Explain how grades are inflated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how hard/ critically are your MS or HS student's term papers and other long written work graded? The answer to that will tell you a lot.

Op here. They put it as a test grade 60%

What??

That wasn't the question.

When your kid writes a term paper (10-12 pages in length), how harshly is it graded? Points off for grammatical mistakes? Lots of comments and feedback on paper outline and organization? Etc.

If none of that, your kids are victims of grade inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how hard/ critically are your MS or HS student's term papers and other long written work graded? The answer to that will tell you a lot.

Op here. They put it as a test grade 60%

What??

That wasn't the question.

When your kid writes a term paper (10-12 pages in length), how harshly is it graded? Points off for grammatical mistakes? Lots of comments and feedback on paper outline and organization? Etc.

If none of that, your kids are victims of grade inflation.

OP here—I apologize. Yes, they do get docked for mistakes. The grading is out of 5 for content, spelling, grammar, etc., with each category having its own box. All of these categories contribute to the final grade. And yes, there are comments on the paper outline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It really is school and teacher specific. Some schools are very liberal about it and others are not.

+1. The retake thing is ridiculous with some teachers. I will note my child has a quiz tomorrow and he will say-meh I don’t need to study, I can retake it because Ms X allows it.

With other teachers, I have seen that they only allow a retake if the whole class seems to have failed something (which makes sense because at that point most of the class has failed to absorb the material.)

And despite my kid being in accelerated classes in middle school, the toughest one they have is a plain old English class with non differentiation. Retakes are rare. Homework is heavy and it’s the only class where my kid is constantly at risk of falling to a B. It really is the teacher sometimes. The one we have is tough.

[Anonymous]

No final exams is ridiculous

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I constantly see people talk about how MCPS inflates grades and makes things too easy, but many private schools—both local and national—have similar, if not identical, grading scales. Retakes aren’t that common either. Maybe it’s just my kid’s school, but it seems normal to me. Maybe there’s something I’m missing. Thanks!

My daughter had a 4.4 and wasn’t in the top quarter of her class. Honors classes getting the same GPA bump as AP classes, retakes, having a 79.5 and an 89.5 equal an A for the semester. All examples of things which inflate grades.

[Anonymous]

How about - a kid can literally miss every day of quarter 3 and turn in not one single assignment , only to pull off a 59.6 for quarter 4 and thereby earn credit and pass the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about - a kid can literally miss every day of quarter 3 and turn in not one single assignment , only to pull off a 59.6 for quarter 4 and thereby earn credit and pass the class.

That's school specific as in our school they fail you with a 0.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about - a kid can literally miss every day of quarter 3 and turn in not one single assignment , only to pull off a 59.6 for quarter 4 and thereby earn credit and pass the class.

That's school specific as in our school they fail you with a 0.

Wait. You work at an MCPS HS that has an attendance policy!?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about - a kid can literally miss every day of quarter 3 and turn in not one single assignment , only to pull off a 59.6 for quarter 4 and thereby earn credit and pass the class.

That was during the pandemic, PP. They did away with this policy a couple of years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's mostly the HS semester grades people are referring to. If a student gets a low B quarter one (79.5% which rounds to 80%) and a low A quarter two (89.5% which rounds to 90%), they get an A for the semester. The same as a student who gets 100% for both quarters.

Yes, I think this makes the biggest difference. My student thinks they can coast this quarter in the classes they received an A in first quarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about - a kid can literally miss every day of quarter 3 and turn in not one single assignment , only to pull off a 59.6 for quarter 4 and thereby earn credit and pass the class.

That was during the pandemic, PP. They did away with this policy a couple of years ago.

Not true. This is happening in 2025 on a pretty regular basis. I teach at an MCPS HS.
E/D passes the semester. There is no minimum attendance requirement. An E/D (quarter #1/quarter #2) absolutely earns you credit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they give you a "study guide" which tells you what to study and the tests are so easy that almost everyone gets an A.

I went to a Big 3 private school in the ’90s, and we still got study guides.

I went to a Catholic HS in the 90s (and then a Catholic university) and there were no study guides. I had never heard of them until I went to grad school and started student teaching. I was told I had to create them for each test and I didn't know what one even was.

My kid went to a Catholic HS and graduated two years ago. He was told that anything covered in class, in the readings, and in any slides was fair game for the test. No study guides. Ditto in the same Catholic university I went to. His roommates complain that their professors don't give student guides and he doesn't really know what one is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about - a kid can literally miss every day of quarter 3 and turn in not one single assignment , only to pull off a 59.6 for quarter 4 and thereby earn credit and pass the class.

That's school specific as in our school they fail you with a 0.

Wait. You work at an MCPS HS that has an attendance policy!?!?

I don't work in one but they absolutely fail kids and give them zero at our school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No final exams is ridiculous

This. My DS has been taking midterms and finals in some classes since 3rd grade in Catholic school. He had them in all six classes starting in 6th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I constantly see people talk about how MCPS inflates grades and makes things too easy, but many private schools—both local and national—have similar, if not identical, grading scales. Retakes aren’t that common either. Maybe it’s just my kid’s school, but it seems normal to me. Maybe there’s something I’m missing. Thanks!

My daughter had a 4.4 and wasn’t in the top quarter of her class. Honors classes getting the same GPA bump as AP classes, retakes, having a 79.5 and an 89.5 equal an A for the semester. All examples of things which inflate grades.

That's not our MCPS. If you get a 79.5 its a C. And, that's not really grade inflation.