Grade Evaluation System Essay

Imagine blowing up a balloon, with every exhale of breath the balloon gets bigger. Similar to a balloon, with every year that passes grades inflate. In “Grade Inflation Gone Wild” by Stuart Rojstaczer, he discusses how the grading system has changed over the years. Rojstaczer’s overall purpose is to increase awareness of grade inflation and persuade his audience to take action. He argues that “changes in grading have had a profound influence on college life and learning” (2).

In “Grade Inflation: It’s Time to Face the Facts” in The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 6, 2001, Harvey Mansfield, a political philosophy professor at Harvard, describes and informs his reader of the recent increase of grade inflation. Mansfield states how this inflation has not only raised his grades higher and higher but also the grades of students in many colleges in the country. He uses the word, “contempt” to describe how being pressured into changing his grading scale feels and that he has been forced to conform with what has become the norm for many professors in America. Mansfield appeals not only to professors who are cheating themselves out of active students and submitting to the new grading scale, but also to students who are being tricked into thinking this scale is better for them and makes success easier, but who are paying more money for an education that will not last and won’t help them in their future lives. Mansfield is trying to “get attention” to the way

Another theory to remedy grade inflation involves giving students two grades: One grade is based on how much effort they put in and the other grade is based on their knowledge of the subject or their performance. In this way, a teacher can tell the difference between a student who barely does anything and gets an A and a student who puts hours and hours into his/her work. Because both effort and ability are important for future academic and professional success, it is important to find a balance in grading students. The false sense of security from grade inflation actually hurts, rather than helps, students and their

A number of high schools, colleges, and universities have adopted an honor code to cultivate integrity amongst students at their institution. These principles vary from cheating to tardiness, to plagiarism and have garnered praise from multiple outlets for apparently being successful in preventing cheating and enforcing punishment for those who break the rules. However, others like myself, criticize the honor code due to skepticism in its abilities to prevent such rule breaking, its success in being enforced, and whether it would actually convince a student to not cheat. If Windham High School were to establish an honor code, it would be a failure given that it would not encourage students to abstain from breaking it.

Grades are as valuable as star-shaped stickers, yet they have the power to lay the foundation of our entire lives. The grades we earn have no commercial value, but students invest millions into taking a class to get a grade. In Jerry Farber’s essay “A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System,” he crushes society’s constant need for competition by pointing out all of the major flaws in the grading system and offering a new credit system as a solution. Farber is correct by claiming that the grading system is flawed, stressful, and overall, useless.

Students with a 3.0 grade point average (GPA) or higher should have the opportunity to go to college in a state run college with free college tuition. If high school students had the opportunity to go to college with their tuition paid, they would be more likely to strive for excellence. Children of parents who graduated from college are more likely to go to college than children of people who only graduated from high school. People with just a college degree earn more over a lifetime than those who only graduated from high school.

Elona Kalaja Professor Eleni Saltourides ENG 101 Critical Analysis Paper February 21, 2018 Flunking vs Students In the article, “In Praise of the F Word” Mary Sherry argues that flunking students is a method that has been effective in the past and is still effective todays day, and anyone needs to see is as a positive teaching tool. Sherry indicates that flunking students is a method that motivates students to study more and to be more responsible for what is their responsibility. Students challenge is not to get an A or B, but to succeed or to fail.

In Kurt Wiesenfeld’s article “Making the Grade”, he address the issue that students want a higher grade than they deserve. He goes on to prove this be by giving examples of previous students that he has had and what can happen when students get the grades that they want and not what they deserve. In Wiesenfeld’s article he states that about ten percent of students that take his class do not care about their grades until final grades are over. “You might groan and moan, but you accepted it as the outcome of your efforts or lack thereof,” Wiesenfeld stated.

(Source B). It seems as if this statement is now more relevant than ever. The school system spends so much time and energy grading each student the same way, without stopping to take into account the various types of

Cassie Davis, a former student at Highland High School in Nunn, Colarado, worked herself strenuously in order to achieve academic excellence. She took every AP and Honors class she could, and in her senior year, while the others students began to relax as the result of their college applications being finished, she hit the books and continued to take classes at the University of Northern Colorado. However, she was punished for her diligence, as her school’s grading system discounted her college credits, and she lost her valedictorian status to a kid who had not taken difficult college courses. She found that she had been cheated, punished for choosing to challenge herself and learn more.

He believes that professors are softening the grades. Phil Primack also is aware of the many excuses professors give for grade inflation, he even comes up with a reason. He sates, "colleges are unwilling to challenge and possibly offend students and their hovering, tuition- paying parents with some grade tough love. And without institutional backing, individual faculty members simply yield to whining students."

Have you ever deemed the modern college admissions process unfair? In the article by Frank Bruni tilted “College Aadmission Sshocker” he explores the increased greed of the universities at the expense of the students. Bruni is able to establish a well thought out and cunning satire about the insane practices in modern day universities, through the use of the rhetorical devices wit and incongruity. The article well establishes incongruity throughout the piece helping develop a strong satire. As colleges strive for the top percent of students each year Stanford university decides to kick it up a notch:

Liberal Arts Self-Assessment There are many benefits to achieving a Liberal Arts education. A Liberal Arts education provides the learner with a broad range of information to help guide them in a direction that create intellectual growth. Liberal Arts cover a wide range of subjects and creates a solid foundation for many other areas of study. A Liberal Arts education teaches you how to think, learn, see things as a whole, makes you a better communicator, and problem solver. A Liberal Arts education is the most important factor in creating critically thinking, well rounded interesting individuals.

Grades are said to drive students to push themselves even more, yet it is not entirely true. Some students cheat, causing their grades to fly high, and that doesn’t reflect wit at all. In a survey of 24,000 students at 70 high schools, Donald McCabe (Rutgers University) found that 64 percent of students admitted to cheating on a test, 58 percent for plagiarism, and 95 percent for some other form of cheating. (Facts) This proves that grades are more likely to cause students to cheat than to motivate

It is not an uncommon occurrence for a parent to approach me to ask me about the methods I use to get good grades. They always seem to assume I dedicate countless hours to formulating study guides and reviewing material. They believe the only way to reach “my level” is to sacrifice sufficient sleep and a social life. This, however, cannot be further from the truth. I earn my good grades without sacrificing other important aspects of my life by planning ahead, collaborating, and using efficient study methods.