We live in a world of lies.
The media spins news stories, government leaders speak out of both corners of their mouths and credit card companies distort the effects of compounded interest rates. If you look closely enough, you will find that every graph is rescaled and every comment will eventually be edited.
As humans, we live our lives in an ultimate search for truth. We’re not sure if truth exists or if it’s absolute, but we crave an understanding of our universe.
For many of us, educational institutions are the paths towards discovering truth. Educators — teachers, researchers and professors — should be the leaders in truth-finding as they ask the challenging questions and discount the falsities of evil and ignorance.
But no, educators fit right in with the rest of our lost society. There are no guiding principles; only dirty tricks of the trade that advance their own interests.
Don’t get me wrong. Educators aren’t laundering money, wiretapping or taking illegal donations in bathroom stalls.
Yet, they’re still lying. Instructors are lying when they inflate our grades.
Thursday, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nicknamed “the nation’s report card”, released findings from two studies. One study showed that high school students’ average GPA has increased from 2.7 in 1990 to 3.0 in 2005. According to the data, more students are also graduating with a completion of a basic curriculum including four credits of English and three credits of the other three core subjects.
Here’s the catch: the second study found just the opposite trend in student achievement.
Of the large sample of high school seniors who took the national math test, 40 percent did not meet the criteria for basic achievement. In case you’re wondering, basic achievement involves tasks such as converting a fraction into a decimal.
Unfortunately, there was no measurable increase in reading scores and achievement gaps among races remain unchanged since 2002. Forty-three percent of white students were at or above the proficient level, while only 20 percent of Hispanic students and 16 percent of black students met the criteria.
This data proves that high school teachers are inflating grades to pacify parents and are allowing students to perform with mediocre standards. The grades don’t match the scores.
Fortunately, accountability measures in K-12 schools such as standardized testing and state-mandated curricula have made it more difficult for teachers to give false impressions about students’ performances.
Colleges and universities, however, lack measurable achievement indicators. That’s right, professors decide what objectives to include in a course, how to present the material and which testing format they will use. And, most importantly, the college instructor is allowed to work his or her magic with the final grade assignments.
Just by taking a sample of Calculus III courses at N.C. State last fall, we can see that our grading system needs reform. For the students in section 003, 78 percent of the class was assigned an A or B letter grade. Yet, in section 012 only 29 percent of the students were assigned A or B letter grades.
Surely there are many factors that determine why grade distributions vary among classes, but ranges this large are incomprehensible. I’ve sat beside and taught the most gifted students across the nation, and no public classroom of 50 students should have 78 percent scoring above average in a challenging course like Calculus III.
This isn’t an isolated case in the math department. You can see the same grade inflation trends from last fall in basic courses such as American Politics and Government, Introduction to Psychology, Chemistry – A Quantitative Science and Academic Writing and Research.
Yes, grade inflation is lying. Instructors convince themselves that they have been effective teachers. Students pretend they mastered course objectives. And society believes that we have an intelligent, educated citizenry ready to tackle the increasing challenges and demands of the world.
Just the opposite is true. Our educational institutions are devalued when they lie and students do not receive the benefits of a costly education. Producing students with straight A and B transcripts make the pieces of paper worth any other recycled product.
Instructors: start teaching course material so students genuinely master the content. We don’t pay you to lie.
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