The purpose of grades is not to rank a group or track aggregate outcomes.
This may have been true in the past, however
mandated data collection tracks aggregate outcomes and ranks teachers and schools by the grades assigned to their pupils.
The purpose is to assess the degree to which an individual student met the requirements of an individual assignment. A side effect is that sorting and ranking can take place.
Agreed...
If one expected grades to sort/rate/rank a group of individuals by relative degree of knowledge in a topic, then grade inflation (if it occurred) would be a problem.
mckinley, in your
post upthread, you assigned to me a fabricated viewpoint and then argued against it...
strawman.
This post serves to take the high road in addressing that, so the conversation about the
article you sought input on may move forward.
