"Inflating the Grades" by Stephen Goode and Timothy W.
Colleges all across the United States are setting high standards when it comes to the grading system. According to students who have various teachers, will determine whether the correct grading system is being enforced and not inflated. Several students find that making "A's" and" B's" easier than they thought. The trend is widespread. At Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, for example, three-quarters of the more than 20,000 grades given out to undergraduates in the spring semester a year ago were A's and B's, and at Carnegie-Mellon University in the same city, the A's and B's accounted for nearly two-thirds of the grades. Critics of college grading practices say that it's time to bring academic rigor and high standards back to campuses where mediocrity has become the accepted norm (Goode and Maier 345).
Melvyn Leffler, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia says, "We considered the possibility that the rise in grades was due to better students, and rejected that explanation. It just didn't work." Leffler's not sure what explanation to give to the grade rise, except to respond that he wants it to stop (Goode and Maier 346). Professors are being asked by the critics of college grading practices to put tighter pressure on the grading system and to make students work for their grades. Since the trend is so popular and widely accepted to have the grade inflation, colleges are focusing on "satisfying the customer." Students are looking at C's as failing grades. It's not fair to blame today's students for a grading system they have been caught up in(Goode and Maier 350). New ideas are being tested to focus on what more can be done about the grade inflation.
After reading the story "Inflating the Grades", I have a new perspective on the American College Grading System. There is a point when the level of college grading becomes easy and that is when students tend to take advantage of it.
