Grade Deflation

[Anonymous]

The average Sat/ACT score at NCS is the 98th percentile. Meaning there are many kids in the top 2%. Yet most of these kids don’t get A’s and I don’t think anyone gets straight A’s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This notion that grades should be a bell curve is archaic and dumb.

School is intended to help kids learn. It's OK if there are a lot of As handed out if they learn. It's not like they should be rationed.

Especially if you have already screened admissions for high performers. If you are accepting kids who always got all As, why would you expect 75% of the them suddenly become poor students? And if your A students are also performing at the top of other standardized tests like APs or SATs, then you are not inflating. When your average SAT scores is above 1400, you should expect half the class to have A averages.

This “screening” occurs mostly at ninth grade - a little at MS. The lifers drag it down.

Not true, pulling up my photo of the STA grads from last year that graduated Cum Laude ( top 16 students in the class with straight A's and taking mostly all APs) I count among them 5 lifers from Beauvoir- so 1/3 of the Cum Laude are kids who started at BVR in Pre-K despite STA adding to the class only the top 10% of outside applicants( or less) in 4th, 7th and 9th

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This notion that grades should be a bell curve is archaic and dumb.

School is intended to help kids learn. It's OK if there are a lot of As handed out if they learn. It's not like they should be rationed.

Especially if you have already screened admissions for high performers. If you are accepting kids who always got all As, why would you expect 75% of the them suddenly become poor students? And if your A students are also performing at the top of other standardized tests like APs or SATs, then you are not inflating. When your average SAT scores is above 1400, you should expect half the class to have A averages.

Except for the fact that their teachers- faculty that have seen excellent students come and go for decades- are the one's deciding who's work is truly " A" work. Unless its a math test or a science subject, that is.

Look at it this way: the Medici founded an Art studio and invited certain artists to join, but not others. At one time they had Michaelangelo and Botticelli along side each other in the same studio garden with a Medici deciding for himself who's work was worthy of his patronage. I am , of course, pushing the argument to an extreme example, but when faculty become accustomed to really, really bright kids AND very hard workers then who gets an " A" becomes rarified.

Still, the kids who benefit most from an STA education are the middle of the pack who might never get A's but just learn to work really , really hard while being humbled- the kind of self-discipline that serves them well for their lifetime.

So every teacher in every shcool has been teaching there for decades? No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The average Sat/ACT score at NCS is the 98th percentile. Meaning there are many kids in the top 2%. Yet most of these kids don’t get A’s and I don’t think anyone gets straight A’s

You're comparing standardized test scores to a child's ability to write a coherent argument and support it with evidence?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This notion that grades should be a bell curve is archaic and dumb.

School is intended to help kids learn. It's OK if there are a lot of As handed out if they learn. It's not like they should be rationed.

Especially if you have already screened admissions for high performers. If you are accepting kids who always got all As, why would you expect 75% of the them suddenly become poor students? And if your A students are also performing at the top of other standardized tests like APs or SATs, then you are not inflating. When your average SAT scores is above 1400, you should expect half the class to have A averages.

By your logic, the best professional sports leagues shouldn't have winners and losers because everyone who's made it that far is in the top 0.0001 percent of competitors already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which has more grade deflation for the same work/same level of performance on an exam or an essay (at the high school level):

NCS
STA
Potomac
Sidwell

What percent of the class gets As, A-s, B+, B on average in classes at each school?

Most Northeast (Boston) private schools give 25% full As, and center around A-/high B+ so that if you do the work you are in the A/A- range.

Is that true of the 4 schools above? (I am not including GDS, or MCPS, or FCPS because these have different distributions).

I'm a parent and it doesn't bother me. My daughter has received only a handful of As. She's wildly proud when she does because it means something. We, as a family, don't stress when she gets Bs though. W

As are REALLY difficult at NCS. A girl can do all the work and do it exceptionally well and still end up with a B+/A-. A teacher will routinely assign a paper and give a B+ as the highest grade.
STA is far more straightforward. Boys who study and do the work do well. There are few teacher who are exceptions to (and are notoriously stingy graders who will max out a paper under an A) this but by-in-large it's possible to do well with a decent amount of effort.
I have high schoolers at both schools.

Note this is not a positive culture and parents in the US are starting to acknowledge and talk about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This notion that grades should be a bell curve is archaic and dumb.

School is intended to help kids learn. It's OK if there are a lot of As handed out if they learn. It's not like they should be rationed.

Especially if you have already screened admissions for high performers. If you are accepting kids who always got all As, why would you expect 75% of the them suddenly become poor students? And if your A students are also performing at the top of other standardized tests like APs or SATs, then you are not inflating. When your average SAT scores is above 1400, you should expect half the class to have A averages.

This “screening” occurs mostly at ninth grade - a little at MS. The lifers drag it down.

Not true, pulling up my photo of the STA grads from last year that graduated Cum Laude ( top 16 students in the class with straight A's and taking mostly all APs) I count among them 5 lifers from Beauvoir- so 1/3 of the Cum Laude are kids who started at BVR in Pre-K despite STA adding to the class only the top 10% of outside applicants( or less) in 4th, 7th and 9th

With 14 years of being taught on the Close with all the advantages that implies, shouldn’t more be top of class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This notion that grades should be a bell curve is archaic and dumb.

School is intended to help kids learn. It's OK if there are a lot of As handed out if they learn. It's not like they should be rationed.

Especially if you have already screened admissions for high performers. If you are accepting kids who always got all As, why would you expect 75% of the them suddenly become poor students? And if your A students are also performing at the top of other standardized tests like APs or SATs, then you are not inflating. When your average SAT scores is above 1400, you should expect half the class to have A averages.

This “screening” occurs mostly at ninth grade - a little at MS. The lifers drag it down.

Not true, pulling up my photo of the STA grads from last year that graduated Cum Laude ( top 16 students in the class with straight A's and taking mostly all APs) I count among them 5 lifers from Beauvoir- so 1/3 of the Cum Laude are kids who started at BVR in Pre-K despite STA adding to the class only the top 10% of outside applicants( or less) in 4th, 7th and 9th

With 14 years of being taught on the Close with all the advantages that implies, shouldn’t more be top of class?

Why should it be any higher than the percentage of lifers in the senior class, especially since most of the subsequent admits also came from advantaged backgrounds?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which schools are known to do this?

Top 5 for sure. Impossible to get an A, you have to practically be the teachers pet, times all 6 subjects and teachers. Plus do the 4 hours of work a night very well.

[Anonymous]

Plus perform and speak well in class. and on tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which has more grade deflation for the same work/same level of performance on an exam or an essay (at the high school level):

NCS
STA
Potomac
Sidwell

What percent of the class gets As, A-s, B+, B on average in classes at each school?

Most Northeast (Boston) private schools give 25% full As, and center around A-/high B+ so that if you do the work you are in the A/A- range.

Is that true of the 4 schools above? (I am not including GDS, or MCPS, or FCPS because these have different distributions).

GDS has what distribution?

I'd say 5% As, 60% Bs, and 35% Cs. And they grade tougher the first trimester or beginning half of the class. Room for improvement of course. Or the old, You have more potential and could have done better than this.

[Anonymous]

GDS doesn't have trimesters. But otherwise I agree that it is very difficult to get an A, let alone in every class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The average Sat/ACT score at NCS is the 98th percentile. Meaning there are many kids in the top 2%. Yet most of these kids don’t get A’s and I don’t think anyone gets straight A’s

That is so "public school" thing to say. It's not about the scores, it's not about the grades.

[Anonymous]

They have trimesters in the LS, but not letter grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This notion that grades should be a bell curve is archaic and dumb.

School is intended to help kids learn. It's OK if there are a lot of As handed out if they learn. It's not like they should be rationed.

Especially if you have already screened admissions for high performers. If you are accepting kids who always got all As, why would you expect 75% of the them suddenly become poor students? And if your A students are also performing at the top of other standardized tests like APs or SATs, then you are not inflating. When your average SAT scores is above 1400, you should expect half the class to have A averages.

By your logic, the best professional sports leagues shouldn't have winners and losers because everyone who's made it that far is in the top 0.0001 percent of competitors already.

Obviously that analogy will only apply to graduate school. These students have several more levels to climb and are being compared to a much broader playing field than just their classmates.