"A" is the Most Popular Grade in America
Grade Inflation and Student Achievement
Let’s be real. It’s easier on the teacher to inflate grades. We get no questions from parents, no complaints from students, and administration largely leaves us alone. This is one of the main reasons for grade inflation.?
Teachers should be empowered to evaluate students without pressure from administration, students, and parents. The teacher’s responsibility is to have an open and fair grading system and communicate. Teachers should be able to give any grade they think necessary, but the teacher is also responsible for having an explanation and reasons for that grade.
One Forbes critic wrote, “rising grades [grade inflation] masked a decline in student learning.”
So, this gets me to my main question.
How does grade inflation affect students?
Students learn more from teachers who are tough graders.?
The following academic articles all suggest that a teacher’s grading system directly affects how much a student learns.
One of the most popular scholarly articles on the topic, the researchers find that “high teacher grading standards … increase student learning.”
These researchers find a connection between “students’ test score gains” and “teacher-level grading standards.”
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These researchers studied if teachers’ grading practices had an impact on student achievement on standardized tests. They establish a connection between the grading practices and achievement on standardized tests.
The Purpose of Grades
Timothy Quinn, the author, says there are three main purposes to grades: giving feedback, motivating, and sorting.?
The first two categories are obvious, but the final category requires an explanation. Grades serve to certify competency in a given discipline. Sorting is also required to make placement decisions and predict future achievement.?
A teacher must consider and weigh each of these categories when it comes to their grading system. Ultimately, though, the grading system terminates in the phase of “sorting.”
Oftentimes, I find myself asking if a particular student has “done enough” to warrant an A. In my head, I have drawn boundaries around what an A student must do in order to achieve that grade, and toward the end of the semester, I decide if this student has done enough to earn an A.
Usually, I rely on my mathematical grading formula, but a master teacher should be able to explain more about a student’s grade.
So what do teachers do?
Teachers must understand the purposes of grading: provide feedback, motivate, and sort.
Being consistent, transparent, and tough in your grading system and policies leads to more learning for students. Consistency means that sometimes you must uncomfortably enforce your “non-negotiables.”
Communicate with students and parents. Many grade systems are online. A weekly bulk email to your students and parents with this reminder accomplishes this.
Show students the way to earn an A, and celebrate when they achieve it.