Hi there. In this education post, I cover the topic of grade inflation and when teachers give bad students a passing grade.
Grade Inflation
Grade inflation is where a student's given grade is higher than it should be. An extreme case would be given an A for a student in grade 9 high school math but the student cannot add numbers together. Another example would be giving out A grades for English students who cannot read. Students may be happy in getting good grades but their actual ability may not reflect that grade.
I do think that grade inflation can occur in the lower grades, high school and even in university. In one of my abstract math courses, I don't think I did well on the final exam. After seeing my professor, he showed me my final exam being corrected and graded on a curve. I got more points on the test out of no where in which it increased my score and grade. I might have got a B+ final grade in the end in which I did not feel I should have. At the lower level grades, bonus marks may be given if a test is too hard.
Some teachers may face pressure in giving higher grades. There may be targets set by the school administrators on passing rates and acceptable class averages. There may be some parents who get angry at teachers if their child does not get A+ every time. There are teachers who give high grades to avoid criticism from demanding parents. For me, I am not a fan of teachers giving easy grades and I am not a fan of demanding parents. Some parents are unreasonable with their expectations. An A grade or punishment, doctor or bust and other related expectations.
Failing Students Given Passing Grades
Another grade inflation example is where students are given passing grades when they should have failed the grade. If there is no failure in a course then why would a student try? One example would be passing a grade 5 student in math when the student cannot add, subtract or multiply. In the Toronto area, it is expected that a grade 5 student should know add, subtract, multiply by grade 3. In this case, this type of student would not meet the math standard to progress to grade 4 or 5.
The motivation behind this post was based on this Zerohedge article. Here is one part of the article.
The student, Aleysha Ortiz, graduated from Hartford Public Schools in the spring of 2024 with honors.
She earned a scholarship to attend the University of Connecticut, where she’s studying public policy. But while she was in high school, she had to use speech-to-text apps to help her read and write essays, and despite years of advocating for support for her literacy struggles, her school never addressed them.
Her story is shocking, but unfortunately, it isn’t isolated. At 24 Illinois public schools, not a single student can read at grade level. Nationwide, 54 percent of the American adult population reads at or below a sixth grade level. Put a different way: only 46 percent of American adults gained even a middle-school level mastery of literacy—let alone high school or collegiate levels.
It sounds like the education system is flawed in the mentioned areas. The part that disturbs me is that there has been advocacy for support for improving literacy but the school never addressed them for Aleysha Ortiz. Is this school system not really teaching students on purpose? Could easy passes be given out just to get people to pay for overpriced programs in colleges & universities in the USA and Canada? Hmm.
In the long term, I don't think it is good to give easy passes to those who don't meet standards. You are setting them up for bigger failure in the future. For some professions and careers, a certain level of skill and expertise is needed. As one example, you would not want a certified chef who on paper got good certifications but cannot use a chopping board. Instead of misleading students, it is better to filter out the ones who don't meet standards early. If the students failed, they can try again and improve or do something else.
Thank you for reading.