Bryan Goodwin
Research Says
Grade Inflation: Killing with Kindness?
Students and
their parents
In the 1880s, Harvard University adopted a new approach to evaluating student work that would sweep the United States and become
inflation rather than an increase in achievement
(Woodruff & Ziomek, 2004).
n Nearly twice as many high school students
as integral a part of the education landscape
reported earning an A or A- average in 2006
should expect
as blackboards, number 2 pencils, and yellow
than in 1992 ( 32. 8 percent versus 18. 3 percent)
buses: the letter grade. Just one decade later,
(Twenge & Campell, in press).
high school
though, some Harvard professors were already
n In 2007, two federal reports found that the
grousing that “in the present practice Grades
performance of U.S. high school students on
grades to serve
A and B are sometimes given too readily—
the reading portion of the National Assessment
Grade A for work of no very high merit, and
of Educational Progress (NAEP) had declined
as reliable
Grade B for work not far above mediocrity”
between 1992 and 2005, even though students
(Lewis, 2006, p. 115). They
reported getting higher
benchmarks
by which
erable institution, Harvard’s
degree would be “seriously
cheapened” (p. 115).
Hand-wringing about
grade inflation has con-
tinued ever since. The fact
that so many people could
worry about the same phe-
nomenon for so long makes
grades (GPAs rose from
(Schmidt, 2007).
Are Concerns
Overblown?
fretted that if the outside
world knew what kind of
2. 68 in 1990 to 2.98 in
“sham work” passed for
2005) and taking tougher
high marks at the ven-
classes (the percentage of
to measure
students who said they took
college-preparatory classes
students’
rose from 5 to 10 percent)
readiness for
college.
Some critics dismiss such
data because the studies rely
one wonder whether the
on students self-reporting
concerns are grounded in reality or are merely
their grades to test makers. As Alfie Kohn
generational grumblings about the declining
(2002) writes, “self-reports are notoriously
standards of youth.
Not Your Parents’ A?
unreliable” (p. B7). Translation: Higher grades
might simply reflect students becoming more
“truth challenged” than in the past. ACT,
Recent data have a new generation of critics
worrying that today’s high school grades may
however, has compared self-reported grades
with school transcripts and found the grades
not be what they once were:
to be “sufficiently accurate” for use in research
Bryan Goodwin is
n Between 1991 and 2003, the mathematics
(Sawyer, Laing, & Houston, 1988).
vice president of
grades of high school students taking the ACT
Others argue, though, that our real concern
communications,
exam rose from a grade point average of 2.80
shouldn’t be whether today’s grades are more
McREL, Denver,
to 3.04, whereas their average scores on the
lax (perhaps the grades of yesteryear unfairly
Colorado; goodwin@
math portion of the ACT rose only slightly, from
discriminated against students), but whether
mcrel.org. He is the
author of Simply
20.04 to 20. 55 on a 36-point scale. Similarly,
they inaccurately assess student learning. In
Better: What Matters
average English grades rose from a grade point
fact, there’s some evidence that good marks in
Most to Change the
average of 3.04 to 3. 29, whereas ACT English
high school may not represent the imprimatur
Odds for Student
scores nudged up from 20. 22 to 20. 44. ACT
of college preparedness that we expect.
Success (ASCD, 2011).
concluded that the higher GPAs reflected grade
In Oregon, trained reviewers analyzed the
