2012-13-AP-Lang-Research-Paper-Synthesis-Question-Grade-Inflation-Repaired-22vts9a

This page is purposefully left blank between different articles that you may use for your research paper Source Information: Title: Ivy League Grade Inflation Newspaper: USA Today Da

This is an electronic packet of information to use to write your Research Paper Think of this packet like it is a cafeteria – you will select those items from it that you want to use in your Research Paper and leave all of the other items alone.

(Remember, on the AP Language Exam you will be

given 7 different pieces of information and a topic to

write on You will need to use information from 3 of

the 7 pieces in your paper AND in your paper

document (say which exact source was used for each

piece you paraphrase or quote) each quote or

paraphrase.

From this packet you are to select the BEST pieces of

particulars to provide perfect proof that your Claim

(thesis) is correct Your quotes, your block quotes and

your paraphrases will all come from the material in

this packet Nothing will be documented in your paper that is not in this packet The packet contains a variety of information Some of which you will not be able to use because it will not support your claim Remember to select the best proof REMEMBER, THIS PAPER IS TO BE YOUR WRITING AND YOUR IDEAS, SUPPORTED BY TEXTUAL SPECIFICS FROM THESE SOURCES.

You may not be able to write a Works Cited page on which every entry lists every piece of information MLA standards want for every source Are you asking yourself why won’t you know all the information to write a complete entry? Only the information given at the top of the first page of each piece of information (some information may take more than one page) can be used Remember, using MLA rules – if a piece of information is not provided, ignore it and move to the next piece of information

If you have a question, ask in class….e-mail me… stop in before school or after school

Remember that famous saying by Jim Rohn: Discipline is the bridge between goals and

accomplishments." Don’t put off working on this paper

You have been working with rhetorical techniques; here is where you demonstrate that you can write using rhetorical techniques After your paper is written, go back through it and elevate the language – include some techniques that demonstrate your writing is mature, concise and demonstrates your outstanding skills Use… similes… metaphors… rhetorical questions… logos, ethos, pathos, …… ?????????

You can do this!

Mrs C

Source Information:

Site: http://www.gradeinflation.com/ Seen: June 6, 2010

Source B: GPA Data http://www.gradeinflation.com/

University of Texas at Austin

Source: Internal University documents

Source:

Insitutional Research and PlanningUndergraduate cumulative GPA, Fall term

Louisiana State University

Source: Internal University document

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Source Information:

Title: Ivy League Grade Inflation Newspaper: USA Today Date published: 02/08/2002

When a report found recently that eight out of every 10 Harvard students

graduate with honors and nearly half receive A's in their courses, the news

prompted plenty of discussion and more than a few jokes But is grade inflation

worth worrying about?

Really smart students probably deserve really high grades Moreover, tough

graders could alienate their students Plus, tough grading makes a student less

likely to get into graduate school, which could make Harvard look bad in

college rankings

All are among reasons cited by professors in explaining why grade inflation is

nothing to worry about And all are insufficient justification for the practice

College-grade inflation — which is probably an extension of the

well-documented grade inflation in high schools — is a problem And it extends well

beyond Harvard

Fewer than 20% of all college students receive grades below a B-minus,

according to a study released this week by the American Academy of Arts &

Sciences That hardly seems justified at a time when a third of all college

students arrive on campus so unprepared that they need to take at least one

remedial course

The report sifts through several possible causes for the inflated grades.

Among them:

A holdover practice from the 1960s, when professors knew that F's triggered a draft notice and a trip to Vietnam

An influx of more students, including some minorities, who are less prepared for college work Grading leniency is believed to encourage their continued academic participation and promote self-esteem

Evaluation systems in which students grade professors, thereby providing an incentive for teachers to go easy on their future evaluators

An explosion in the number of overburdened adjunct professors who lack the time to evaluate each student more accurately

The authors of the report cast doubt on several of those explanations, including the influx of minorities They barely touch on an obvious explanation offered by several professors: Families paying more than $30,000 a year for a college education expect something more for their money than a report card full of gentleman's Cs

More important than the reasons for inflated grades is the impact they have

When all students receive high marks, graduate schools and business recruiters simply start ignoring the grades Thatleads the graduate schools to rely more on entrance tests It prompts corporate recruiters to depend on a "good old boy/girl" network in an effort to unearth the difference between who looks good on paper and who is actually good.Put to disadvantage in that system are students who traditionally don't test as well or lack connections In many cases, those are the poor and minority students who are the first in their families to graduate from college No matterhow hard they work, their A's look ordinary Viewed in that light, the fact that 50% of all Harvard students now get A's is a troubling problem

Who makes the grade?

Evidence of grade inflation at Ivy League schools:

 In 1966, 22% of Harvard undergraduate students earned A's

By 1996, that figure rose to 46% That same year, 82% of Harvard seniors graduated with honors

 In 1973, 31% of all grades at Princeton were A's By 1997 that rose to 43% In 1997, only 12% of all grades given at Princeton were below the B range.

Source: American Academy of Arts &

Sciences

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Source Information:

Title: Harvard’s Quiet Secret: Rampant Grade Inflation Newspaper: Boston Globe

Date published: October 21, 2001 on-line at : http://www.endgradeinflation.org/

Viewed: June 21, 2010

In October 2001 the Boston Globe released an article entitled Harvard’s Quiet Secret: Rampant Grade Inflation The article reported a record 91% of Harvard University students were awarded honors during

the spring graduation Said one student, Trevor Cox, “I’ve coasted on far higher grades than I deserve It’sscandalous You can get very good grades and earn honors, without ever producing quality work.”

Previously, Harvard’s Dr Harvey Mansfield spoke out publicly against grade inflation in the April 2001

issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education The article Grade Inflation: It’s Time to Face the Facts

reveals a willingness on his part to take a public stand on the issue In Professor Mansfield’s words

“There is something inappropriate almost sick in the spectacle of mature adults showering young peoplewith unbelievable praise We are flattering our students in our eagerness to get their good opinion

American colleges used to set their own expectations Now, increasingly, they react to student

expectations.” Additional recent commentaries include: “Once graduates enter the job market, they discover they can’t bank on those undeserved grades.” (Christian Science Monitor, November 6, 2001)

“The effect of grade inflation is a devaluing of undergraduate degrees.” (Levine and Cureton, 1998) “…it

is a societal trend to de-emphasize competition and make people feel better about themselves.” (Dr Perry Zirkel, Lehigh University) A “bachelor of arts degree in 1997 may not be the equal of a graduation certificate from an academic high school in 1947” (Wall Street Journal, January 30, 1997)

In February 2002, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences published results of a two year study on grade inflation in American colleges and universities conducted by Henry Rosovsky and Mathew Hartley

The report Evaluation and the Academy: Are We Doing the Right Thing? finds grade inflation existent

nationwide Selected quotes include: “compression in grades will create a system of grades in which A’s predominate and in which letters (of recommendation) consist primarily of praise Meaningful

distinctions will have disappeared.”

http://www.endgradeinflation.org/

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Source Information:

Author: Gilliam Gillers Magazine: Newsweek Date published: August 1, 2004

Title: Grade Deflation

Daylan Tatz, a Princeton junior, imagines sitting in a seminar and thinking, "OK, there are 10 people here Only 3.5 people are going to get A's [or A-minuses]." Those calculations weren't on his mind in 2003-04, when marks of A or A-minus made up about 47 percent of undergraduate grades at Princeton But starting in fall 2004, Princeton will reduce that number to 35 percent, roughly the level between 1973 and 1992 "I think students will be motivated to work harder and learn more by getting accurate information about the quality of their work," says Nancy Weiss Malkiel, Princeton's undergraduate dean.

Princeton is the first college to formally curb grade inflation, which plagues many schools When Stuart Rojstaczer,

a professor of environmental science at Duke, collected data on grading practices at 83 colleges, he found that 79 of them had experienced "significant" grade inflation in the past few decades Grades at selective private schools are especially high A 2003 Princeton study found that marks of A and A-minus accounted for 44 to 55 percent of grades

at the Ivy League colleges, MIT, Stanford and the University of Chicago

While some faculty and administrators claim students deserve their high marks, others see grade inflation as a problem Amherst president Anthony Marx notes that as grades rise, they become less useful to students, graduate schools and employers Faculty committees at Amherst are discussing how to confront grade inflation, Marx says, but it's too soon to tell what steps they may take He admires that Princeton has confronted the issue, but he worries that using such a "blunt instrument to impose a curve" could discourage students from exploring unfamiliar subjects

Several schools including Harvard, Stanford and the University of Miami try to keep grades in line by informally pressing faculty After evaluating this method for five years, Princeton faculty and administrators decided that only auniversity-wide standard would work "Otherwise we have what [the department chairs] called a collective-action problem," Malkiel says "There would be no incentive for the faculty in any single academic department to grade more responsibly if faculty in other departments were left free to grade much more liberally."

But a handful of schools have managed to keep grades constant without resorting to university-wide directives At Reed College in Oregon, the average GPA has hovered around 2.9 for more than 20 years "This really reflects the tradition and culture of the college," says Peter Steinberger, dean of the faculty "The faculty feels the best way to teach students is to evaluate their work honestly." Reed's unusual grading policy may also play a role in curbing inflation The college does not regularly report grades students must ask to see them and it does not award

academic honors like cum laude or valedictorian.

Reed students seem unconcerned about strict grading practices, and Princeton undergraduates may not worry either Tough grading is unlikely to hurt students applying for jobs, graduate schools or fellowships "Schools that are not part of this inflation trend we certainly make note of," says Andy Cornblatt, dean of admissions at Georgetown University Law School Recruiters at Accenture and Goldman Sachs say they also recognize that different schools have different grading cultures, and they consider this when hiring graduates and student interns

Still, Tatz, the Princeton junior, worries that the new policy will make students more competitive "Am I one of the top 3.5 people in this class?" he asks "I'm afraid I'm going to have that running through my mind the whole term." One piece of advice: focus on learning something instead

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One of the greatest concerns of college administrators nationwide since the 1970s has been politely called "grade inflation." It refers to the granting of excessive percentages of superior grades to students, making an A or B the average grade rather than the indication of outstanding achievement More recently, some high profile institutions like Harvard and Princeton have been in the spotlight for their efforts to reverse this documented trend Our reaction

at Saint Anselm College: We can show you how to do it

Source Information:

Title: Higher Education Must Reverse Trend of Grade Inflation Author: Jonathan DeFelice

Newspaper: The Union Leader Sunday News Date published: August 1, 2004

Fr Peter Guerin, who was dean of the college for 25 years, said in a recent interview : "One of the greatest

disservices educators can do is give grades that aren't earned It gives students a false and distorted evaluation of their abilities and achievements, and it weakens the value of the college diploma." Critics argue that students are simply getting smarter and their grades should reflect that Yet, according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, over the last 30 years across the country, SAT scores of entering students have declined and one-third of freshmen are enrolled in at least one remedial course Meanwhile, a study by a Duke University professor indicates that grade point averages (on a 4.0 scale) have increased more than a half-point since 1970

The integrity of a Saint Anselm degree is grounded in the hard work and sacrifice required to achieve it Sustaining that integrity is at the heart of the work that all of us at the college, particularly the faculty, do on a daily basis The current Dean of the College Fr Augustine Kelly has continued the tradition by closely monitoring grade distribution and keeping faculty honest in their evaluation of students

Fair grading is not simply an administrative mandate on our campus It's an ethical issue that gets at the very core of academic integrity nationwide Whether at Saint Anselm, an Ivy League university or a local community college, to pretend that an average student has mastered a subject in an above average way is simply dishonest While it may beperceived as a boost to a student's self-esteem, in fact, it prevents the student from honestly assessing his or her academic success Honest grading demands that faculty remain committed to the cause in a consumer-driven society that includes students who believe they are entitled to good grades because they and their families are payingtuition

While there is certainly pressure on both professors and administrators to accede to these distorted expectations, colleges and universities have the responsibility to honestly assign grades that students earn The academy must set the bar high on standards and accountability In fact, market research conducted for Saint Anselm College in 2002-

03 indicated that among college and university characteristics that students valued was a "tough grading policy that rewards good work without inflating grades."

While it is true that this concept does not sit well with all students, those who complain are usually the ones who

think their peers at other institutions are "benefiting" from more lenient grading practices I have found that the majority of Saint Anselm alumni appreciate the rigor with which their undergraduate degree was earned Some writeyears later to thank a professor or the dean for the work ethic and standards they developed as a result of their Saint Anselm experience

Increasingly, college graduates compete in a global economy For many of these well-educated individuals, their work will be judged against that of peers in China and India, for example, who cost employers a fraction of their American counterparts If our students are fooled into believing, because of grade inflation, that their competencies are greater than they actually are, they may be handicapped when they are called to compete on the worldwide stage

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Source Information:

Title: University of Phoenix – Grade Inflation Author; Karen Sutter Type: Post

site: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/education/phoenix_easya.html

Karen of Sutter CA (6/4/03):

I attended University of Phoenix for five classes I have found that they literally give A's away

At first I thought that I was just being too hard on myself and that I really did deserve the A Although things seemed too easy in my first three classes I continued to enroll In my fourth class it was obvious that I received an A on a couple of assignments that I shouldn't have - I had left out some things, misspelled some words etc I thought it was the teacher and decided to continue.

Then in my fifth class, I knew for a fact that things were amiss Speaking to some of my fellow classmates, they had seen the same type of things When I received my grade report I couldn't believe it I had gotten 100% on two assignments that I didn't turn in, my groups research paper - which was a day late - received a 98%, even though we didn't include a reference list (the class was an English Composition class), it was a day late, and the word count was about 100 words short I quickly realized that I could continue my education with Phoenix and receive straight A's; however, I also know that I would never hire someone based on their education received at Phoenix I have since moved on.

I don't believe there will be any consequences for me, however as I stated, I would never hire a person based on their education from the University of Phoenix.

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Introduction: Grade inflation in higher education has been a hot button issue for at least the last twenty years

Recently grade inflation has become even more significant as some prominent institutions have attempted to deal with their escalating GPAs The degree of grade inflation at some prestigious colleges and universities can be

Source Information:

Title: Grade Inflation Author: Richard C Schiming on-line at: Minnesota State UniversityPage address: http://www.mnsu.edu/cetl/teachingresources/articles/gradeinflation.html seen: July 8, 2010

staggering At Harvard in 1992, 91 percent of all undergraduate grades were B- or higher In 1993, 83.6 percent of all Harvard seniors graduated with honors At Stanford, typically only 6 percent of all students' grades were Cs The university, until recently, did not permit an F grade At Mankato State, the percentage of seniors who graduate with honors is around 25 percent The honors' rate for individual colleges ranges between 20 and 40 percent Last fall term, the average GPA for our undergraduates was 2.93, nearly a B average The average GPA in the colleges was fairly consistent, ranging from 2.86 to 3.08.

Causes of Grade Inflation: Before exploring some of the causes of grade inflation mentioned in the literature, it is

important to define grade inflation The most obvious definition is that grade patterns change so that the

overwhelming majority of students in a class, college, or university receive higher grades for the same quantity and quality of work done by students in the past A corollary to this definition is the same GPA obtained by students withpoorer academic skill (as measured by the SAT or ACT exams) Another less well known version of grade inflation

is "content deflation" where students receive the same grades as students in the past but with less work required and less learning It is also interesting that grade inflation has not always been the norm in higher education The period from 1955 to 1965 has been described as a period of grade deflation The average grade and GPA remained static even though the student body possessed higher and higher SAT and ACT scores During this period, grading did not rise to reward the better qualified students

What follows is a list of some of the frequently mentioned causes of grade inflation:

1 Institutional pressure to retain students The easiest way to maintain enrollment is to keep the students that are

already on campus The professors, departments, colleges, and even entire universities may implicitly believe that giving their students higher grades will improve retention and the attractiveness of their classes and courses With students seeing themselves more as consumers of education and more eager to succeed than to learn, the pressure oninstitutions to provide more success can be persuasive

2 Increased attention and sensitivity to personal crisis situations for students The most obvious example was

the Vietnam War era Poor grades exposed male students to the military draft Many professors and institutions adopted liberal grading policies to minimize the likelihood of low grades Some sources cite this period as the genesis of recent grade inflation as the students of that era are now professors

3 Higher grades used to obtain better student evaluations of teaching In an increased effort at faculty

accountability, many colleges and universities mandate frequent student evaluations of faculty that often end up being published or otherwise disseminated These same evaluations play an increasingly important role in tenure andpromotion decisions Faculty members who find themselves in such situations may attempt to 'buy' better student evaluations of their teaching by giving higher grades While this trade may sound intuitively appealing, most of the studies that explore that relationship have failed to find that grades (whether given or expected) play a dominant role

in student evaluations of faculty

4 The increased use of subjective or motivational factors in grading Factors such as student effort, student

persistence, student improvement, and class attendance count in favor of the students who possess these desirable characteristics This tends to skew grading patterns upwards

5 Changing grading policies and practices The increased use of internships, contract grading, individual study

courses, group work within courses, a liberal withdrawal policy, generous use of the incomplete grade, and the ability to repeat courses to improve a grade can all contribute to grade inflation

6 Faculty attitudes A faculty member who believes that grades are a vehicle to please students rather than to

recognize and reward performance will tend to give higher grades Similarly a professor less willing to distinguish superior work from good or average work will tend to impart an upward bias to grades One source places most of the blame for grade inflation on the shoulders of faculty who have failed in their traditional role of gatekeepers Theimplication here is that it is easier to give a good grade than a bad grade for the instructor

7 Content deflation For large public universities, the temptation might be to lower both the expectations and

demands in individual courses A fairly liberal admissions policy, a large number of non-traditional students, and a large number of working students all tempt professors to lower their expectations by reducing the number of

textbooks, the amount of writing, and the amount of homework in the course The goal may be laudable in

responding to the particular needs of a specific student body but the result may be inflated grades

8 Changing mission It is also possible that, as some institutions de-emphasize the teaching mission in favor of the

research or service component, some faculty may be unwilling or unable to spend their time on grading and

evaluation This lack of attention to grading and evaluation could result in a weakening of standards

Implications: The persistence of grade inflation in the last twenty years or so in American higher education has had

some important implications Some of these are:

1 A cheapening of the value and importance of both a college degree and academic honors

2 The lack of consistent and accurate information to potential employers about the skills of a university's graduates.Consequently, employers place more emphasis on the work experience of college students in the hiring process Thisforces students to work more at a job and study less in college

3 The lack of honest responses to individual students about their academic strengths and weaknesses

4 A continuing upward spiral of grades built on weakening standards as individual faculty members have little or

no incentive to fight the prevailing trend

5 With the value of a given letter grade or even a college degree devalued by the perception of grade inflation, there will be more pressure placed on faculty and institution to assess in other ways the performance of their students Indeed, one can see the current trend for classroom assessment by external authorities as an attempt to obtain again meaningful feedback on the quality of student performance If outsiders do not trust the grades on the transcript, they may require other demonstrations of student learning

6 There is at least some anecdotal evidence that there is increasing disparity between the average grades in various disciplines and that students are avoiding disciplines with the reputation for more rigorous grading standards

Potential Solutions: Certainly one obvious solution to the current debate is for an institution to have a serious

discussion about the whole nature of grades and grading Some discussion about grade expectations for our students would help faculty determine their own grading policy Still other institutions have experimented with alterations to their traditional forms of grading in the hope on conveying more accurately the nature of student performance Some

of these changes include:

1 The use of a more finely tuned grading scale The use of just five categories of grades (A-F) has, in the minds of some, contributed to overall grade inflation Faculty are more likely to move a borderline student

up to the next higher grade with such a system The use of the plus and minus grading system can address this inflationary tendency as well as more accurately measure relative student performance

2 The use of the overall class grade in the transcript A number of universities in recent years have attempted

to provide some perspective on the grades achieved by individual students by annotating the typical transcript One variation is to note along with the individual grade, the mean or median grade for the class and the number of students in the class Another variation is to use a grading system whereby the grade for the class is composed of two parts The first number would be the student's grade in the class and the second would be the overall grade for the class Thus the grade and the transcript would look like this: 3.0/2.7 This student earned a B in a class where the overall average grade was 2.7

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Our forward-thinking approach made us one of the stars of our accreditation reports; we were held up as a model department What's the connection between grade inflation, accreditation and review, and assessment? Grade inflation (and its

primary/secondary equivalent, social promotion) has made grades and advancement difficult to rely on as a measure of academic success Since the institutions themselves have not committed to a solution, governing bodies, including accreditation agencies and government, are seeking to impose one For primary and secondary education, this has come in the form of high-stakes testing, including NCLB assessments and Massachusetts-style graduation tests If we are going to avoid similar 'solutions' being imposed on post-secondary education, we need to develop alternatives which credibly address the problem

Source Information:

Title: Grade Inflation …Why It’s a Nightmare Posted on: George Mason University’s History News NetworkAuthor: Jonathan Dresner site: http://hnn.us/articles/6591.html seen: July1, 2010

Grade Inflation

First, we have to acknowledge that grade inflation is a reality, and more pronounced in some fields than others At my own institution, the highest grades seem to come from pre-professional programs (nursing, education, agriculture, management, communications) and artistic fields (drama, dance, music), and cultural studies (women's studies, Hawaiian studies) Other departments with lower averages might still have a grade inflation problem, depending on the average quality and work of their students

Grade inflation has three primary causes: student culture, pedagogical culture and institutional culture The expansion of the student body since WWII has brought students with a wider range of abilities to college, and also drew in the best students from previously under-represented groups It has also widened the gap between the level of colleges themselves: there are now significant differences between the average quality of students at various institutions, differences enshrined in things like the Petersen Guide 'tier' rankings Because of the view of the bachelor's degree as a baseline credential for professional employment, many of these students are unengaged with their educations, and consider college an extended form of high school, where attendance and endurance matter more than engagement This is particularly true of pre-professional students, who may take their major courses seriously but who don't engage with general education or distribution courses, but anyone with experience teaching

intro-level courses recognizes the phenomenon Plus, students take grades very personally: the grade is about them, not about their work So differing standards seem unfair, and students respond poorly to the implicit criticism of low grades, particularly

when they get accustomed to unearned high grades at earlier levels or in other courses

This is reflected in, and exacerbated by, the abuse of quantitative measures of teaching effectiveness The situation is complicated

by the increased demands being placed on teachers: pedagogical innovation and new technology; higher publication standards; higher teaching loads and larger classes The need to bring in majors and raise enrollments is another factor making raising standards difficult Unless it is done in a uniform fashion, it will result in students shifting to 'easy' classes, and those faculty and departments who raise standards will face the wrath of administrators and budget committees Student retention and graduation rates are used as measures of institutional effectiveness, which mitigates against failing (or even discouraging) even the most unprepared students.

Finally, partially as a result of the above-mentioned forces, and partially as a result of intellectual currents usually grouped under the term 'relativism', there has been a shift away from hard-and-fast standards, absolute grades, and critical responses to student work reflected in grades These are not fundamentally bad ideas, but their inconsistent application and misapplication, along with the student and institutional issues above, has degraded the authority of faculty to set standards to which students feel obligated to

adhere and the willingness of faculty to use grades as both reward and punishment

Why is Grade Inflation a Problem?

This is something which is more often assumed than explained, but a clear understanding of the problems associated with grade inflation is essential The problems go beyond a vague sense of moral or intellectual decline and have practical, long-term implications Inflated grades interfere with teaching and learning, with hiring and tenure, with the quality of our work

environment and with the academy's relationship with the wider community

The first and most obvious effect of inflated grades is that it becomes harder to use grades as a shorthand form of communication with any nuance Sure, individual teachers can explain "what grades mean" semester after semester, but when minimally acceptable work is worth a C, or a B or an A, depending on the course, it is hard for students to keep track

The disjunction between graduate training institutions and student expectations at the institutions at which most Ph.D.s get hired makes it likely that faculty starting out will have difficulty connecting with their students and will have standards somewhat higher than the norm for their hiring institutions Harvard's Career Counselors refer to the "H effect", the assumption by

interviewers that a Harvard-educated Ph.D will be disappointed by the quality of local students and have difficulty teaching at their level To some extent it is justified, particularly since new faculty mentoring is rarely structured or effective, and it results in

an elevated rate of dismissal from first hires These are rarely reflected in official 'tenure rate' figures, as those refer only to faculty who apply for tenure, whereas most institutions will dismiss untenurable or borderline candidates at earlier stages of review, which does not count

The corollary to the disjunction is the breakdown of morale and collegiality which comes from struggling against what feels like constantly falling standards New Ph.D.s trained to high levels of professionalism discover that their efforts to 'raise standards' are met with hostility by students (who don't want to work that hard) and suspicion by fellow faculty (who understand the implicit criticism) The very real differences between departments in grading become factions, and the sense of a threat to academic freedom by standards imposed from outside makes nearly all academics bristle and stiffen So, instead of addressing the question directly, it becomes a festering issue that won't be discussed, and the only solution is for departments with high standards to grit their teeth and bring them down to the norm in order to effectively compete for students, and therefore resources

Finally, grade inflation has led to public dissatisfaction with educational results The same forces that have driven the

primary/secondary assessment movement seem to be pushing into higher education as well Granted, much of the critical reportage about higher education is poor quality, anecdotal, and political But there remains a steady and credible strain of

business and political and social organizations concerned about the process and results of higher education And it is these groups, through their influence on state and national legislators and, through the US Dept of Education, their influence on the regional accrediting agencies that is pushing us towards assessment, and will continue to push until we, or they, find a solution to the problem.

Solutions Already Being Tried

There are a few active attempts to solve the problems of grade inflation and educational effectiveness Colleges and universities have tried a variety of techniques to deflate grades Some have adjusted their grading systems: Princeton instituted a limit to A- level grades Harvard adjusted its GPA calculation to narrow the A-/B+ gap and that has reportedly been effective in reducing the A-level overload slightly Most institutions don't go much further than passing around department-level data on grade averages, though a few institutions have followed up with enough pressure and discussion to bring the outliers closer to norm Academic freedom, precious though it is, is used to insulate faculty against discussions of content, workload, grading or pedagogy

A few institutions have largely abandoned grades as a measure of the success or ability of college graduates, or found ways to supplement those grades with standardized norms Ironically, the most widespread form of national post-graduate testing is graduate admissions tests Lip service is paid to grades, recommendations are carefully read for faint praise, and personal statements give admissions officers some way to tell applicants apart But the existence and ubiquity of the use of these

standardized tests is perhaps the most damning form of self-criticism possible: the very academy which grants grades cannot rely

on them as a measure of quality or achievement Professional accreditation in several fields is test based (nursing, teaching and accounting come to mind immediately), recognition that completion of the relevant bachelor's degree may not, in fact, indicate technical mastery of crucial material The tests, of course, influence the curricula: some departments have gone so far as to include a 'preparation for the test' course as a component of the major

What's Next?

My suggestions, which most readers will cheerfully ignore in favor of their own, focus largely on the nexus between grade inflation, student evaluation of teachers, and tenure review In the short term, some form of open grade norming perhaps as simple as putting the class or department median on transcripts along with the student's grade would reduce the opacity of grades In the long run, outlier departments must be called to account, and discussion of grades, standards and norms must be ongoing, data-driven and interdisciplinary Reform of social promotion and grade inflation at the primary and secondary level would help immensely.

The training of Ph.D students also needs to be shifted in more practical and professional directions, starting with an emphasis on teaching as a skill in graduate school Not just tossing TAs in sections, but mentoring, review, professionalization; also, graduate coursework should include not just dissertation-related topics but general education in areas which students will most probably have to teach

If these or similar methods are not adopted, if grade inflation continues and no strong articulation of standards is forthcoming, the worst-case scenario is easy to project National standards for college curricula, enforced by NCLB-style testing in non-

professional subjects, have already been discussed by national legislators Accrediting agencies and federal funding would force schools to address their curriculum to these tests, which would entail the functional loss of academic freedom with regard to syllabi and classroom activity Faculty who failed to follow institutional guidelines (which would be very closely modeled on national guidelines and adjusted to the tests) would be penalized, probably with dismissal, and tenure would be obsolete Students would be forced to take more general education courses, but would have fewer choices regarding how to fulfill their

requirements At this point, college really would become an extension of high school

We are faced with change: things will not simply continue as they are for very long We must decide what sort of change we prefer I would prefer that we be accountable to ourselves, individually and as an intellectual and teaching community, and that others respect that system because it produces high quality results If we cannot demonstrate those results, and that accountability,

it will be imposed on us in a form which we may not recognize or appreciate.