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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In my experience (3 kids) I think what happens in part is that these schools grade to the smartest kid in the room and then curve down accordingly.  For instance, there will be one kid (or a handful) in sophomore English who can write an essay worthy of a senior seminar class in a college English class.  So there are your As.  And the grades go down from that.  The kids who are just "very good writers" and turn in "very good for a sophomore in high school" level work get a B. 
 
It's the same in math.  My kid is currently in math class beyond calculus.  She has a perfect math SAT score.  She's good at math but this class is HARD.  The average on tests is about a 75.  But there is always one kid who manages to get a 98.  So there goes any curve or corrections. There is your A.  And everyone goes down from there.

I don't know what other schools or districts do in these cases when you have a few extreme outliers.  The kids at these top privates are almost all very strong students and were admitted to the private (most of them) because they were at the top at their sending schools.  But in each subject there tend to be few kids who is outlandishly gifted.  And then they scoop up the 2 As in that class.  [/quote] In theory what you describe makes sense but the grading in math, science, English and history courses at many of the competitive schools is not black and white. There is truly nothing to distinguish an A in these classes, the rubrics are built to be extremely opaque and grading (if the child even gets them back in a timely fashion) seems to be entirely subjective. I don’t object to a teachers right to teach a class as they see fit, but when students call out inconsistent grading and the teacher can’t provide a legitimate reason or the students are labeled as grade chasers (and in some cases see their subsequent grade go down) then it needs to be addressed. Sadly the latter outcome forces students to stop speaking up and suffer through the class. But go teachers![/quote]

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