Christian Schools Are Lowering Standards to Attract Students
Some time ago, in conversation with a Christian school administrator, I was told of his schools intention to adjust the numerical grade for each letter grade category. Essentially this would allow students to get higher letter grades while having lower numerical grades. Now you might think that this was to encourage students in their academic pursuits, but you would be wrong.
Actually the purpose of this adjustment was to better compete with other Christian and public schools in the area. Feeling the pressure of competing with other schools and attracting students, it was believed to be a passive marketing measure capable of success.
Keeping in touch with this person I thought that I would be able to evaluate this effort. Taking a look at the academic records of students you would notice that grades are already quite high, with a few exceptions, particularly in the classes of certain teachers who continue to require actual achievement and a degree of competency in a subject.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
By broadening my sample group I further discovered that not only was "grade inflation creep" significant, but so was the number of students finding their way to one of a number of honor rolls at these schools. I discovered one school where two thirds of the graduating senior class commenced with honors. I asked the academic dean how this was possible and he simply shrugged his shoulders.
That's quite remarkable! Actually I'd say, "That's unbelievable."
Consider the fact that this practice continues to expand at a time when greater and greater numbers of colleges are putting less and less emphasis on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Test (ACT). "Grade inflation" and "standardized testing" are being placed on a collision course, or to express the idea in terms more closely related to other societal collisions, "a bubble about to burst."
By what measure will colleges be able to evaluate student achievement and aptitude for successful study at the next level? I know several colleges and universities which no longer read applicant essays in spite of the fact that they are required. Nor do they read the letters of recommendation which also are submitted with the ubiquitous online application.
What's left, a campus visit with a personal interview, or one on the telephone, or with an alumnus local to the applicant? Many students currently opt out of a personal visit to a campus of interest, and alumni, unless especially motivated, do not serve the interview process well.
While colleges and universities have their work cut out for them, individual students are being placed in an unstable situation. One student, with whom I spoke a few days ago, said that she felt "completely unprepared" for college level work. Who placed her at risk? Her high school teachers and the department chairs and other administrators who allowed for such a shoddy classroom experience.
Over the years I have had the pleasure of teaching students from middle school through college seniors. It has always been my goal to evaluate and give grades which were fair with the hope of encouraging the students in my classes. I would give grades I planned to submit to students before they would see them on a report card. Included with this view of their grade I would list all grades received and the percentage each counted so a student, and his parents if he wished to allow them a look, could see exactly how I calculated their grade.
I wish I could say the aforementioned practice was a smashing success, but it didn't lessen the complaints. High school parents and college students called, arguing their point. There was no level of discussion capable of a reasonable solution.
And to think in graduate school I took "Educational and Psychological Testing and Measurement." That course almost finished me off, rendering me incapable of giving a fair grade again.
There must be a solution out there. Could all of this motivate a "Kumbaya" moment?
"Somewhere out there
If love can see us through
Then we'll be together
Somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true."
"And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing
On the same bright star"
by James Ingram
I really hope that educators will come to their senses and strive to re-engineer the entirety of evaluative methodology. Are we as teachers more interested in being liked than preparing our students adequately? I always enjoyed students returning to campus for a visit, especially when they had good things to say about their preparation for successive study. Don't burst your student's bubble.
"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for the Lord's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." (1 Peter 2:9 ESV alt.)
