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SINGLETON DRONES ON ABOUT MATTERS ACADEMIC
A Retired Old Duffer's Blog Spot
A SAD LAMENT ON GRADE INFLATION (AND TWO SUGGESTIONS)
July 19, 2008
Recent e-mail exchanges with some former colleagues has convinced me that grade inflation continues as a problem area in higher education, and that little has been done to address the problem in over a decade. I became acutely aware of how widespread the lamentable situation is back in 1995.The occasion was a conversation I had with a former student. His plight (and I doubt that it was or is his alone) is woefully instructive.
Eight years previously, this student received a grade of D in my HTST 215 course (U.S. since 1877). In order to be certified for teaching in the State of Illinois he needed a grade of C or better in that course. He came to see me as soon as the next term started. He was upset with the grade, and presented his transcript as evidence of my unfairness. He had received a random assortment of A and B grades mixed in with a few Cs. I reviewed his work with him, pointed out the lack of clarity in his writing (a problem he had in his oral communication as well) and the frequent lapses of logic in his arguments. I also pointed out that he had never consulted with me during office hours, nor had he attended any of the optional sessions I had on essay construction. He said that his grades in other courses indicated that he did not need such "remedial" (his word) work.
I had not since seen this former student again until he came back to visit in 1995. He took the U.S. History Survey course at one of the Chicago City Colleges and received a higher grade. He now has a baccalaureate degree from NEIU as well as certification for teaching at the secondary level. Unfortunately, he can't seem to get a job in his chosen field. After a series of interviews, with consistent "don't call us, we'll call you" responses, he asked a number of hiring officers what the problem is. Most of the hiring agents did a double talk soliloquy, but one simply told him that he was unable to express himself in coherent and grammatically informed sentences during his interview. He was told, that is to say, essentially what I told him when I explained why he received the grade of D in my course. Now his question is, why did some other instructors give him reason to believe that his educational progress was at least satisfactory?
Some faculty ate clearly complicit in the subversion of Higher Education. That audacious assertion is based on two considerations. First, the students deserve our honest and rigorous professional services. Those services consist of modeling intellectual activity, drawing the students into that activity, and evaluating their work fairly and with integrity. The plight of the alumnus, my experience with upper division students, and a variety of conversations with colleagues in all three colleges have convinced me that we have a critical mass of faculty who, out of misguided concern for the students, or sloth, or lack of ability, fail to perform this full range of professional services. As a result, we have a "credit hour" market in which the debased product will be sold for less intellectual effort. Who can blame a working student opting for a sure B or probable A? At the time it seems like a rational decision. As the alumnus recently found out, there is a price to pay later for taking professors who get warm, fuzzy feelings by giving grades i.e. rendering false diagnoses.
Second, when the grades are thus debased, it becomes difficult for professional and graduate school selection committees to distinguish between the student who as been given grades and those who have earned grades based on an honest diagnosis. This could harm the better students with NEIU degrees, if it hasn't already.
All of the usual incantations used to ward off any serious discussion of grading practices will not undo the damage already done to the alumnus I've just talked with or the damage being done to the current students. The more popular incantations are:"This isn't Harvard"; "Our students aren't capable of that sort of work, and shouldn't be held to that high a standard"; "If we give them the higher grades, it will be an incentive to do better"; "But they work so hard." These incantations do, indeed, end discussion on grading policy. The conversation ends because no one with any sense wants to waste time with shouters of such inanities. I do not believe that any faculty are so simple as to actually believe any of these incantations. They simply know how to end discourse on an uncomfortable topic.
The previous paragraph could easily end with a grandiose call to principled action, but those who are part of the problem more often than not see themselves as part of an academic Brave New World, and have no time for such retrogressive considerations. The most that can be done, perhaps, is for the administration to take two simple steps:
1. Make the university a safe environment for faculty (particularly junior faculty) who use a diagnostic rather than therapeutic model in grading. Perhaps nothing can be done about those tenure laden departments where the therapeutic model reigns supreme, but the junior faculty can be protected by a personnel review process that really evaluates teaching effectiveness by methods more precise than those popularity contests we call "Student Evaluations." From my years as the union grievance officer, I have come to believe that the only function of "student evaluations" is to give Departmental Committees, Chairpersons and Deans enough information to hang a candidate, should they so wish. (I should add that my own student evaluations were embarrassingly and unrealistically enthusiastic. It often made me wonder what I was doing wrong.) The luckless candidate who is in a department where therapeutic grading is the norm can conform or face the ire of their peers. Only the administration can break this perpetuation of long standing practices. (In one case I handled years earlier as a grievance officer, a candidate for promotion was chided by the Chairperson for having placed remarks in red ink on a paper submitted by a student. The candidate was denied promotion all the way up, and the "red ink" incident-aka marking papers--was transmuted into "insensitivity to students." Fortunately, a good grievance process resulted in the promotion of the candidate).
2. Stop playing the numbers game. By insisting on high enrollments across the board university administrations fuel the problem in two ways. First, a class of 40 or more students in a general education course creates a difficult task for those charged with the responsibility for developing basic academic skills. The lack of adequate foundational work will harm the students in upper division courses. Second, in a "credit hour" free market, more consumers will gravitate to the cheaper product. Evaluators will use low student draw as yet another piece of evidence of teaching ineffectiveness (when, in some cases, it may be evidence that the candidate is doing the right thing). I know that stopping the numbers game would require a great deal of negotiation, but I believe that even administrators are educable.
Having said my $0.02 worth, I am ready to discuss this further with anyone who wishes to. However, be forewarned that I mean discussion when I say discussion. Incantations are not welcome.
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