Grade Inflation

[acroyear]

There's a discussion @ slashdot on grade inflation at universities, driven by an editorial at the Post.

Doonesbury had a series on this topic back in '93 and '94.


In my stats and probability class, I describe the result as "I got a B because everyone else failed too". There was an editorial published in the school paper the year after a CS/Math prof left where he, after giving out 3 Fs and a D in a Graph Theory class (out of 5 students total), was told by the dept head that "we don't give Fs around here". That statement was, of course, denied in the rebuttle.

Several classes I was in had plenty of Cs, but several did not...and sometimes its up to the student to recognize his own failures (the system won't tell you anymore), like I did when I decided that the curved-C I was destined to get in modern physics wasn't enough to go on in the physics program because I really didn't understand any of it (to that detail, anyways). So I left and switched to CS. But when you're already in an "easy" program (by comparison to physics), and grade inflation is still telling you you're great, then what?

In my CS class, of 24 graduates, I'd estimate that about half couldn't program Karel out of a paper bag. Of those that got B's in the O/S class, less then half could clearly explain what a file system was. My B in that class was more due to my lack of ability to deal with those who didn't know crap (but were partnered with me) than to any lack of knowledge of the class topic.

Comments

[cordelya.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhhhh! *breathes deeply* Finally, someone who understands how I feel! In high school, I tried my damndest to get out of being paired with inepts, usually using the "there's an odd number of students, can I work alone?" Which usually got me paired up with TWO inepts instead of one (damn!). And as for the grading curve, I never understood WHY anyone would want to scale grades. Wouldn't it give failing students (and their parents) a false sense of security? But then, again, I have published scribbles about how parents misguidedly accuse teachers for their child's educational shortcomings. I've still got a clipped copy around here somewhere if you'd like to read it.