The Curve and Grade Inflation

According to some surveys, as reported by Adam Grant, in the New York Times, at both four-year and two-year schools, more students receive A’s than any other grade. And the percentage has grown over the past three decades.

First, it should be noted that grade inflation is reportedly more pronounced at selective universities than at community colleges. This makes sense, since students at elite schools tend to be stronger academically from the start. Also, at selective institutions, undergrads often compete for spots in graduate schools, so they probably try harder.

Harvard alumni from the old days used to reminisce about the “Gentleman’s C,” which was perfectly respectable for young lads with active social lives. Not any more.

The author of the NYT piece is a professor at the Wharton School of Business at Penn (which ought to be another red flag for community college teachers), but he argues against a strict curve of grades. In the classic bell-shaped configuration, seven to ten percent of students would receive an A, with the highest number of scores receiving a C, which is still designated as “average” work, virtually everywhere. By definition, average is in the middle of the pack, but the mean, as it is often called, may reflect the result of extremes. It gets complicated.

Professor Grant is more concerned about grade deflation, as a deterrent to rewarding effort and excellence. One point he makes is that, when students compete against each other for top spots, they are less likely to collaborate and get along with others. Collaborative learning is advocated by many authorities today as the best pedagogy for the modern economy and society.

Actually it’s hard to find community college teachers presently who use a strict curve for grades. Students have come to believe that a curve means only raising test scores, but classically it could just as easily work the other way. Lowering test scores to fit a bell-shaped mold would likely elicit angry cries of foul from students today. Ironically, if we followed a strict bell curve for grades at our schools, we might have fewer failures than we do now, particularly in developmental math, for instance. Not that this is a good idea.

Some critics of grade inflation say that, instead of awarding letter grades, we should rank students against their peers for transcript purposes. High school valedictorians are chosen this way, but it can be a contentious and persnickety process, and still based on grades. At the nation’s military academies, students are ranked, but this is probably a bad fit for elsewhere.

What to do? Perhaps the surest way to avoid, or at least mitigate, grade inflation, assuming it is a problem, is to respect the judgment of teachers at all levels. Teachers are not perfect, but who knows better?