{"id":1026,"date":"2004-05-03T09:52:33","date_gmt":"2004-05-03T17:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2004\/05\/03\/puncturing-inflated-grades\/"},"modified":"2004-05-03T09:52:33","modified_gmt":"2004-05-03T17:52:33","slug":"puncturing-inflated-grades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2004\/05\/03\/puncturing-inflated-grades","title":{"rendered":"Puncturing Inflated Grades"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just read a great essay: How to End Grade Infla\u00adtion<\/a> by Michael Berube<\/a> (prof at Penn State).<\/p>\n

He humor\u00adous\u00adly iden\u00adti\u00adfies the prob\u00adlem: Eng\u00adlish depart\u00adments have basi\u00adcal\u00adly worked on the A\/B bina\u00adry sys\u00adtem for some time: A\u2019s and A\u2011minuses for the best stu\u00addents, B\u2019s for every\u00adone else and C\u2019s, D\u2019s and F\u2019s for stu\u00addents who miss half the class\u00ades or threat\u00aden their teach\u00aders with bod\u00adi\u00adly harm.<\/i><\/p>\n

And then pro\u00adpos\u00ades a clever solu\u00adtion: What to do? If we so desired, we could recal\u00adi\u00adbrate grades at Penn State, at Prince\u00adton or at any col\u00adlege in the coun\u00adtry. The prin\u00adci\u00adple is sim\u00adple enough, and it\u2019s cru\u00adcial to every div\u00ading com\u00adpe\u00adti\u00adtion: we would mere\u00adly need to account for each course\u2019s degree of dif\u00adfi\u00adcul\u00adty.<\/i><\/p>\n

Every pro\u00adfes\u00adsor, and every depart\u00adment, pro\u00adduces an aver\u00adage grade \u2014 an aver\u00adage for the pro\u00adfes\u00adsor over her career and an aver\u00adage for the dis\u00adci\u00adpline over the decades. And if col\u00adleges real\u00adly want\u00aded to clamp down on grade infla\u00adtion, they could whisk it away sta\u00adtis\u00adti\u00adcal\u00adly, sim\u00adply by fac\u00adtor\u00ading those aver\u00adages into each stu\u00adden\u00adt\u2019s G.P.A. Imag\u00adine that G.P.A.\u2018s were cal\u00adcu\u00adlat\u00aded on a scale of 10 with the aver\u00adage grade, be it a B\u2011minus or an A\u2011minus, count\u00aded as a 5. The B\u2011plus in chem\u00adi\u00adcal engi\u00adneer\u00ading, where the aver\u00adage grade is, say, C\u2011plus, would be reward\u00aded accord\u00ading\u00adly and assigned a val\u00adue of 8; the B\u2011plus in psy\u00adchol\u00ado\u00adgy, where the aver\u00adage grade might be just over B\u2011plus, would be grad\u00aded like an easy dive, ade\u00adquate\u00adly exe\u00adcut\u00aded, and giv\u00aden a 4.7. <\/p>\n

I have to say, I like it. I don\u2019t think any uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adties are going to go for it, but I wish they would\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just read a great essay: How to End Grade Infla\u00adtion by Michael Berube (prof at Penn State). He humor\u00adous\u00adly iden\u00adti\u00adfies the prob\u00adlem: Eng\u00adlish depart\u00adments have basi\u00adcal\u00adly worked on the A\/B bina\u00adry sys\u00adtem for some time: A\u2019s and A\u2011minuses for the best stu\u00addents, B\u2019s for every\u00adone else and C\u2019s, D\u2019s and F\u2019s for stu\u00addents who \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cPunc\u00adtur\u00ading Inflat\u00aded Grades\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-of-random-interest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-gy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}