Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Grade Inflation

I thought this article on the grade inflation wars tied in nicely with the discussion of % of gifted students.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/14/AR2008091402179.html

I don't understand why giving an A for 90% is inflation.

An (90%) A is inflated when compared to the same score that is recorded as a B for students from another region or school.

Our school considers 95% or more an A, which is more than our old school. You do have to work hard for those As

Jen

But I guess that doesn't make a lot of sense to me because what percentage you get depends on how hard the test is. I know some tests where a 50% was an A because the material was so hard and others where we were all expected to get 100%.

There is a lot more behind the scenes that just the percent right.

We live in a county with the grade 'deflation' too, but I guess it doesn't bother me (yet). Of course college seems pretty far away at this point.
This was one of the 'uh oh' moments for all the parents at the 3rd grade back to school night as the teachers were presenting the grading scale...I think ours is 93+ is an A. Maybe it's a 94; can't remember.
Anyway, this was sinking in when the teachers said 'So if your child has been getting 'S's all along in 2nd, that will translate to about a 'C'. UH OH.

I think I read that more and more colleges are beginning to look beyond the gpa as a simple number.

It seems to me that the better strategy is to make the work harder and keep the cut-off at 90.

I agree, acs. It seems like it just adds to the grade confusion if everyone uses different scales.

It all sounds so contrived and non-sensical.

Homeschool keeps getting more attractive.

For me, I guess it's personal. I am a big-concepts person and, at least in high school, tended to understand the material better than most of the other students. But I hated the small details and always made one or two careless errors, which meant that the detail people often outscored me. In our system we both got A's, but if you bump that cut-off much higher, my score would have been a B.

It seems to me that there is a difference between high standards and obsessively detail-oriented perfectionism. Does that make me sound bitter?