Letter Grades Detract from the Education Process
The point of school is to learn. While a letter grade system is one possible way for charting a student's success, it is utterly biased in favor of end result. Merely correcting a few grammatical errors, writing "great job" and assigning an "A" grade means nothing. Sure the paper was well received by the teacher, but what does that mean in the long run? It would seem you answered the prompt well, there probably weren't that many grammatical errors and you most likely didn't plagiaries anything. Yet that doesn't tell you anything about your work or how well you understood the material. Students are trained from a young age that getting a good grade is the most important part of school, since a good grade is what will get them into a good college, and eventually a good job. But will a C on a math test in grade 11 really hamper one's future success?
Grades are an arbitrary maker that relies heavily on the opinion of the grader. There is no universal algorithm for distinguishing a B paper from a B+ paper. The criteria will vary between the graders. While one teacher may like an assignment written in the first person, another may hate it. Personal factors also can affect academic integrity - a teacher may reduce or inflate a students' grade based on that student's behavior in class. Even with the ultimate success of an A+ grade, does that mean there is absolutely no room for improvement?
School should be based on learning, not merely graduating with a high GPA. Students should be allowed to focus on the material being taught in the classroom instead of stressing about their performance on the next paper or project. Removing this stress factor would allow students to enjoy their school years. While assignments cannot be abolished, the focus of the assignments could be shifted from the end product to the learning process.
Instead of a letter based grading system, classes should be taught on a pass/fail principle. This eliminates the need for end results. Teachers could instead present students with a progress report highlighting the strengths and weakness of a certain assignment with comments on how to improve. The report should focus on motivation, participation and creativity as well as specific factors according to the nature of the assignment. Without having to worry if a bad grade would affect their GPA, students would be more inclined to take harder classes that interest them and may actually learn the material instead of trying cram to ace the next exam. While some students may be less inclined to study at all, such a system would significantly lower stress in young adults. This system would eliminate grade inflation and give colleges, universities and future employers a better idea of a candidate's performance.
Published by Christy Nicholson
Hey there. I'm a Los Angels college student. I love Thai food, socializing and visiting the health center. I decided to start writing for AC because blogging is boring. Here I figure people will read what I... View profile
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10 Comments
Post a CommentI completely agree! I think the public education system needs a lot of reform.
I'm not completely sure if having only pass/fail as the options would solve more problems than it would cause. For example, set the pass bar too low, and people who could learn more won't have an incentive to work harder than the minimum(other than the normal incentive of knowledge). Or, set the pass bar to high, and most won't pass different classes. Of course, you could set the pass/fail criteria different for every person, but that seems arbitrary and based on the teacher's judgement being good. Also, it'd be harder to distinguish various degrees of intelligence, i.e. the head of the class versus the middle or the bottom. I mean, there is a reason why Harvard is aspired to rather than Community College. Finally, improvement can't really be seen by external observes easily, ie we cant really test pass fail and then compare in mass numbers. Nationalized tests still need to be based on a distribution system of some sort, so as to compare and track improvement.
The educational system overall needs to be radically changed.
Very interesting! Nice job!!!
Interesting. I wish they'd do away with grades at my college :-)
Amen! I was a teacher for twenty-six years, and I agree with your thinking.
Interesting read...I totally agree...keep it up!
Letter grades can also send parents into a panic, as I learned just today when my 9 year old brought his report card home. He went from a B+ to a C- in one quarter. I obviously started to freak out, but in the comments section of the report card his teacher wrote that it was expected for kids to drop in grades when switching into a harder level in math. I hope he's right!
I almost went to Reed where they don't grade with letters (or they do but they hide them because of the suicide rate at the school!). Craziness!
They've been debating this in our county for 2 years now. Dump grades or keep them. Usually the school board wins against the students and parents wanting them to go.