Issue One: Grade Inflation

I need to begin this blog by admitting that I am not well-informed on the issue of grade inflation but that my goal is to learn through this experience.  As an undergraduate, I heard rumors that our “As” were not truly ours and that our professors were too lax in their grading of our performance.  One night, I did come across an article on grade inflation on the internet; after spending seven hours working a paper on the evolution of Beat poetry, I certainly did not agree that college students are increasingly lazy and handed their grades.    

In Mark King’s scholarly journal article, “Voluntary Conscription: Enlisting the Children of Lake Wobegone in the Battle against Grade Inflation,” he covers the history of  the debate about grade inflation, concludes that the negative tone of administrators, professors and journalists is less than productive, and proposes a concrete solution (129-130). 

  It seems that the solution would be for universities to honestly assess the impact of grade inflation on their campuses instead of denying it (131).  Unfortunately, grade inflation is a slippery thing to assess and a university admitting grade inflation might injure its reputation.  Some academics even suggest that higher grades encourage students to perform better and that grade inflation is good for student self-esteem. 

In this blame game student evaluations, plummeting education standards, a society too quick to hand out praise to children, and even the humanities are examples of the vast array of explanations for grade inflation (King 131-134).   I find it horrific that Harvey C. Mansfield believes that African-Americans attending college created grade inflation (132).  Personally, I do not believe that a student’s race should have any influence on academic performance.  I think a combination of the other aforementioned factors is most likely to blame. 

King shows that educators, academics, and journalists all believe that grade inflation is certainly a problem in America; however, these same people tend to overlook the students who also feel this is a problem (135). I agreed with this point that contrary to popular assumption, students do not want everyone to automatically receive good grades.  Easy “As” show students that they do not have to stretch themselves and that a medium effort is worth an excellent grade.  This is especially harmful to graduating collage seniors; if they all have perfect G.P.A.’s, then how do employers know who the worthy future employees are? 

King suggests that once educated about the grading process and the “scarcity of human excellence” students will welcome less-inflated grades (129).  King says that because universities generally deny that grade inflation occurs on their campuses, the problem needs to be addressed at the classroom level (131). A professor’s fear of poor student evaluations seems a reasonable explanation for grade inflation, but it does not justify the practice.  Though student evaluations should not be used as the only means to evaluate a professor, they sometimes are the only assessment they will receive. 

King’s believes that fostering mutual understanding about the grading process will keep students from rating teachers poorly on evaluations solely on the fact that they distribute lower grades than other professors.  I completely agree with him, especially because he speaks from personal experience.  I find that Mark King’s classroom exercise, where he puts excellence in context and gives students the chance to distribute grades on a class assignment, is definitely one of the many ways professors can enlighten students about grade inflation and teach the valuable life lesson that poor work is not rewarded favorably (137-142).  When I have the honor of teaching a class, I will certainly work with my class to explain the grading process and directly combat grade inflation.  I want my students to succeed but I also want them to be assessed fairly.

  

Work Cited

King, Mark. “Voluntary Conscription: Enlisting the Children of Lake

Wobegone in the Battle against Grade Inflation.” College

Literature 32.1 (2005): 127-145. MLA

International Bibliography. Web. 18 Jan. 2011.