Grades??

As the father of a Harvard senior, I find this discussion completely off-base. Harvard attracts about ten percent of the top 1-2% of the high school seniors. Attending a small public school with 60 students in the graduating class, our son was a national merit scholar, won a national science award in the eighth grade, won several state track championships, and served as the governor of a state-wide youth organization. He likes to think very big about national and international issues, and he often has extremely creative ideas. But when it comes to objective tests that ask how many time a particular word is mentioned in Shakespeare (in a general education class, for that matter), he is the easy one to grade down. His GPA is in the low “B” range. Grade inflation has meant avoiding creative approaches to learning and teaching. The real problems at Harvard are elsewhere, he has trouble finding advisors with whom he can talk (they tend to be elsewhere or simply unaware). When he finds someone, that person is gone next year. With 800 to 900 students in a class, the true star professors are unapproachable, leaving our sons and daughters the TAs and occasional junior professors for discussion sections. I actually heard part of the famous justice lecture during a visit, and while it was good, I could have actually seen the man’s face had it been on DVD. On the other hand, I know of a professor at a nearby state school who regularly receives standing ovations from her classes. Had our son chosen that school, not only would he be a prized and desired student, but also I would be able to retire before the age of 81. The real problem at Harvard? They get 1600 of the best students every year who somehow managed to survive the American education system (plus many from abroad) unscathed and then proceed to ignore or loose about 1500. I am glad that the professor of givernment (intentionally misspelled) thinks so highly of his teaching that only five percent of the student deserve the honor grade (that is the way the country works—only five percent of us deserve a chance at the best, right?). Sorry about that. Anyway, our son was ready to be coached to excellence. Instead, he will leave, without honors, quite cynical and very disappointed.

Harvard Father, at 9:20 am EST on February 14, 2006

Harvard

Dear Harvard Father,

That’s what happens when you pick a college for prestige and not teaching.

Twice Harvard grad, teaching happily in community college.

Harvard alumna, at 10:00 am EST on February 14, 2006

The horror!

Only an over-inflated sense of entitlement could lead a parent to complain that leaving Harvard with a B-average might somehow leave his son feeling “cynical and disappointed.” What injustice! What indignity! By his earlier account, one would think that his son is a bright, energetic, conscientious, and now, educated young man with credentials that will likely earn him more personal and professional opportunities that 98% of the population. But since he wasn’t rewarded for his father’s opinion of him, and didn’t get “quality time” with his professor (instead, having to endure the indignity of a “junior professor” or a TA with more education that 99% of the population), he should be pitied.

The only pity I have for father or son is that they shelled out God-knows-how-much-money, got exactly what they paid for, and now aren’t happy about it. That’s a shame, really. But not one attributable to unfair grading practices. If you wanted your son to be an academic star on campus, don’t send him to a school full of 1600 other academic superstars. If you wanted him to have close personal relationships with his professors, you should have sent him to a small liberal arts college. If you simply want your opinion of his abilities affirmed, then don’t send him to school at all—those places are so judgmental and demanding—just keep him home and give him gold stars and blue ribbons every time he says something clever!

Instead of bemoaning the meaningless difference between a Harvard ‘A’ and a Harvard ‘B’, you might concern yourselves with how much your students are actually learning, how much they’re taking responsibility for their own education and performance, and how they’re putting that education to use in the world. That’s what they’ll actually remember and be rewarded for, not the letters on their transcripts.

Jack Trades, at 10:40 am EST on February 14, 2006

Classroom mentors

I’m a little puzzled by the complaint that classes and discussion sections are taught by junior professors, adjuncts, or TAs. Outside of small liberal arts colleges, no school can staff all of its undergraduate courses with senior faculty, especially at a research university where those faculty have extensive obligations outside of the classroom. Despite what parents and some students believe, these faculty have NOT been recruited primarily for the purpose of teaching, at least not at a school like Harvard.

And what evidence does anyone have that senior faculty are in any way better teachers than their younger colleagues? In my experience, younger faculty and advanced graduate students are more enthusiastic, more in touch with their students, more up-to-date in their scholarship, and less likely to have grown bored or blase about their teaching. They make excellent teachers, and their level of formal education is equal to that of their senior colleagues. They’re more willing to spend time with students, and do do exactly the kind of mentoring that one parent says he wants for his son. If those parents were actually aware of what goes on in a classroom, they’d welcome the presence of young and eager teachers.

But if they really want their kids to have close contact with senior faculty, they should be sending them to the kinds of schools that offer such opportunities—there are plenty out there, and most at half the cost of an Ivy League education. This is a matter of not understanding the academic choices available to students, or the difference between a solid undergraduate environment and a prestigious name. In my opinion, the best option is to send your kids to a good small college that focuses on undergraduate teaching, and then let them seek out the big research universities for their graduate or professional training.

Earl Grey, at 11:15 am EST on February 14, 2006

I’m a math professor. Here at State U. we have two kinds of grade inflation — the usual kind where profesors’ grades are going up, but then there is the second kind of grade inflation, which doesn’t change the grade distribution but the students “earn” their grades while knowing less and less. Many students are quite happy with B’s, C’s (and sometimes D’s) and the less they need to do to get those grades the better they like it (and the better they like the professor). The result is that lowering standards to improve the grade distribution (it seems the Dean doesn’t like those 50% DWF classes) does not sufficiently improve the grade distribution — the students just work less to achieve the same grades. The more students are grade-pampered, they more they expect it, so woe to any professor trying to teach, test and grade the “old-fashioned way". We approach teaching nirvana, defined as the moment when all the professors receive a “5″ on all their student evaluation questions — at which time the students will know absolutely nothing.

Bob at State U, at 12:30 pm EST on February 14, 2006

I Suppose You Knew It Would Come To This

On content, not syntax ...

Jerry Pattengale ... B

Harvard Father ... C-

Cezar M ... B

Harvard alumns ... B+

Nancy Bunge ... B-

Jack Trades ... A+

Susan P ... I

Earl Grey ... B+

RWH ... WP

Bob at State U ... A

RWH, at 1:45 pm EST on February 14, 2006

Basis for grades

Ah—but RWH, what is the basis for the grades you gave the authors of the comments that preceded yours? Did you grade them in relationship to each other or against some large-scale standard? Thankfully, it does seem clear that you didn’t impose some arbitrary formula (like a bell curve) to distribute the grades in a certain way, no matter what.

On the subject of arbitrary patterns and formulas: if I happen to have a class all or most of whose members demonstrate knowledge (or skill) with excellence, why should I not mark all (or most) of their grades as A, if they’ve achieved what I’ve defined as an “A” level? And, if I have a class all or most of whose members perform miserably (whether because of blowing off work or not being able to comprehend it), why should I not mark all (or most) of their grades as D (or F, as the case may be)?

On a more general note, I think the ambiguity about what grades are supposed to represent is one of the primary sources of the problem of grade inflation (if not, perhaps, the primary one). First, who gets to define what grades mean? * The teachers who are evaluating the extent to which students understand and/or perform (the latter especially so in courses that focus more on skills)? [Then the issue of comparative/competitive and standard-based grading comes in to play.] * Employers who demand certain qualities in their hires? * Parents and students (and, unfortunately, often administrators) who think that the “product” they see themselves “buying” is a grade/diploma and that “the customer is always right"?

To what extent has the commerce/consumer metaphorization of education been responsible for the belief that high grades are automatically deserved? (And the soccer analogy doesn’t provide the answer.)

Finally, as RWH and Bob noted, the extent to which college instructors often have to “dumb down” courses and/or provide remediation complicates this situation. Often—perhaps most of the time—we end up having to deal with this situation because students who need the remedial prerequisites refuse to take them because they don’t see why they should pay for a needed remedial course that won’t count towards their degree. [That danged self-perception as a customer, again.] Other times, we know that this material had been covered in high school or prior college courses, but the students—for any number of reasons, one of which could be a lack of effort or interest in learning the material the first time—just didn’t get it. So, what standards are we to use to grade? Are we to adhere to an abstract, ideal standa—one that also may have originated years ago when college education was primarily for the socio-economically privileged? Do we accommodate the reality of so many of today’s much more socio-economically diverse students? How much should we accommodate (if at all) the pragmatics of the tenure and student ratings games, as well as of the increasing perception of a college education as a purchasable commodity? (And, especially as a parent of a high school junior, I hate the phrase “shopping around for colleges"!)

CJO, at 2:35 pm EST on February 14, 2006

Good Question

Well, CJO, you wouldn’t have to ask that question (about my criterion for grading) had you read our (14 page) syllabus.

Had you done your job and read the syllabus, you would know that grades will be based on (1) your “knowledge” of the subject, (2) your ability to use what you have learned to solve “real world” problems, and (3) your ability to effectively and lucidly communicate both your knowledge and your problem-solving ability.

Now for (more) serious stuff. Since my grades depend on what students learn in comparison to stated objectives, not what they learn in comparison to each other, I have not seen anything approximating a normal distribution of grades in years. I wish I could show you, but my grade distributions are invariably inverted J-curves ... and that drives me crazy.

Since I’m full of prejudices today, let me describe my inverted J-curves. Remember, I’m the guy who taught at that university with a 96% acceptance rate. In a class of 100 students, 30 will be at the top (A’s and B’s), 40 at the bottom (D’s, F’s and abysmal F’s), and the rest will be spread in between. I believe four or five students at the top would have achieved at that level even if they had never met me (they’ve just got what it takes). Perhaps four or five students at the bottom would have completed the semester down there even if they had moved in with me, had dinner with me every evening, and picked my brain at will (it was unconscionable for the university to admit them to begin with). The rest – at both the top and the bottom – CHOSE to be there.

“Chose to fail?” you ask. You bet ... and it’s not entirely their fault. They are matriculating in a learning culture that is so dysfunctional – so inefficient and so ineffective – it is very difficult for them to take me seriously. Despite my reputation, they seem to think they’re different and will be “passed through.”

Now let me tell you an interesting, yet sad, tale. I’m certain you know students are notorious for not reading their syllabi ... which is where all of my expectations for learning and where many of my strategies for learning are described (for example, I discourage note-taking in class). To force students to read the syllabus for our class, beginning with the second class I administer a quiz on the syllabus ... and I average that grade in with the other quiz grades (15% of the total grade). If a student fails the syllabus quiz, s/he must take it again ... and again ... and again. I have had students almost ruin the extent to which quizzes contribute to their final grade by failing the syllabus quiz so many times.

Now explain that to me. Oh, that won’t be necessary ... they are CHOOSING to fail.

So, now you see why I could never be bent out of shape vis-a-vis Harvard’s problems with grade inflation. Down here in the trenches, it’s an entirely different ball game.

I will tell you this ... I would never encourage a young person today to make college teaching a profession until s/he has demonstrated possession of a very weird, quite ironic sense of humor. Otherwise, it will drive them crazy.

RWH, at 4:05 pm EST on February 14, 2006

Does it sound familiar?

Well, RWH, now you have asked for it. Even though you claim not to have graded on syntax, I did feel that “burn” of the ever so slight insinuation. If you had listened, you would have noticed that I did not ask for a grade change—I tried to accept it graciously. Is a grade challenge the only reason students come to you?

One thing that has bothered me about bad teaching is the clever way some “teachers” have of deflecting their seeming disinterest in what the student has to say by expounding with more jargon as a means of defending themselves against the obvious. I never saw your syllabus, nor did you specify a grading rubric PRIOR to assigning the grade (this is a typical problem in teaching from kindergarten to graduate school, that is, devise the grade standard after the work is submitted). In fact, I don’t think I am enrolled in your course. Are you angry that you are stuck at Lowland U with the rest of us and have lost any obligation to teach other than to toss back a hefty syllabus? I was not being flip about what is too me a very secondary problem. Sarcasm in turn was undeserved. Enough said, since, as I suspect many students think, you are actually enjoying this unjustified and unwarranted maggot (look up the usage). As for my ipsative report, perhaps it was unnecessary baiting on my part—allow me to apologize again.

On a less light side, I do not experience grade inflation either, with a flat-line distribution over 24 years (equal part A, B, C D, F and W). Even with these marginal grades, two-thirds of our program’s graduates still make it to graduate school (even if they do not quite follow the syllabus), and the admissions people know our students. In courses, I have always made the objectives and the means of getting a grade as clear as possible. In rare instances, large portions of a class will accomplish the objectives, and all receive very good grades. In equally rare instances, only a few pass. In every instance, everyone in the class knows from the beginning what is expected. Never is the expected performance based on obscure trivia. Since none of the items used on my tests or assigned projects have ever been subjected to true normative analysis or a standardized assessment, I refuse to think that an arbitrary percentage for grade distribution is in any way fair. When I hear of professors at any institution establishing arbitrary conditions for student performance, I frankly am disappointed at the softheaded mediocrity such “high standards” belie.

I am off now to make peppercorn-encrusted filet with brandy-cream sauce for a romantic dinner with my wife. I will use a life-skill I learned while working my way through college, by the way. It is a non-graded course. The wine, however, did get 91 points from the recognized standard in wine assessment.

Harvard Father, at 6:20 pm EST on February 14, 2006

Grades

A long time ago (Class of ‘64) the Harvard students I knew and was one of were all very concerned about grades and worked hard for them. Some were fair, some were not. Some motivated us (in Oscar Handlin and Bernard Bailyn’s class, for me, for sure), some did not. Tough. That’s life inside and outside Harvard and all you can do is find a way to avoid noticing.

Hence, I find the endless excuse-making of most of the comments here deeply depressing. Much of the blather seems to be based on the notion that Harvard students today are, of course, oh so smart and creative that nothing as petty as a mark on a paper could possibly do anything but stifle their innate spark of the divine. All noble savage mythology applied now to ourselves not just to the savages. Christopher Lasch had it exactly right. “The Age of Narcissism.” Hang tough, Harvey Mansfield, your day will return after this spiral down reaches its inevitable dead-end.

Jonathan Burack, at 8:15 am EST on February 16, 2006

Mamma always saihd. . .

Mamma alway saihd. . . pass my son or Ah’ll screw yew over good fellah.

Just happens more at Haaaaahvad and sometimes somebody’s dahdy does the screwing?

But seriously, what business is going to take grades seriously with Harvard students? It matters more, of course, what family the boy or girl comes from; and how well THEY are connected. Right?

If jobs for Harvard grads were truely based on evidence of superior aptitude, exceptional effort on the part of the learner (remember the student — most responsibility for LEARNING used to rest with the student, regardless of family income, # books in the library, # endowed faculty positions, or # of pigeons fertilizing the grassy knolls?). . . as I was saying:

If jobs after Harvard were truely based on employers seeking the absolute brightest, hardest-working, most honest and ethical, OH NEVER MIND.

If most employers (aside from the Blue-blood insider families) DIDN’T really gave a damn about accurate grading, would higher education be in the situation that we currently find ourselves?

Dr. F. Gump, at 5:05 am EST on February 18, 2006