the rest of this article also says that "much of the implementation will take place over an extended perod ot time," but seems OK so far.</p>
<p>DH (the high school teacher) and I argue about this all the time. Having been thru the med school grind - I'm a firm believer in the body of knowledge theory, if a student demonstrates mastery of a body of knowledge, they should get an A, period, no up curves, no down curves. If large numbers of students demonstrate mastery, then as thomas says, make it more difficult, even in quantitative classes, quality of lab work etc, can differentiate students.
Of course the problem with my approach is it only works well in quantitaive classes and classes with a definable body of knowledge, doesn't work so well in literary criticism.</p>
<p>Also, any attempt to change the pattern of grade inflation requires change in most of a college's competitors, see the other thread about the prep school in Boston to see what happens when a school "goes it alone", this is an insidious problem that cannot be fixed overnight, and I'm not sure that just arbitrarily limiting the number of As allowed is hte way to "fix it"</p>
<p>It doesn't really make sense to me (if you've mastered all the material in the class as evidenced by exams and papers and participation, how can there be a limit on the percentage who receive As?). </p>
<p>On the other hand, let's run with it. I'm all for limiting the income of corporate CEOs arbitrarily. Now that's a policy that could have positive repercussions for the whole economy. If one of the affected CEOs were applying for another position and his (most likely it would be a 'he') new company wondered why his pay history wasn't as spectacular as the other finalists, his company could write a letter explaining the situation. It's not a reflection on his work, it's just that they can only award so many exhorbitant salaries.</p>
<p>Harder grading will kill the job prospects for the most deserving students, because the interviewer will jsut see the B, and not the person or the school./</p>
<p>Many faculty railed against absolute quotas, which may be why there is "an expectation" of approaching those numbers, not absolutes, and the Dean says if a student deserves an A, he will get an A (see above article). But, this should help allign the grading of the various departments. Some give many more A's than others.</p>
<p>I agree with the body of knowledge view, too. Both my H and my D took pre-med type courses (though D had no intention of being a pre-med, or med, afte watching her Dad) and both had to deal wi th that cutthroat attitude, which is encouraged by a quota system. Seems counter-productive to true learning, to me.</p>
<p>Potential employers don't look at your transcript. They may look at your resume, but rarely will they ask for a copy of your transcript. Grad schools and professional schools will look at grades, but not most prospective employers, unless you are perhaps applying to the CIA or something. A "B" from Princeton will not hurt your job prospects. But for grad or professional school, grade inflation could be problematic.</p>
<p>I would expect that the majority of A students at Princeton will want to go on to grad or professional schools. So the grade deflation will hurt them. I,too, believe in the body of knowledge perspective.</p>
<p>I think arbitrarily reducing or limiting the number of A's is the fast and dirty response to an issue. I would think that a school with the brain power that Princeton has could take a more thoughtful approach to the situation. If, indeed, the grade inflation is out of control, there are better ways to bring down the grades, than quotas. It would require an examination of the standards and grading practices of every department. </p>
<p>My son's elementary school decided to "raise the bar, bring up the standards" when a new headmaster took charge. The way they did it was to just toughen the grading scale. The casualties were last years' class that got overall lower grades when they were clearly an above average class. It hurt those kids going for high school scholarships and competitive private schools. My son was a casualty of this process. They did not do one thing to make the curriculum more challeging, just graded harder and nit picked. Much easier to do than really making an impact.</p>
<p>One way (besides Sac's great suggestion) would be to give out killer hard exams - with a pre-set scale. Some of my profs did that in chem and engineering. Now, they really want to grade on a rough scale, but they don't want us to get cutthroat. So, they administer a tough test, but pre-curve it (i.e. 85 and up is an A). There are no penalties for helping your classmates, and if everyone genuinely learns the material, they'll give out a pile of decent grades. Otherwise, you'll get a good distribution of grades (that of course kills anyone's chances at being a doctor).</p>
<p>Here's a link to a public article at [url=<a href="http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=RelatedStories&pitem=AP%2DGrade+Inflation&rev=20050122&pub_tag=APONLINE%5DWired.com%5B/url">http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=RelatedStories&pitem=AP%2DGrade+Inflation&rev=20050122&pub_tag=APONLINE]Wired.com[/url</a>]</p>