Jerry Farber Grading System

Would you be happy if you had received an A in your class? Do you feel that you truly learned enough to deserve that perfect A? Students who are in either high school or college are forgetting the true meaning of having knowledge and being able to learn. People think that how well they perform in the classroom will justify how well the teacher teaches their students but necessary that might not always be that way. In Brent Staples piece, “Why Colleges Shower their Students with A’s”, he argues that there must be an end to the grade Inflation and continues by examining for a possible solution by using language techniques to emphasize the main point.

When everyone gets first place, does anyone truly win? “A’s for Everyone!” by Alicia Shepard is a persuasive essay discussing how grade inflation affects professors at a collegiate level. Shepard’s credentials are satisfactory: she is a journalism professor who’s experienced demanding students first-hand. These students believe they are entitled to receive A grades, regardless of their exam scores.

In Alfie Kohn’s essay, the argument of grade expectations being too overvalued rests on a chain of assumptions, but can be argued. Alfie Kohn’s essay portrays that he wants students to find a variety of different purposes in school, and questions the idea of grades being too centralized. In detail, Alfie Kohn explains how students go to school not for the right reasons, but for the wrong reasons instead. For example, the author writes, “They’d scan the catalogue for college courses that promised easy A’s, sign up for new extracurricular-activities to round out their resumes, and react with gratitude when a professor told them exactly what they would have to know for the exam so they could ignore everything else” (para. 8).

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.

In the rhetorical analysis essay, “Grade Inflation Gone Wild,” Stuart Rojstaczer addresses that United States higher education has gone downhill. He states in his essay that students are not being academically challenged anymore. The lack of perseverance from the students and faculty has made it easier to pass classes and maintain a good GPA. Stuart claims that, “Grades continue to go up regardless of the quality of education” (68). He believes that grade inflation is a huge issue in our society and that something should be done about it.

Staples offers the solution that “To staunch inflation [of grades] is to change the way the grade point average is calculated” (Staples 937). He suggests that different classes should be calculated into a GPA at different levels. For example, harder science and math courses that many people steer clear of due to their difficulty, should have more opportunity to boost a student’s GPA than an easy general education class would (937). This idea might sound good on paper, but that would require every university to completely change their grading policy which not only would be time-consuming, but nearly impossible since there is virtually no way that leaders and the student body of a university would all agree on a completely new grading system. Plus, it might hinder students from being able to take classes that they actually enjoy and get a degree in a field they want to be in, not that they are forced to be in because of GPA factors.

Students have started expecting good grades for mediocre work, knowing that the professors are under an obligation to give in to the way the rest of college professors grade. Harvey Mansfield, says that according to the american education system, grading strictly is ‘cruel and dehumanizing’ and affects the student's self esteem. The author says how he thinks that a reason professors have opted into a lenient grading scale is to spare their students self esteems and feelings. I wonder, if students don’t learn how to cope with a critique from a professor on an assignment how are these students going to cope in the real world with criticism from coworkers or authority figures. Not only do these students suffer from self esteem issues they are not being challenged enough and suffer from laziness and lack an incentive to achieve

So all in all, in the process of trying to achieve high grades, student neglect relationships, moralities, and happiness. In essence, the notion that high grades lead to a successful life compels students to primarily focus on grades and sacrifice sleep, family, religious beliefs, and other necessities to

In Carl Singleton’s article, “What Our Education System Needs is More F’s,” he argues that students aren’t receiving the failing grades they deserve. School systems are to blame for the lack of quality in America’s education. No other recommendation for improvement will succeed. The only way to fix the American education system is to fail more students. According to Singleton, the real root of the issue is with the parents.

First high achieving students grades are what keep them focused and motivated in school. On the other end of the spectrum are students who simply do not have the willpower or drive to earn high marks in school. There are students who focus who too much on grades, and by doing this end up memorizing the material being taught and not absorbing. They are like little robots spouting facts and information, but not being able to truly comprehend its meaning.

Did you know that paying students for having good grades resulted in a decrease in dropout rates, gangs, alcohol, and drug use? Students should get paid for having excellent grades. The reason why this is important is because it could lead to a brighter future for society. Three reasons why students should get paid for having awesome grades is because cash for good grades provide students with career-like rewards, it decreases dropout rates, and with the right incentive,could lead to success. All of those three reasons could and will result in success.

Although the common belief is that certain aspects of school are important for an ideal education for all students, the main problems that need to be rectified as soon as possible include the lettered grading system and test scores as the main measure of achievement as well as a lack of disciplined and motivated in teachers who do their jobs correctly in order for their students to reach their full potential and excel in life. Out of all the issues with American education today, one of the most overvalued yet problematic for students is the grades and scores that represent their classroom proficiency and content knowledge. It is true that today, in the United States, the easiest and seemingly most reliable way to track student performance and rank schools by quality of education is by simply marking students based on their scores on assignments and assessments done in school or on standardized exams designed to measure mastery of content, and by comparing and analyzing the

Due to the fact that it’s easy for just about any one reading this to relate to a grading system cause we all have received an amount of schooling before. The

Many aspects of public education are problematic. For example, the usefulness in grading systems (other than IB schools) are questionable. It cages up creativity and makes the students unmotivated. Also many times the grading system is just wrong. When students write something and give it to the teacher to grade sometimes they can get a horrible grade.

They lack the indication of students’ knowledge as they are only a depiction of their effort. Absences, laziness, and disengagements are just a few of the factors of why grades are a poor representation of students’ intellectual capacity. While others may argue that grades motivate them, it is not genuinely correct since grades encourage