I have taught at George Washington University for 35 years, and I always read the anonymous reviews we get from students. This spring, one student wrote that the course I offer in feature writing — really storytelling — was the “hardest and the best” class they had taken in college.
I thought about that student when Harvard, my alma mater, recently adopted a major overhaul of its grading system, limiting A’s to 20 percent of each class. The superior students, emphasizes the new policy, the ones who embrace the challenge of high expectations and standards, should be recognized.
“This is a consequential vote,” said Amanda Claybaugh, Harvard’s dean of undergraduate education. “It will, I believe, strengthen the academic culture of Harvard; it will also, I hope, encourage other institutions to confront similar questions with the same level of rigor and courage.”
The debate over grade inflation comes at a time when faith in higher education has plummeted. In 2013, an NBC poll found that 53 percent of respondents considered college “worth the cost.” Today, that figure has sunk to 33 percent, and while universities resent and reject President Donald Trump’s unhinged and unfair campaign against them, they would be foolish to ignore his impact.
At Yale, which is also considering a serious revision of grading standards, the school’s president, Maurie McGinnis, wrote: “Raising the bar for ourselves will also raise trust in our university.”
The numbers are stunning. At Harvard, during the past academic year, about two-thirds of undergraduate letter grades were A’s. Only a decade earlier, that figure was 35 percent. Historically, only one or two graduating seniors compiled a perfect record of straight A’s in every class. Last year, 55 students hit that mark.
Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychology professor and fierce critic of grade inflation, cheered the university’s decision to The New York Times: “Grade inflation forced a race to the bottom in which any professors who held the line with challenging material and standards would see their enrollments plummet. It turned universities into national laughingstocks.”
Two Harvard economists, Jason Furman and David Laibson, added in a Times essay: “Easy A’s are a problem for a whole lot of reasons. They reduce the incentive to learn, which means that students leave college with less knowledge and fewer skills. They make it hard for truly exceptional students to stand out from their merely successful peers.”
As a teacher I have wrestled with this problem for years. I’m known as a tough grader, and I’m proud of it. I checked my class record for this spring against Harvard’s new standards, which allow any professor to add four A’s on top of the 20 percent cutoff. In my feature writing class of 17, I gave out seven A’s, the maximum allowed; in my other class of 17, focusing on media and politics, there were only three A’s, well below the limit.
When you get an A in one my classes, you know you’ve earned it.
But there are downsides to my approach: Some students avoid my classes, and others complain that I grade too harshly. At 83, I don’t have to worry about my career prospects, but younger teachers up for promotion cannot afford low enrollments or ratings.
I know the argument that if an A is the norm, mental stress accelerates as students struggle to reach that level. But the reverse can be true: I worry that curbing the number of top grades can introduce an unhealthy level of competition into a delicate ecosystem.
Classrooms work best when students see themselves as part of a learning community, a cooperative effort to ask questions, debate and develop skills. No good teacher wants to pit students against each other.
Plus, there’s the problem of subjectivity. I am not grading exams in math or other subjects where there is a clear right or wrong answer. Even the most open-minded professor brings personal experiences and preferences to the grading process. We’re human, after all.
And so are our students. They are not the same. I think of grades as teaching tools, at least during the semester. Some students need a pat on the back with a good grade while others need a kick in the pants with a low one.
Actually, I’d prefer not to give grades at all. I provide lengthy written feedback on every assignment submitted by my students, and reducing my judgment to a label often seems unsatisfying and unfair. But if we’re going to give grades, they should mean something. They should encourage, and reward, excellence.
Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. Contact at stevecokie@gmail.com.
