Summary Of The Dangerous Myth Of Grade Inflation

Everyone has had to deal with grades at some point in their life. Currently several faculty members and administrators across America are apparently in an uproar over grade inflation. In order for us to have a clear understanding on what grade inflation really is, we must know what it means. Grade inflation is an artificial increase of average grades systematically over a short period of time. According to a newspaper article in The Boston Globe, grade inflation is a serious problem in higher levels of education (Kohn 153). However, Alfie Kohn, author of “The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation,” has a different take in the matter of grade inflation and strongly disagrees with many claims about it. Throughout his essay, he brings to light to

In “The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation,” he evaluates the existence of grade inflation and provides strong statistical evidence in order to prove his opposition. At the beginning of his essay he provides quotes from Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield and Harvard’s Committee on Raising the Standard to illustrate that even top elite schools believe that grade inflation is a serious problem in our education. He then goes on to inform the readers that after investigating the topic, there is little data to support such claims that grade inflation is a problem. This is because many of the reports that have created self-reports and simply unreliable. He then moves forward by comparing SAT scores with grade, which is examined by “Evaluation and the Academy: Are We Doing the Right Thing,” a report that was announced by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (155-157). Kohn then transitions by providing four assumptions that seem to the threaten grade inflation. In his conclusion he states, “The relevant research is to arrive at one overriding conclusion: The real threat to excellence isn’t grade inflation at all; it’s

He begins his essay with data and quotes from one of the elite colleges in the nation, Harvard University. By doing this he counter arguers to his audience that grade inflation has actually been decreasing over the years rather than rising. Kohn states in his essay, “Even where grades are higher now as compared with then, that does not constitute proof that they are inflated. The burden rests with critics to demonstrate that those higher grades are undeserved, and one can cite any number of alternative explanations” (155). He then goes on to list these alternatives such as; better assignments are being turned in, more lenient teachers, lighter course loads, and so on. He puts the cherry on the cake when he boldly says, “The bottom line: No one has ever demonstrated that students today get A’s for the same work used to receive B’s or C’s. We simply do not have the data to support such a claim” (155). By stating this Kohn makes it very clear to the readers that these critics are wrong because of the mediocre data that they have to support their claims. Another instance where Kohn uses sound reasoning is after he writes about the Henry Rosovsky, senior author of “Evaluation and the Academy: Are We Doing the Right Thing?” Rosovsky believes, “Students couldn’t possibly deserve higher grades [because] … SAT scores have dropped during the same period that grades are suppose to