This may sound incredibly outdated, but I still like the idea that education is about learning facts, skills, concepts, research, culture, analysis, inspiration, etc. It should enrich our lives and make us better citizens and independent thinkers.
But over the past 15 years, learning goals have been replaced by grades and degrees, which stand in for learning. The unfortunate result was inflation for both. They rise higher and higher. Learning isn’t like that.
I’ve written about degree inflation before. Employers requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher for a job that doesn’t actually require a degree. Fortunately, recruiters are starting to learn this, and degree requirements are being lowered in many fields.
However, grade inflation continues. A 2022 Times analysis found that while grades in the Los Angeles Unified School District were rising, standardized test scores were declining, and the two were not close to each other.
Please don’t blame LA schools or students. Grade inflation exists everywhere and is more common in wealthy areas. To keep students motivated, some school districts have eliminated D and F grades. Even though scores on nationally standardized tests such as the SAT and the National Assessment of Educational Progress have not increased, grade point averages have consistently increased.
I do not believe that standardized tests are the ultimate measure of excellence. They have their own weaknesses. But parents and the public should not be fooled when the gap between grades and test scores is this large and consistent.
It’s not just students with poor grades. A report from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that even though high school students are earning more credits, taking more rigorous courses, and achieving higher grades in math, their actual math proficiency is declining. It turned out that there was. In a 2023 poll, nearly half of students said they wanted a higher grade than they received, and eight in 10 teachers conceded, according to educators. It’s hard to blame them: More than a third of students and parents report harassment when their grades don’t improve.
Unearned grades have negative effects in many ways. For one thing, they distort the college admissions process. Universities once believed that high school grade point averages were the best predictor of higher education success, but that predictive value is declining. While many schools have stopped considering the SAT and ACT as part of their entrance exams, some schools are bringing them back. We need measures that can be trusted to be objective.
Some students enter college with excellent grades, only to end up taking remedial classes because they haven’t learned enough to take college-level courses. Employers have long complained that high school graduates, and even college graduates, lack the basic skills needed to enter the workforce. University professors complain that the students who come to them are not even good at reading.
With reformers and the U.S. Department of Education pressuring colleges and universities to improve graduation rates, it’s no surprise that grade inflation persists for students entering higher education. Some professors are reluctant to grade accurately because of student evaluations, but for strict graders, the grades are often even more negative. Remember that approximately 70% of university faculty are adjunct professors with little job protection.
Many Ivy League students have learned to cherry-pick professors who are easy to grade. However, a Brown University study found that students who took courses taught by professors with more rigorous grading criteria learned more.
We have to ask ourselves as a society. Do we want university to be a place of intellectual growth, or a place of performance to improve our grades?
Grade inflation in college may have benefits. Lower standards are associated with more students graduating. But I’m more interested in what they learned than what certificates they have. The same goes for employers. One in six people say they are hesitant to hire college graduates because they tend to be unprepared and poor communicators.
No wonder 65% of Americans think they’re smarter than average. Parents are led to believe that straight-A students are academic stars and are appalled when they are rejected by selective colleges. They don’t realize that A stands for Average these days.
