Grade inflation. Isn't this ultimately harmful?

amother

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 12:51 am

Is this an effective tool or motivating for kids (I'm talking about neuro-typical kids)? To get inflated grades, yet the kid knows they couldn't possibly have earned an A. To me it seems to set a dangerous precedent for later on. Many teachers don't give A's for effort and life doesn't give A's for effort.

chanatron1000

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 12:56 am

Life does give A for effort, actually. But school grades are supposed to be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching/learning methods for the particular student, not to determine the student's worth. The fact that people feel the need to inflate grades in the first place is a problem.

amother

Obsidian

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 12:59 am

Not sure if this is what you mean.
I’ve see it a lot - boys, girls, all ages.
Tests allow You to get a lot wrong. Like The test is really out of 120% or you can get one wrong in each section.
So a child may get 100 even with getting 5 answers wrong.
This doesn’t really bother me bec obviously they knew enough to get a high grade and can still feel good and the same standard is applied to everyone.

amother

Skyblue

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 1:10 am

Most of these kids are never going to go to schools where they need to push themselves academically, so grade inflation doesn't matter in the narrow sense.

In life, kids who get As without doing any work will be a little surprised to discover that adult life can be hard. Think of all the posters here who can't believe that sometimes you have to do difficult things. But most of them will grow up.

I went to an OOT school and remember seminaries explaining that they assume your grades are 15 points higher than if you go to school in NY, because at the time, grade inflation was so pervasive and the difference was stark.

Grade inflation is part of the general trend to bubble wrap kids so they never feel anything negative. I don't think it's a good long-term strategy, but for kids who never leave the bubble, it can work.

blessed6

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 1:16 am

amother [ Obsidian ] wrote:

I specifically had an issue with this. My child came home with a test score of 96%. Great! He knows his stuff! Only after looking it over carefully did I notice that he got a full quarter of the questions wrong. That's a very different story. He's a capable child who probably needs to review more or differently in the future to do better. A 96% tells me you were really clear on the material and just slipped up somewhere, a 75% means you're not quite clear on a lot of it (possibly even the things you scored correct). The whole point of taking tests is to give you feedback on how well you know the material. If you artificially inflate the score you don't get that feedback.

I know the Rebbi involved is an incredibly kind, sensitive, loving Rebbi that my son is crazy over. I couldn't be more grateful. I think he marks the tests this way not to be harsh on the kids (4th Grade). Getting 115% on a test looks great! But I think it may not be a beneficial approach.

amother

Moonstone

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 1:22 am

Growing up in England and going to a non-Jewish high school, it was virtually impossible to get 100% on a test. If you got 85% that was often an A. If you got into the 90s you felt incredible.

This may have been because tests were harder and not multiple choice.

paperflowers

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 1:28 am

There were a couple of times in high school when I was technically failing a class and the teacher bumped up my grade on my report card. I guess they saw I was trying. Once, the teacher gave me the equivalent of a C without any extra credit or make up tests. I was really annoyed the next semester when I actually earned a B - and there was no record of how far I’d come.

The point of grades is to measure learning progress. You don’t help anyone with meaningless numbers.

amother

Poppy

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 9:29 am

Often a struggling student needs to see some success so they are motivated to continue to work hard. However, I don't use grade inflation to do that. What I do is I put together a modified learning plan for the student, together with the parent, that has the student working hard but makes it easier for him to succeed. For example, I might make a special version of the test that features the type of questions he can process more easily, like short answer and multiple choice instead of long form answers. This will depend on the student. Sometimes it's as simple as making the test a bit shorter and focusing only on the big ideas. Other times I'll give the parent an advance copy of the test or a targeted review sheet, which will help focus his study time.
Once the student starts to see good marks, we talk again and I tweak the modifications. Ideally, by the end of his time with me, a student has a few minor modifications or none at all.
Serves the same purpose as grade inflation and is constructive rather than harmful. But it's more work for the teacher. 🤣

amother

Jade

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 11:29 am

I question the value of grades altogether

I used to live and breathe my grades. Where did it get me in life? I had to learn that the vast majority of people couldn't care less. Social skills count for a lot more than academic success.

BrisketBoss

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 11:32 am

amother [ Jade ] wrote:

Yeah. Freshman year of college I went to a school where you technically get grades but no one cares. You can opt not to see them. Some people just look back on all their past grades around graduation time.

amother

Gladiolus

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 11:40 am

My boys yeshiva does this so the boys always feel good about themselves . It annoys me to no end. If the kid only knows 3/4 of the material why not let him get a 75 so he sees he actually has to put in effort? We’re babying them.

cupcake123

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 11:54 am

I think their should be a box at the bottom of every test. If the child studied for --- amount of hours (whatever is appropriate) he gets 100. Yes on the honor system. Effort should be the only reward. I'm saying this as someone who has a great memory and hardly studied in school yet got 100s.

Elfrida

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 11:59 am

In nursing school I had a friend with some kind of learning disability. I didn't ask her and she never told me a diagnosis (if she had one), but she had always recieved adapted tests and papers, and was graded according to what her teachers felt was her standard.

It was a huge struggle for her in nursing school to realize that she was expected to meet an objective standard, and she wasn't going to be given easier exams or allowed to sit with a group who were writing a paper and then be able to put her name on it. The school did give her a lot of encouragement and second chances, but there was no compromising on standards. She almost dropped out, and ended up finishing two years behind the rest of the class.

Her experience with grades in school had made her feel good about herself, but had taught her that the world will accomodate her. It wasn't easy for her to learn that the world doesn't work that way. I'm not sure how much of a favour they really did her.

cupcake123

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 12:03 pm

Elfrida wrote:

I think they did her a huge favor. The opposite side would be her feeling stupid and dumb dumb dumb during her whole school year resulting in low self esteem etc. Which would carry her through adulthood effect her marrige and her children and everything.

BrisketBoss

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 12:06 pm

cupcake123 wrote:

I'm not sure. What if the adults in her life had simply explained to her The Truth About Grades? Then she could grow up with a realistic view of their meaning and importance.

Aurora

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 12:30 pm

Elfrida wrote:

I've seen this too.