Grade inflation equals consumer fraud
Wednesday, 31 March 2010 20:38
LETTER TO THE EDITOR NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Education reform can begin with a policy that prohibits the granting of honor roll grades to students who are not doing work that is on grade level. Grades are deceptive and few parents know what children are expected to know at various stages of their development. Accepted practices of grade inflation need to be banned as a destructive form of consumer fraud.
Honor rolls can create a deceptive sense of satisfaction for everyone involved. It would produce a higher level of advocacy and effort from parents and students if they were aware that they were achieving excellence in work below the core content standards for their grade.
In every school system, there are students who will do whatever it takes to master all of the work required of them. It is not fair for them to never be presented the full scope of academic instruction that is given to other students that they will have to compete with in college. Valedictorians from one school district are placed at a disadvantage next to "C" students from another.
Many college freshmen are surprised and discouraged to learn that they have to take loans and acquire debt for non-credit courses. This often includes the additional cost of room and board for instruction they should have obtained while living at home attending public schools where they excelled. Without proper support, many of these gifted students are lost to higher education, forever.
All positive change does not require money. A public policy that requires "truth in grading" can go a long way towards preventing schools from languishing, unchallenged in entrenched failure.
DEBORAH DOWE
PLAINFIELD, N.J.
Comments (10)
10 Thursday, 08 April 2010 08:04
Renata Hernandez
What a compelling piece and the commentary equally so! As a product of PPS and an honor roll student since the 6th grade I lived the angst of going to college only to be faced with remediated NON-DEGREE contributing mandatory coursework in English and MATH! It was depressing but by grace I pressed forward and continued on until I achieved my MBA. TODAY I continue to advocate for the PARENTS and Children of this district. As the former President of Parents Empowering Parents (PEP) and now as a BOE Candidate -- It is my DUTY as a citizen and as a human being to change the course of our current educational system!
9 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 22:20
N. Webb
Having a child that came out of a public school and is now struggling to get a passing grade in math in a private school this hits home. Deborah is on point. If my daughter could not do the required work a poor grade would have alerted us sooner. It’s much easier to get the extra help the children need in the lower grades than later when it may be too late.
8 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 14:29
Rev. Alphonso and Carol Washington
Some years ago, my brother retired from teaching in the MD school system because they had begun the process of 'dumbing down' the Math department of which he was head. It truly upset him because the students would be the ones to suffer in the end. You see, ironically, grade inflation is ultimately a disservice to students. In the real world, where people have to work hard, pay taxes and learn that life has a habit of throwing nasty surprises at you, an ability to think critically is worth a lot more than a piece of paper showing you got lots of As and Bs in the Leaving Cert. Without the capacity for independent thought, today’s students will flounder in the future and this will only be exacerbated by the false sense of entitlement they have from being handed a raft of ill-deserved high grades.
It will be sorely disappointing for them to discover that, as adults, things won’t always be handed to them on a plate. They will fail sometimes. Life won’t always go their way and no one will ever ask them how they got on in the Leaving Cert.
Quoting from an article I read a couple years ago..."Grade inflation has wider implications too. Without high standards in education, how will the bottle-fed brats of the Bebo generation develop intellectually to the point where they might contribute to technological advancement, make scientific breakthroughs or add to the canon of Irish literature?
More prosaically, can we trust those with diluted qualifications to do their jobs properly? If a patient dies because of a doctor’s misdiagnosis or a bridge falls down because an engineer made a basic mistake with a set-square, will we be able to trace those disasters back to the awarding of inflated grades when they were leaving school?
These are questions I was hoping to answer with the aid of a statistical model of my own devising, but the strange thing is, my mathematical abilities just don’t seem to be up to it. And I thought I was an A-grade student."
Deborah Dowe, you are spot on!
7 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 12:51
Norman Dowe
Most of the attention given to improving academic performance has focused on the schools. Teachers and administrators are increasingly being held accountable for student performance. However, they are only one third of the educational triumvirate that also includes the parents and students. Grade inflation disempowers the parents. This is especially true for those who are at the lower end of the educational ladder themselves.
Poorly educated parents, who do not know what their child should be learning, are disempowered as advocates for their children by grade inflation. They are lulled into a false belief that their children are doing well and on the route to a better future than they have had. After all their children are doing so well academically. They don't push their children to do better. They don't challenge the teachers to do better. They don't challenge the administration to do better. They believe that everything is OK when in truth it is not. Their interests and the interests of their children are not served at all. Only the interests of the under performing educators and school systems are served. These people don't have to weather the cacophony of complaints that face bad educators in districts where parents know what should be taught.
If you want to invest in a business the SEC makes public companies tell the truth in their form 10-k's and other filings. If you want to buy a franchise the Federal Trade Commission makes franchisers tell the truth in their franchise disclosure documents. Don't parents deserve the same kind of protection from the educational establishment? Should they not be required to tell the truth about how students are actually performing?
6 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 10:10
G Daniels
Deborah, I believe your comment is very accurate and necessary.
There are none more formidable to personal and societal destruction than those who care more for your comfort than your character and knowledge.
5 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 08:40
Hope T.
Finally...this is spot on. I believe there is not only grade inflation, but grade manipulation. And it only hurts the students. Imagine how they feel when they get to college and out in the real world and find that they are unable to compete. It's a vicious and criminal cycle destroying society's future!
4 Monday, 05 April 2010 21:58
Nini J.
Deborah has a very strong and valid point.. a vile dis-service to our "future".. Our children in "our" classrooms.. taking it a step futher can you imagine the devastaion that must cause to the students personally; once they realize they cannot compete properly in the next phase of their lives?
Wow.. Thanks for bringing this to our attention..
3 Monday, 05 April 2010 20:28
Michelle Cox
Agreed, there should be more truth in grading. School districts should understand that an ill prepared high school student might be more likely to be a college drop out. Spending money on remedial classes is damaging to the wallet and a students self esteem.
2 Monday, 05 April 2010 17:42
Roger Stryeski
I'm always amazed at the Honor Rolls that newspapers put out. They have the leading student from each, usually public schools. Then, I find the disparity between the GPA and their SAT score. I have seen 4.0's with under 1000 for the SAT.
1 Sunday, 04 April 2010 11:55
A. Robert "Bob" Johnson
Deborah is "right on the money". Having taught at Hubbard JHS with her dad and retired from teaching math at Kean U. in 2002, I have seen "it all". It's not just the Plainfields that submit to grade inflation and subject their graduates to retaking essential courses, at their own expense. I Found many students from the "priviliged" districts had failed their placement tests in college algebra. For several years I taught what turned out to be a remedial course for area college students from Princeton, Brown, Wagner, Rutgers, etc., who had great grades from Westfield,Cranford, etc. Why? Grade inflation and teaching for the test are the likely answers.
The nation must do better for our children and grandchildren.
Thank you Debbie!
Bob Johnson
The report states that the hospitals profited because the median length of stay for patients who suffered complications quadrupled to 14 days and hospital revenues shot up from $18,900 per patient to $49,400.
