The traditional high school A-F grading system no longer reflects an accurate measurement of student success. Providing a new system where grades are measured by the rank of the student in the class will provide a system more honest than before, it will benefit students and prospective colleges. Changing the grading scale to a system where students are ranked from a curve based off the total percentage of points potentially earned in the course.
In addition to a system where few in a class receive a failing grade and if a student falls below the line have the opportunity to obtain a successful grade in the course by completing extra course work and offering an opportunity to retake tests/quizzes. A student will be more willing to take a risk by taking a class that they may not get an A in. For example, many students, including seniors would opt out of taking Chemistry due to the fact they may not receive a “good” grade. While, these students may be protecting their high GPA's they miss out of the opportunity to gain a higher level of logic. Honor and AP classes benefits a student by challenging them and improve their study habits, but find the subjects that one may excel at.
This may potentially add more integrity towards cheating in the class room by adding a sense of competition to classwork. A study compiled by an expert in academic integrity, Professor Donald Mc Cabe, conducted a survey of over 4500 high school students from across the nation. From this study of 24,000 high school students from 70 different high schools, 64 percent of students confessed to cheating on a test, while over 95 percent admitted to participating in acts such cheating on a test, plagiarism or collaborating on homework. Fro...
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...ed to inflate the grade.
When a student applies to college, the GPA can be meaningless for many high school students and for college admissions it can be difficult to determine an accurate picture of a student from it. From a study concluded during 1991 to 2003 evidence shows that student GPA has risen by 12.5 percent without a rise in ACT scores. This shows that more students are receiving higher grades even though the skills haven't improved. Tests are becoming less challenging, more and more teachers are allowing students to pass courses, even if the they don't know the information.
If a system was created where students were graded in a manner where they can see who falls below average, who is average, and who accels it could change the academic system to better prepare individuals for the future and teach much more than what we have been now.
In her article, “The Case Against GRADES”, Alfie Kohn discusses the grading system and its faults. She opens her argument with information from an older psychological study that proves the negative impact of the current grading system, and she reinforces this with the proof that “no” research has contradicted this statement. Also, she gives many key reasons including: “Motivation”, “Achievement”, “Quantification”, and “Curriculum”. Kohn supports these topics with other reasearch for why the system is failing the students. She asserts that, “… the absence of grading is a necessary condition for promoting deep thinking and a desire to engage in it.” As support, she offers other solutions and then debunks them by proving that they would not solve
Yes, good grades do lead to good colleges, which do open doors, and yes, making students have the need to avoid bad grades is good as well. However, despite common belief, good grades are not that important. People like Steve Jobs prove that the label grades give mean nothing. The world has seen glory and success earned by many confident, jubilant people, and some of those very same people did not attend college or have perfect scores. If confidence and happiness are the keys to a good life, then what is the point of taking away such key factors when grades are involved? Yes, achieving the best grades can help students have a better life, but having a low grade on a report card does not dictate their
The article written by Michael Thomsen addresses the issue: should we as a society continue using a standardized grading system. Thomsen includes many reasons supporting his ultimate conclusion that we should not continue with any system of standardized grades. However, the reasons he uses to support his conclusion are affected by significant ambiguity which weakens the overall argument.
Stuart Rojstaczer talks about how higher education in the United States has decreased substantially these days. High grades are very common among college students when they should not be that high. Schools are handing out easy A’s to those who do not deserve them, decreasing the quality of education. Even more astonishing is the fact that students are spending less time studying and more time drinking and partying, students are consuming more alcohol than ever and degrade in a really fast way. Also Stuart Rojstaczer talk about that in private schools grades are much higher than in public schools, but virtually everyone was experiencing grade inflation. In addition to that one more scientific evidence is high GPA of American students, because
In his essay, “Why Colleges Shower Their Students with A’s,” Brent Staples argues that grade inflation in colleges results in college degrees becoming less valuable. Staples points out that grade inflation is happening among all colleges and there are many factors contributing to this problem. Colleges are willingly giving students good grades that they do not deserve so that the course will not be omitted from the lack of attendance. Part-time teachers’ jobs are at risk because their position is not guaranteed. These teachers were sometimes threatened by the students saying they will complain if their grades are not adjusted for a higher score. With this being said, students are putting pressure on teachers, causing their jobs to be in danger.
Intelligence has begun to define individuals globally, but the goal of the minimum grading system is fairness and equality. Fair share grading is when all students in the class take an intended exam, but the class average score of the test is given to every student. Each student will receive the same grade even if one did better or worse than the average score. That being said it could reduce dropout rates, test anxiety, and competition between students. On the other hand, students could be affected negatively because it could lead to false self-value and unfairness to those students who study harder in order to earn higher grades. The debate continues about whether students should be separated by intelligence or be given equal grades in order
The Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) was established to provide employees with ability to take a leave from work for personal or family health issues. The Act lays out specific circumstance in which an employee may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave within a 12 month period. Under the law, employees may request a leave for personal health issues, to care for a child, spouse or parent with serious health issues, birth or care of a child during the first year or for newly placed adoptions within one year. Employees are covered under FMLA if the employer has 50 or more employees and the employee has worked for the employer for at least 12 months. The employee must submit a written request for FMLA and provide documentation supporting their request. Once approved, the employee may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Upon return the employee is guaranteed a job, if the employer had to fill their position out of business necessity, the employer must provide the employee with a position with equal responsibility and pay.
In today’s society we feel the need to be graded in order to learn. The topic of the grading system has sparked three essays, by three different authors, about the pros and cons of the grading system. First, Jerry Farber, professor at University of California at San Diego, wrote A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System (333). Next is Steven Vogel, professor at Denison University, who wrote Grades and Money (337). The last two authors in this compilation are Stephen Goode and Timothy W. Maier. They both are journalists for Insight on the News. While each of these authors have their own point of view on the grading system, all three essays talk about how being graded affects learning.
The Hunger Games was a critically acclaimed movie when it came out; however, some critics would argue that the movie can be sometimes too violent for its intended audience. In this essay I would dissert Brian Bethune’s essay “Dystopia Now” in order to find its weaknesses and compare the movie Battle Royale with his essay.
However, the grade scale convey to students that grades have consequences, open doors to opportunity, and alleviates perturbation. As a result, colleges’ academic progress will promote a higher graduation status. Overall, students are able to receive and apply for a variety of scholarships by their multiple levels of achievement. Only grade scale can produce success.
Scott Hightower’s poem “Father” could be very confusing to interpret. Throughout almost the entirety of the poem the speaker tries to define who his father is by comparing him to various things. As the poem begins the reader is provided with the information that the father “was” all of these things this things that he is being compared to. The constant use of the word “was” gets the reader to think ‘how come the speaker’s father is no longer comparable to these things?’ After the speaker reveals that his father is no longer around, he describes how his father impacted him. Details about the father as well as descriptions of the impacts the father has distraught on the speaker are all presented in metaphors. The repetitive pattern concerning the speaker’s father and the constant use of metaphors gives the reader a sense that the speaker possesses an obsessive trait. As the reader tries to interpret the seemingly endless amount of metaphors, sets of connotative image banks begin to develop in the reader’s mind. Major concepts that are expressed throughout the poem are ideas about what the speaker’s father was like, what he meant to the speaker, and how he influenced the speaker.
does not truly depict the potential that a student has to succeed. On one hand, a student could have a 4.0 GPA, but score poorly on the SAT, and be denied a chance...
Let me take you back to being a sophomore in high school: fifteen-about-to-turn-sixteen-year-olds, beginning thoughts of college just blooming in their minds, and they are taking more challenging classes than ever before. Every year, classes are changed in schools in order to fulfill new requirements and the difficulty is increased in order to challenge the new students. These new classes and the amount of choices students now have between the different classes available now put new pressures on students that the older generations may not understand. Not only do students have the choice of electives, but now they have the choice of different mathematics, sciences, and English courses on a range of sometimes four different levels. With all these choices, students may have a hard time deciding which is the proper course and level to take. Unfortunately, there is one more pressure in the mix of this decision: the pressure to take advanced placement (AP) courses. More students are taking AP classes every year but the number of students who “bomb the AP exams is growing even more rapidly” (Simon). This leads into the idea that students are not getting more intelligent than the previous classes, but simply that there is too much pressure on them to take these AP courses. Students in high school are being pressured too much to take advanced placement courses whether or not they are academically qualified for them.
The public high schools began a grading system as a way of telling an individual how they were performing. There was no interest by the public in reporting the school’s progress at teaching. Teachers, in an effort to recognize outstanding performers, looked for a way of rewarding hard-working students for their efforts The grading structure changed from superior and excellent to A’s and B’s. This placed much of the burden of recognizing academic talent on the high schools.
One change institutions should make to the grading system is to eliminate all factors that have noting to do with learning outcomes from affecting the students’ grade. According to the article, “Assessment of Learning Outcomes: What’s the difference?” written by Carnegie Mellon University, grades are often based on more than learning outcomes. Instructors usually include factors unrelated to learning outcomes such as attendance to class, participation, improvement and in some cases, grades are boosted a bit due to how hard the student is working.” These factors are