De-emphasize student evaluations and you'll get rid of grade inflation. Period. Everything else he writes is pablum until that problem is solved. As long as junior faculty are vulnerable and that vulnerability is directly tied to evaluations, which by any serious account is almost always linked to grading, grade inflatiin will happen. And as long as grade inflation occurs at smaller universities, why would elite schools not follow suit? If kids at Whatsamatta A&M are getting easy Bs, then the kids at Harvard sure as hell probably do all deserve A's.
I'm still not certain I see the deleterious effects of grade inflation that Kurtz does, but he found himself a soapbox and got himself right on it, didn't he?
1 comment:
De-emphasize student evaluations and you'll get rid of grade inflation. Period. Everything else he writes is pablum until that problem is solved. As long as junior faculty are vulnerable and that vulnerability is directly tied to evaluations, which by any serious account is almost always linked to grading, grade inflatiin will happen. And as long as grade inflation occurs at smaller universities, why would elite schools not follow suit? If kids at Whatsamatta A&M are getting easy Bs, then the kids at Harvard sure as hell probably do all deserve A's.
I'm still not certain I see the deleterious effects of grade inflation that Kurtz does, but he found himself a soapbox and got himself right on it, didn't he?
dcat
Post a Comment