Via Jerz’s Literacy Log, this April 27th CBS/Associated Press release on the Princeton Faculty Approves grade-rationing plan just wouldn’t leave me be. I don’t pretend to understand the entire problem and I don’t have the benefit of working from within the academic field but am viewing it as an interested party and a student of higher education On that level only then, this seems to be a completely asinine plan.
Instead of digging deeper into the problem to arrive at a conclusion as to reason (“There are many reasons for grade inflation. David Breneman, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, has said it may date from the Vietnam War era, when professors were reluctant to flunk students and consign them to the draft” (A.P) ) Princeton, an illustrious Princeton faculty comes up with a fix that promises to avoid the issue at hand as well as damage the entire rating system. How about if there really are students worthy of A’s that exceed the 35% undergraduate or 55% graduate ceiling? To me, the 20% difference displays also a lack of substantial defining criteria while hinting at an additional two years of tuition being jeopardized.
I realize that I am going off half-cocked again without researching this further, but it just seemed so obviously evasive of the real issue that I couldn’t ignore it and keep my thoughts to myself. (I’m in combat mode today, I guess). Why not raise the standards in a more methodical and fair manner?
I give up.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology