Inflated grades unjust, dishonest
by Lily Jamison-Cash
Over the past several decades, grade averages have shown an upwards trend at the Academy and across the nation. Students and teachers generally accept this as fact without stopping to think about the ramifications. Grade inflation makes it seem that either students are becoming smarter or teachers are doing their job better, and while these things may be true, students’ accomplishments are not accurately represented by their grades. When grades are inflated, they misrepresent students’ progress and thus fail to serve grades’ original purpose.
The high school national average grade point average (GPA) has risen from 2.52 in the 1950s to 3.11 today, according to an April 19, 2010 New York Times article by Catherine Rampell. This means that teachers are giving out fewer Fs and more As. Although the true average should be a C, today’s F-deserving student might get their grade boosted to a C or even a B, while there is no higher grade for an A student to receive.
The purpose of grades is to monitor a student’s progress or lack thereof. The grading system standardizes feedback to clearly communicate where the student needs improvement. However, students’ progress can’t be documented and they can’t learn from their mistakes when almost everyone receives As and high Bs.
While grade inflation may appear to improve the situations of students who would normally earn lower grades, it undermines better students’ achievements. Being an “A student” no longer carries any meaning when everyone gets almost the same grades. Instead of being given the chance to excel, the top tier of students is subjugated to what have now become average grades.
This is a particularly significant problem at the Academy, especially since the majority of students are high achievers. Rather than highlighting their accomplishments, grade inflation simply levels the playing field. When someone who should, on an un-inflated scale, have a much higher GPA gets the same grades as everyone else, they are put at a disadvantage. The teachers don’t have enough room to differentiate between ordinary and exceptional.
Grade inflation is, in fact, detrimental to all students. The extra points doled onto everyone’s grades inaccurately represent the recipients’ knowledge, tricking them into believing that they are doing better in the class than they actually are. They end up putting less effort into the class, knowing that a curve will save their grades. In effect, this cheats them out of the learning process. It widens the already-large gap between students’ knowledge and the number that represents it.
If the Academy decided to deflate grades, a legitimate concern would be how colleges would view Academy students. While transcripts should not be the rationale behind getting good grades, they often are. The fact of the matter is that colleges already make allowances for Academy applicants.
They know that students here tend to follow a more rigorous curriculum than they might elsewhere, and they take that into account when comparing transcripts. Colleges also see a given class’s range of grades. Thus, they would also be able to take grade deflation into consideration, which a handful of colleges already do. Furthermore, colleges need to see students’ actual accomplishments, not just the amount of curving a teacher applies. Additionally, while it may seem that the fact that most schools across the country inflate grades could potentially put Academy students at a disadvantage, our transcripts will prevent that. Because colleges see classes’ grade ranges, there is no real detriment to Academy students.
Academy students compare themselves to others incessantly, but this comparison is meaningless when a C at one school is equivalent to an A at another. Because the meaning of an individual’s grades is unclear, Academy students have a sense of superiority (“My classes are harder and I get better grades”) that is not always true.
Lastly, grade inflation is a matter of honesty. The Academy strongly discourages academic dishonesty and is generally effective at eschewing it. However, grades that drift continually higher and fail to accurately represent the students’ knowledge are a form of dishonesty. It is unfair to those students whose teachers do not inflate grades, unfair to colleges and especially unfair to the students themselves.
The Academy should stick close to its current grade deflation agenda. Colleges will be able to accept lower grades from students and grade deflation will allow for accurate measure of students’ progress, adequate recognition of students’ achievements and actual retention of material.
Grade complaints just hot air
by Hannah Montoya
Like all good things, grade inflation can be abused. Therefore, before addressing grade inflation at Academy, we must evaluate the objective of grades. Grades evaluate a student’s competency with respect to their peers in the area they are studying. Remember that the primary purpose of an Academy education is to prepare its students for the most challenging college education possible. Looking at where a student stands compared to her or his peers, it is crucial for a college admissions officer to have context.
And like many things, grade inflation has its problems. For example, grades may not always reflect a student’s proficiency in the course. Some may argue that grade inflation devalues the grade itself, because it creates narrow grade distribution and makes it difficult to differentiate between students. At the Academy neither of these is a problem because we have mechanisms in place that most other schools don’t. With regards to the first claim, Academy students who receive good grades are proficient in the subjects they study, as indicated by the competitive nature of the admissions process prospective students face. As for the second claim, when an Academy student sends his or her transcript to a college, she or he can be assured that whoever is reading their transcript will have a very clear idea of how they fall in their classes because the teacher’s lowest, highest and average grades are next to the individual student’s grade. Ralph Figueroa, College Guidance Counselor, said that as inflation becomes more and more apparent throughout the country, colleges are now paying close attention to the schools their applicants are coming from. Figueroa said that this works to Academy students’ advantage due to the rigorous and demanding atmosphere in which they are educated.
What grade inflation actually means can be vague, as it can mean curving after several difficult tests, favoritism or a teacher diluting the curriculum to make As more accessible. All of these variants are contingent on some level of subjectivity. In the student handbook, there are no specific guidelines or rubrics for what factors contribute to grades. Grade inflation is also a product of what the Academy considers to be an adequate grade. The 2009-2010 Student and Parent Handbook says, “While a failing grade (any grade below 60) raises a high level of concern, any grade in the 60s or the 70s may result in a conference with the division head or dean of students or other appropriate actions.” The more compacted distribution of grades is in large part a result of the way grades are viewed: if a student has grades in the 70s, the administration will be concerned. Grades will continue becoming more compacted until a wider range of grades is considered acceptable at the Academy. But grades communicate to both colleges and students themselves, and grade inflation doesn’t interfere with that.
According to Figueroa, the grade distribution at Academy is narrowing, but only slightly, and not by enough to be considered a problem. He said that the only concern that he has with grade inflation is that compacted grades make it more difficult for admissions officers to distinguish between an applicant and her or his peers. The additional information that Academy transcripts provide can effectively combat this issue.
Because even the country’s most selective colleges are witnessing inflation, inflation at the Academy is a non-issue when it comes to applying to colleges. Over the last ten years, the percentage of students who receive As in private colleges and universities has grown tremendously. According to the New York Times, in the last 10 years, the percentage of As received at Brown University has increased by 11 percent and at Wheeling Jesuit by 15 percent. If the institution a student is applying to is also witnessing grade inflation, it would be absurd for the school to see it as a problem on a student’s transcripts. College admission rates haven’t changed for Academy students during the time in which the average GPA has increased.
Another major complaint that Academy students have regarding grade inflation is that there is not a major visible difference between really hard-working students and students who are less committed to academics. There are several fallacies in this claim. First, colleges look at more than a student’s grades to predict their academic potential, and to differentiate competency between applicants. In academics alone, a selective college looks at the rigor of the student’s coursework with respect to their school’s course offerings, as well as where the student’s grades fall in comparison to her or his peers. Beyond academics, colleges can look at extra-curricular activities, recommendations, an interview, essays and testing scores. Figueroa, also a former admissions officer at Wesleyan University, said, “I don’t think [grade inflation is] a huge problem.”
