sic<\/em>] I should know?\u201d It was only\nafter three more messages from the student, each one more urgent and defiant\nthan the last, that she finally accepted the outcome as a simple question of\nmathematics. What is most curious,\nthough, about the student\u2019s inquiry is her belief that a grade of B- is somehow\n\u201cbad.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\nAt SUNY Cortland,\nand at countless other institutions, an A is defined as \u201csuperior performance,\u201d\na B indicates a \u201cgood performance,\u201d a C is awarded for \u201cfair performance,\u201d and\na D is \u201cminimally acceptable.\u201d Many\nstudents, however, view a \u201cgood\u201d grade as not good enough. Anything less than\nan A is often perceived by the recipient as a dismal failure. As Mansfield\nstates, \u201ctoday a B- is a slap in the face\u201d (qtd. in Bruno). We have seen countless tears, listened to\nemotionally wrought pleas, and witnessed outright meltdowns when students earn\na \u201cgood\u201d grade of B. Unless professors\nwork very hard to justify grades of C or D, there are almost always follow-up\ne-mail inquiries, phone calls, or office visits from dissatisfied students demanding\nan explanation. Many of them seem unable\nto fathom the fact that their performance is legitimately less than superior,\nor, at the very minimum, merely \u201cgood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A number of factors\ncontribute to students\u2019 perceptions that a B is \u201cbad.\u201d One leading cause, as Kurt Wiesenfeld notes, is\nthat the current generation of students has \u201cbeen raised on gold stars for\neffort and smiley faces for self-esteem\u201d (16). \nIndeed, in our experience, students today often perceive grades lower\nthan an A as a judgment of their character, rather than as a measure of their\nperformance. Because the popular wisdom endemic in their generation has been to\npreserve and bolster self-esteem (criticism of any kind is viewed as\ndestructive and unkind), many students have been coddled and rewarded for\nmediocre achievements. Like Wiesenfeld, Mansfield, too, condemns the present\ntrend. \u201cThere is something inappropriate\u2014almost sick\u2014in the spectacle of mature\nadults showering young people with unbelievable praise,\u201d he argues. Honest grades, as opposed to those that are\nroutinely inflated, are often a wake-up call for students who spend much of the\nsemester in a state of intellectual slumber. When it becomes apparent that not all\ninstructors subscribe to the culture that promotes easy As, students often\nbecome reactionary. Panic, anger, and\ndefensiveness are common responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A second factor influencing\nstudents\u2019 perceptions of grades is that they view themselves as customers in a\nconsumer culture who are, in essence, \u201cpaying\u201d for a degree rather than earning\none; as a result, there is a sense of entitlement in their demand for higher\ngrades. \u201cStudents have developed a disgruntled-consumer approach,\u201d Wiesenfeld\nnotes. \u201cIf they don\u2019t like their grade, they go to the `return\u2019 counter to\ntrade it in for something better.\u201d At Cortland,\nthis practice is encouraged by the fact that students can withdraw from a\ncourse as late as three weeks before the semester ends without many\nconsequences. In the past, when a\nstudent withdrew, instructors could indicate whether the student was passing or\nfailing the course. The present system,\nhowever, enables students to withdraw with no record of their course\nstatus. It has become too easy to simply\nerase indicators of past performance, lulling students into a false sense of\nsecurity\u2014or, worse yet, denial\u2014about their academic abilities. With no official record establishing a history\nof uneven academic performance, it is easy for students to convince themselves\nthat all is well. The sad irony, of\ncourse, is that when students bail themselves out of a course in which they are\nstruggling (valid reasons for course withdrawal notwithstanding), they become\ncomplicit in their failure to meet a legitimate intellectual challenge. As Dresner notes, \u201cthe ideology of \u2018student\nas consumer\u2019 has changed the power relationships within the academy, placing\nsatisfaction higher than intellectual growth as a measure of success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A third reason\nthat students challenge fair assessments of their work stems from the simple\nsemantic inversion that leads students to conclude that the \u201cgood\u201d grade of B\nis actually \u201cbad.\u201d While most dictionaries offer some two dozen definitions of\n\u201cgood,\u201d students apparently view the word as an antonym for \u201cexcellent,\u201d rather\nthan the next logical stage on a linear scale. \nSurely, we can apply the term to even the poorest student work and end\nup characterizing that student\u2019s performance as \u201cgood.\u201d For example, \u201cit was \u2018good\u2019 of this student\nto turn in his [otherwise atrocious] work on time.\u201d Or, \u201cdespite a disappointing result, this\nstudent at least made a \u2018good\u2019 effort.\u201d \nAn instructor might even find that a student\u2019s dismal performance on a\nfinal draft is at least \u201c\u2018good\u2019 compared to the first one.\u201d The list goes on and on. At the same time, however, since a grade of C\nis meant to indicate a \u201cfair performance\u201d\u2014and considering that \u201cfair\u201d can mean\nanything from \u201cmoderately good,\u201d \u201cacceptable or satisfactory,\u201d to\n\u201cpromising\u201d\u2014we wonder why professors who resist assigning C grades find them so\ndestructive. If no student\u2019s work is being judged as being \u201cfair\u201d or \u201cminimally\nacceptable,\u201d then why do institutions retain the possibility of assigning\ngrades of C or D at all? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Certainly, this question has evoked\na spirited debate on college campuses nationwide. In a 2005 Washington Post<\/em> article that\ngarnered much attention, Alicia C. Shepard confronted the issue head on. She acknowledged that early in her teaching\ncareer at American\n University, she had, on\noccasion, bowed to the pressure from students who challenged their grades.\nStudents \u201cbribed,\u201d \u201cpestered,\u201d \u201cbombarded,\u201d \u201charangued,\u201d and \u201charassed\u201d her. Although she had reservations about modifying\ngrades, she nevertheless succumbed, until a \u201cuniversity official,\u201d citing\nunfairness, rejected a grade change, effectively ending her reputation as a\nsofty. In our own program, students who\nneed to retain a minimum grade point average in order to stay in the teacher education\nprogram regularly engage in such grade lobbying when they miss the cutoff by a\nfew tenths of a point. Thus, the end of\nthe semester regularly finds such students making the rounds from one\nprofessor\u2019s office to the next pleading their case. The problem, however, is that students who\n\u201csqueak\u201d into programs through such back-door means generally struggle when it\ncomes time for them to perform in their own classrooms. In other words, poor grades and a low or\nborderline GPA often corresponds to poor performance as a student-teacher\u2014a\ncorrelation which comes as no surprise if the courses in which the student has\ndone poorly are meant to equip the student for later professional performance\nas a teacher. In essence, then, when sympathetic\nprofessors agree to change a student\u2019s grade, they often set the student up for\nan even greater struggle further down their academic path, when the stakes are\ngenerally higher. Such well-meaning\ngestures are a recipe for future disaster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So why do so many faculty members\ncompromise their integrity by assigning fictitious grades? Rojstaczer, for one, is candid about his\nreasons for assigning a disproportionate number of As and Bs: \u201cAs are common as\ndirt in universities nowadays because it\u2019s almost impossible for a professor to\ngrade honestly. If I sprinkle my\nclassroom with the Cs some students deserve, my class will suffer from\ndeclining enrollments in future years. \nIn the marketplace mentality of higher education, low enrollments are taken\nas a sign of poor-quality instruction. I\ndon\u2019t have any interest in being known as a failure.\u201d In fact, faculty are oftentimes reluctant to\nissue fair and honest grades because they fear retaliation from students on\nend-of-the-semester course teaching evaluations. This anxiety is fueled on college campuses\nwhere high teaching scores are tied to tangible monetary awards in the form of\nraises or discretionary salary increases. \nInflated grades become the currency that buys strong evaluations. Websites like ratemyprofessors.com encourage\nstudents to rate the \u201caverage easiness\u201d of their professors, and high \u201ceasiness\u201d\nratings typically result in strong overall scores for those professors. As a result, it\u2019s not uncommon to see comments\nlike the following, which were made about a professor with an overall score of\n4.5 out of 5: \u201cNot a very difficult class,\nand we ended up watching clips from family guy and Jackass the movie. Really\neasy to talk into cancelling class.\u201d There is an implicit quid pro quo: students\nwill provide inflated teaching scores in exchange for high grades (and, in this\ncase, for canceled classes). In another class, where the instructor rated an\noverall score of 5.0 and a difficulty level of 2.0, a student wrote that the\ninstructor \u201cdoesn\u2019t assign much work at all, in fact most of the reading is\ndone in class.\u201d Several other students\nwrote of this instructor that his courses were \u201csuper easy\u201d or an \u201ceasy A.\u201d Untenured\nfaculty may be particularly vulnerable to the pressure to secure strong CTEs,\nsince continued employment is so often contingent upon satisfactory teaching. \u201cUnfair\u201d\nor \u201chard\u201d grading is a commonly voiced complaint on course evaluations. One\nstudent wrote on their CTE that the instructor \u201cgrades as though we were at Harvard.\u201d Such a statement suggests that because\nadmission standards at a public college are lower than those at a private or\nIvy League institution, the grading standards should be adjusted downward as\nwell. But we believe that regardless of\nthe insignia on one\u2019s diploma, all students should be held to a rigorous\nstandard. Offering them anything less is simply irresponsible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yielding to student and even\ninstitutional pressure, however, is only one factor behind exaggerated\ngrades. Some members of the profession\nmay, perhaps unwittingly, be plagued by nagging doubts about the quality of\ntheir teaching, which, in turn, elicits the belief that if their students underperform,\nthey have themselves somehow failed. The\nensuing guilt (\u201cI must be doing something wrong\u201d) can cause instructors to\novercompensate for their inadequacies\u2014either perceived or real\u2014by elevating\ngrades. But when instructors do impose honest low grades, they can still be riddled\nby guilt, particularly when the student pleads for mercy, because a low grade\nwill mean that they won\u2019t be qualified to continue in a program, to apply for a\nscholarship, or to graduate on time. In\nhis 1996 short story, \u201cA Gentleman\u2019s C,\u201d American author Padgett Powell\nexamines the devastating consequences of assigning an honest grade. The story\nfocuses on a college English professor who gives his 62-year-old father, a student\nin his course, \u201ca hard, honest low C.\u201d \nWhen the grade prevents his father from fulfilling his long-held dream\nto earn a college diploma, he suffers a fatal heart attack, causing the\nnarrator to be haunted by guilt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While honest grades don\u2019t usually result in the degree of drama depicted\nin Powell\u2019s story, the repercussions of routinely assigning high grades for\ninferior work are, nevertheless, far-reaching. As reported in Ken Bain\u2019s recent\nstudy What the Best College Teachers Do<\/em>, several studies have\ndemonstrated that when students are given extrinsic rewards like good grades,\nboth their motivation to do well and their intrinsic interest in the subject\nmatter actually decrease if the reinforcement of good grades is removed (32).\nCompounding this problem is perhaps the more serious consequence that students\nlearn to get by without making much effort. If they can whip out a paper in the\nhours before a final draft is due and know that they will be generously\nrewarded regardless of quality, their motivation for achieving genuine\nexcellence is compromised. Why labor over a paper for weeks if winging it in\nthe eleventh hour will yield the same results? \nThe impetus to improve one\u2019s analytical, research, and writing skills\nwill be diminished or altogether eliminated. <\/p>\n\n\n\nIn fact, we have found this scenario to be true even when students are\ngiven the chance to revise their work. It\nis not unusual for students to submit for initial feedback what they\ncharacterize as a \u201crough draft,\u201d work that often resembles little more than brainstorming\nnotes. Despite our warning that such drafts\nwill require serious revision, students quite frequently engage instead in a\nsuperficial cleanup of the essay. They\nthen express bewilderment as to why their \u201crevised\u201d draft has earned a grade of\nD. \u201cBut this draft is so much better\nthan my first!\u201d they cry, with little understanding that the word \u201cdraft\u201d implies\na preliminary sketch, rather than a finished product. Certainly, responding to\ndrafts, and allowing students to revise, affords them an opportunity to learn\nfrom their mistakes, but in an environment where students have been able to\nartificially excel, demanding additional work is often viewed as a punishment\nrather than an opportunity. When we\ninsist that extensive revisions need to be made, students often balk. It\u2019s not unusual for them to resist\u2014or even\nto challenge\u2014the notion that it may require considerable work for their\nperformance to be good, let alone superior. \nEven with additional efforts on the part of the student, however, we\ndon\u2019t make promises about grades that we simply can\u2019t keep. There are times\nwhen we have evaluated third and even fourth drafts that don\u2019t meet the\nstandard of \u201cfair\u201d work; at the same time, however, we have seen poorly\nconceived preliminary drafts undergo the kind of extreme makeover that has\nresulted in a bona fide grade of \u201csuperior.\u201d \nThose students who rise to the occasion seem to understand that until\ntheir work is truly \u201csuperior\u201d or \u201cgood,\u201d it will not be awarded a grade of A\nor even B no matter how many revisions they have undertaken. In other words, we do not award effort unless\nthat effort results in significantly improved work. Once students accept those terms, they can\nmeet the challenge and adopt the mantra of all good educators that \u201cevery\nstudent is capable of learning,\u201d if <\/em>we enable them to. <\/p>\n\n\n\nSometimes, in order to illustrate our point that \u201ceffort\u201d alone can\u2019t\nalways be rewarded, we offer analogies. We ask students whether they would seek\ntreatment from a doctor who had tried \u201creally hard\u201d to get through medical\nschool, who put endless hours into his work, but who couldn\u2019t pass his final\nexams. Or similarly, we ask how many students\nwould be willing to fly in a plane piloted by someone who had logged hundreds\nof hours in the cockpit, but who was unable to pass his licensing test. Having students think about the expectations\nthey have for working professionals\u2014and the possible repercussions of falling\nshort\u2014gives them a better sense of how we view their performance in our classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another consideration is that rewarding substandard work with inflated\ngrades is blatantly unfair to those students who do <\/em>labor over their\nessays and who push themselves to achieve excellence. One of our students was incensed when nearly\nall of her classmates received final grades of A despite the fact that many of\nthem boasted publicly about how little work they had done for the course. As she put it, \u201cIt\u2019s not fair that I read\nevery page assigned and do all the work, and those who read only part of the\nwork and fake their way through assignments end up with the same grade.\u201d Not fair, indeed. Such scenarios make getting an education seem\nmore like an exercise in seeing how little one can do than an effort to learn\nanything of value. <\/strong>And since the students are aware of this culture\non campus, one must wonder about the degree of respect they hold for either the\nprofessor or for their education in general. \nAs Mansfield\nargues, \u201cprofessors who give easy grades gain just a fleeting popularity, salted\nwith disdain. In later life, students\nwill forget those professors; they will remember the ones who posed a\nchallenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, students who are falsely\nconditioned to believe that they are producing A work will also have a harder\ntime facing the inevitable disappointment when they are denied a job or\nadmission to graduate school. Although\nsome administrators, including Ronald Ehrenberg, Director of Cornell\u2019s Higher\nEducation Research Institute, believe that the quality of today\u2019s students is\nhigher than in the past, extant data doesn\u2019t support that conclusion (Bruno). On the contrary, Rojstaczer\u2019s research\nsuggests that \u201cThere is no evidence that students have improved in quality\nnationwide since the mid-1980s\u201d (gradeinflation.com). As a result, those students who have been\nawarded fictitious grades typically have inflated expectations and distorted\njudgments about their ability to find and secure employment. Students who have\nbeen accustomed to sailing through a course, regardless of the quality of their\nperformance, may be overly confident about their candidacy. Prospective\nemployers and graduate schools, however, who recognize that grade inflation is\nrampant, may ignore grades in favor of entrance exams, or, those who do they\nreview letters of application are likely to be put off by cover letters that\nare poorly written. What students may\nnot realize is that they will often be competing with hundreds of applicants\nand that employers often make the first cuts from the applicant pool based\npurely on the impression that applicants make in cover letters or resumes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A handful of institutions are\nfinally yielding to the pressure to address the problem of grade inflation. In 2004, Princeton University,\nby a vote of 156 to 84, passed a grade\ndeflation policy that limits \u201cA-range grades to 35 percent in undergraduate\ncourses.\u201d Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel emphasizes the benefits of \u201cgrading\nin a more discriminating fashion.\u201d One of the advantages, she notes, is that \u201cfaculty\nmembers are able to give clearer signals about whether a student\u2019s work\nis inadequate, ordinary, good or excellent\u201d (Bruno). The trend toward changing the culture that accepts\ngrade inflation, however, is discouragingly slow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those professors who rubberstamp student papers with As and Bs, because\nthey are easygoing, indifferent, desperate to attain strong CTEs, or simply\noverwhelmed by mountains of essays, make life much harder for their colleagues\nwho do insist on high-quality performance. But the biggest detriment to students\nwho are subjected to a culture in which an \u201ceasy A\u201d is a given is that it\ndenies them the opportunity to strengthen their skills, to grow intellectually,\nand to experience the enormous sense of accomplishment that comes from genuine\nhard work. Assigning honest grades consistently is the first step in preserving\nnot only personal and institutional integrity, but also in promoting\nresponsible teaching. We owe our\nstudents that much. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Contributed by Denise D. Knight, Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita, English Department, and Noralyn Masselink, Professor, English Department – As part of The Cortland Cause’s Spotlight on Course Teacher Evaluations Years ago, when our careers were in their infancy, a colleague in our department confided that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/cortland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/cortland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/cortland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/cortland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/cortland\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1748"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/cortland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2044,"href":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/cortland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748\/revisions\/2044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/cortland\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/cortland\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/cortland\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}