Explain grade inflation to me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep hearing about grade inflation and I'm trying to understand it. I'm not sure how MCPS does it, but in FCPS, they instituted a policy during the pandemic whereby you could not earn below a 50, but a 50 is still an F. FCPS has always had a policy whereby if you earned below and 80 on a test, you could retake it -- but the most you could get was an 80 on it, even if you aced the retake. An 80 is a B- and a 79 is a C+. My DD had an A in her AP Bio class, but she got a 50% on her last exam, which dropped her grade to a B+. So how I "grade inflation" leading to 4.5 GPAs? Some on DCUM have claimed that the AP exams and SATs are now rigged with grade inflation -- how do you know that? Some on DCUM claim to be professors and noted that kids are dumber than ever -- are there any data to prove this? And then DCUM will talk about grade inflation in college and how that is leading to unprepared professionals. Where are the data? Anecdotally, I think kids these days are way more intelligent than I ever was -- my kids work much harder for their grades, and they are better critical thinkers. The young people I work with are super-talented.

Your DD got a 50 on the exam and still ended up with a B+. There’s your example of grade inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep hearing about grade inflation and I'm trying to understand it. I'm not sure how MCPS does it, but in FCPS, they instituted a policy during the pandemic whereby you could not earn below a 50, but a 50 is still an F. FCPS has always had a policy whereby if you earned below and 80 on a test, you could retake it -- but the most you could get was an 80 on it, even if you aced the retake. An 80 is a B- and a 79 is a C+. My DD had an A in her AP Bio class, but she got a 50% on her last exam, which dropped her grade to a B+. So how I "grade inflation" leading to 4.5 GPAs? Some on DCUM have claimed that the AP exams and SATs are now rigged with grade inflation -- how do you know that? Some on DCUM claim to be professors and noted that kids are dumber than ever -- are there any data to prove this? And then DCUM will talk about grade inflation in college and how that is leading to unprepared professionals. Where are the data? Anecdotally, I think kids these days are way more intelligent than I ever was -- my kids work much harder for their grades, and they are better critical thinkers. The young people I work with are super-talented.

Your DD got a 50 on the exam and still ended up with a B+. There’s your example of grade inflation.

Averages! How do they work? No one knows!

[Anonymous]

Grade inflation is an increase in average grades for a specified grouping over time. Based on this relatively straightforward calculation, there has been grade inflation at both the high school and the college level for decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation is an increase in average grades for a specified grouping over time. Based on this relatively straightforward calculation, there has been grade inflation at both the high school and the college level for decades.

Let’s say, for the sake of this discussion, everything you’ve typed above is true.

Where is the evidence that this is causing any problems at all?

Since you are quoting data to illustrate the condition, you will need to quote data to illustrate the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If more than half the kids in a class get an A, there is grade inflation. And yes, I understand that there is grade inflation everywhere. Everyone gets a trophy.

But one could infer from such a cynical remark that you don’t believe those As are earned.

The purpose of primary and secondary education is to teach mastery of material. It’s not to generate a bell curve where top grades are rationed. Thinking about top grades as a commodity in this way is bizarre and antiquated. It’s literally Ok if half the class gets and A, even if they get to have retakes the like — because it demonstrates they learned the material. Which is the purpose of education. It’s not a race to learn the material “first” and it’s not like someone had to be “best” at it.

But when do students learn that college doesn't give them these accommodations? Are students just supposed to adjust to midterms and finals in college when they've never had them in HS? There are no retakes in college so how do they adjust when that's all they've ever known in school?

I do think there should be midterms and finals in HS---just to help prepare kids for college. But kids are HS aged and deserve to have retakes and get some credit. Those kids are not in college yet and are supposed to actually be learning the material at whatever level they are at. So yes, I think normal kids can make the adjustment from "some retakes" to none in college fairly easily.

We need to get out of the mindset that HS is ONLY to prepare you for college. It's HS and kids should be helped to learn! My own really smart kid has benefited from retakes (mostly in 9th/10th grade) and from that they learned how to study and prepare better for the future. Most importantly they learned the actual material they were supposed to learn, which is the entire purpose of school, to get an education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In MCPS during covid, you automatically earned one grade higher than your grade pre-covid. So if you got a B previously you earned an A. This led to inflated GPAs.

Good lord.

how does every MCPS grad not have a 4.0 unweighted? It is almost impossible to not. That district's grading is INSANE.

Because the student will take the AP class, work hard, and get a B. Or, even with the opportunity to retake, the student won't do it. My DD is a good student and works hard - struggled with foreign language and had a terrible AP calc teacher. She won't have a 4.0 unweighted gpa at graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is what we saw in HS. Example below for illustrative purposes for 1 course and 2 students.

Student 1 who is very bright and excels in the course:
MP 1 99% = A
MP 2 98.2% = A

Semester 1 grade which appears on the transcript = A

MP3 98.9% = A
MP 4 99.1% = A

Semester 2 grade which appears on the transcript = A

Now, let's review a 2nd student, who is in the same exact class, yet this person is not exceling in the course and so their parents intervene with help, paid tutoring, and extra work...to get their college bound student into the B+ and even A- range.

MP 1 84.5% = B
MP 2 90.1% = A

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 1 on the transcript

MP 3 91.2% = A
MP 4 83% = B

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 2.

So, we have 2 students applying to the same college. They look very similar, with Semester grades of As for the course.
Yet, in reality, one is a very high earning A student and the second is a solid B student, with a sprinkle of A-.

And, if these is an Honors Course, it's scored the same as an AP grade! Think about the difference between the AP student who got all A's and student#2. Now multiply this calc. over years and years of courses. Your strong, even low, B student just has to break the 90% threshold for 2 marking periods a year to capture the A.

In my opinion, this is grade inflation.

Yes that is ridiculous. Senester grade should be average of each marking period. And schools should use + and minuses

It is an average, but there are no pluses and minuses. So A and a B gets rounded up to an A. An A and C would be a B.
It is absolutely ridiculous and as the poster above noted, it really hurts the smart kids who are getting 95s and above each semester.

BY averages, I meant Use the 93% A and the 98% A and the 86%B---use the actual Numerical grade to calculate the average. Because yes averaging letter grades is not very accurate.
Yes, that still means someone with a 93% earns an A as well as the person with the 99%. But I call that being smart---my own kid learned in MS that once you have an easy A in a class you focus more of your energies on the class where you are leaning between an A- and an A in hope of getting that A. That's called making choices, time management and we all want our kids to learn that. Sometimes there isn't enough time in the day to get 99% in all classes (and it's not needed)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep hearing about grade inflation and I'm trying to understand it. I'm not sure how MCPS does it, but in FCPS, they instituted a policy during the pandemic whereby you could not earn below a 50, but a 50 is still an F. FCPS has always had a policy whereby if you earned below and 80 on a test, you could retake it -- but the most you could get was an 80 on it, even if you aced the retake. An 80 is a B- and a 79 is a C+. My DD had an A in her AP Bio class, but she got a 50% on her last exam, which dropped her grade to a B+. So how I "grade inflation" leading to 4.5 GPAs? Some on DCUM have claimed that the AP exams and SATs are now rigged with grade inflation -- how do you know that? Some on DCUM claim to be professors and noted that kids are dumber than ever -- are there any data to prove this? And then DCUM will talk about grade inflation in college and how that is leading to unprepared professionals. Where are the data? Anecdotally, I think kids these days are way more intelligent than I ever was -- my kids work much harder for their grades, and they are better critical thinkers. The young people I work with are super-talented.

Your DD got a 50 on the exam and still ended up with a B+. There’s your example of grade inflation.

NP---her DD got a 50 on ONE SINGLE exam. So that is not grade inflation. DD obviously had a strong A going into that exam, so the exam was likely 15-20% of the grade and pulled her grade down. That is not grade inflation. That is just simple math. I hope you realize that kids can earn As in courses with a B on one or two exams. That is why most education systems have multiple midterms, a quiz/hw section, a participation section/group work, and a final. The syllabus indicates the percentages at the start. So it's mathematically easy to calculate the grade you need on the final to get whatever grade you want in the final course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In MCPS during covid, you automatically earned one grade higher than your grade pre-covid. So if you got a B previously you earned an A. This led to inflated GPAs.

I think you are mis-stating what the policy was temporarily changed to, for only the spring 2020 semester final grade:

"For the 4th Marking Period (MP4), middle and high schools will continue to use a Pass/Incomplete grading system, based on established criteria. By passing the 4th Marking Period, high school students will be able to earn a semester grade in each course that is one letter grade higher than the grade they received at the end of the 3rd Marking Period (MP3). If a student selects the option of receiving a letter grade, the final semester grade will then be reported on the transcript and factored into the cumulative grade point average (GPA)."

[Anonymous]

I graduated in the late 80s and there used to be final tests worth a good percentage of your grade. There were no "do overs" or late work allowed. Late work was counted as zero. I went to a state college and it was pretty much the same except courses moved much more quickly and there was a ton of reading. My kid, also at a state university, reports the same expectations today.

Why are high schools doing this other than to graduate more people? All my kids learn is that they have another chance and may not try hard enough the first time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I graduated in the late 80s and there used to be final tests worth a good percentage of your grade. There were no "do overs" or late work allowed. Late work was counted as zero. I went to a state college and it was pretty much the same except courses moved much more quickly and there was a ton of reading. My kid, also at a state university, reports the same expectations today.

Why are high schools doing this other than to graduate more people? All my kids learn is that they have another chance and may not try hard enough the first time.

It’s wonderful that schools have evolved In their practices since the 1980s (when I was in high school too). Things are so much better now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Highly competitive colleges recalculate GPAs, so ya’ll are just spinning yarns for the heck of it.

No, they re-weight GPAs, but they don't change the letter grades. So an A in an AP class has the same GPA value for all the students a college looks at, but the difficulty of earning that A and the level of competency it represents can vary wildly from school to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep hearing about grade inflation and I'm trying to understand it. I'm not sure how MCPS does it, but in FCPS, they instituted a policy during the pandemic whereby you could not earn below a 50, but a 50 is still an F. FCPS has always had a policy whereby if you earned below and 80 on a test, you could retake it -- but the most you could get was an 80 on it, even if you aced the retake. An 80 is a B- and a 79 is a C+. My DD had an A in her AP Bio class, but she got a 50% on her last exam, which dropped her grade to a B+. So how I "grade inflation" leading to 4.5 GPAs? Some on DCUM have claimed that the AP exams and SATs are now rigged with grade inflation -- how do you know that? Some on DCUM claim to be professors and noted that kids are dumber than ever -- are there any data to prove this? And then DCUM will talk about grade inflation in college and how that is leading to unprepared professionals. Where are the data? Anecdotally, I think kids these days are way more intelligent than I ever was -- my kids work much harder for their grades, and they are better critical thinkers. The young people I work with are super-talented.

Your DD got a 50 on the exam and still ended up with a B+. There’s your example of grade inflation.

Averages! How do they work? No one knows!

I get that you're joking, but it's kind of a problem that the weighting is secret. If someone else went to a school that allowed retakes, their 50 might become an 80 and they would get an A. Another might go to a school that value finals more than your doughter's school, and they might get a B- or a C+. This is for the same level of knowledge and performance and the same grades on the same assignments on the same exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If more than half the kids in a class get an A, there is grade inflation. And yes, I understand that there is grade inflation everywhere. Everyone gets a trophy.

But if the grades are inflated for everyone, there are still students that stand out because of superior work. If everyone get an a then the top students will get more than an A.

Nope that’s the problem with grade inflation, it masks the truly superior students.

Truly superior students shouldn't be trying to stick out via grades in the first place. The place for them is academic olympiads, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated in the late 80s and there used to be final tests worth a good percentage of your grade. There were no "do overs" or late work allowed. Late work was counted as zero. I went to a state college and it was pretty much the same except courses moved much more quickly and there was a ton of reading. My kid, also at a state university, reports the same expectations today.

Why are high schools doing this other than to graduate more people? All my kids learn is that they have another chance and may not try hard enough the first time.

It’s wonderful that schools have evolved In their practices since the 1980s (when I was in high school too). Things are so much better now.

Ha. The educational system is certainly not better.

I agree with the pp and found a high school which has the same standards of turning work on time and being prepared the FIRST and ONLY time a student takes an exam.

You know how we learned the material? We went through and looked at the material we missed on the exam and if we didn't understand we asked and got help after class or went to the teacher's office hours before or after school.

I was at the gym today with some awful 20-something who would take FORRREEVVVERRR to load his barbell and walk around with his head up his *ss changing racks, etc. while the rest of the 9 members of the class waited on him to get his sh*t together and miss part of the class. Prime example of 'executive function disorder' and coddling in school.