Grade Inflation

In his article, Stuart Rojstaczer focuses on a common problem andissue that has affected the current education system, making it less effective in producing competent and qualified professionals. In the contemporary world, the education system has been converted to be like any other industries that have been filled with competition, and where the main focus is given to the quantity to achieve economies of scale rather than quality to achieve satisfaction. The teachers in most schools are more concerned with pleasing the parents and the students by awarding them good marks with the aim of building a reputation for themselves thereby attracting many more admissions to increase their profitability margins. Grade inflation has led to the loss of quality as well as proficiency in the current world, as the students and graduates are less equipped with valuable content as required to make them competent professionals.

To start with, grade inflation as referred to in the article refers to an act of grade leniency, whereby teachers and schools award students higher grades as compared to their abilities. It also refers to the tendency of assigning progressively higher academic grades, thereby making a specific academic work that could have received lower grades to higher grades. This essay is based on factual data comparisons where the researcher took the time to compare different schools and came with their grading data and figures before comparing them to the past grades. Rojstaczer(2009), further developed a website where the audience can conveniently find the data that was used in the research as a way of enhancing and promoting transparency. In his research, he realized that grades have been on the rise ever since the 1960s, but they had leveled up for a while in 1970s.

According to the article, grades have continued to rise regardless of the quality of education that has been given to the students. Grade inflation has helped schools of higher learning in America as well as most parts of the world to achieve higher average grades since the students are awarded more marks as they could have deserved in the past. Private schools are the leading institutions that are characterized by grade inflation, and their rates are so high to the extent that the A’s are the average grades.

The effect of grade inflation is that the quality of college life and learning at large has been adversely affected. According to the author, when the students have a confirmation that they are entitled to a higher grade by the time they are entering a class, they only give minimal effort (Rojstaczer, 2009).The effects are that the classrooms today are just full of students who are less prepared for class. An even worse result is that the students have developed drinking habits since they have a lot of free time and they don’t have any positive engagements. According to research, most students in the current century spend approximately less than ten studying hours a week. Such a figure contrasted to that of around 40 years ago when students spent as much as 20 hours in a week studying(Rojstaczer, 2009). Considering the fact that the students have only a few hours that are filled with learning, they spend most of their remaining time looking for pleasurethrough such ways as drinking. The consequences are that the schools have ended up giving out alcohol and drug addicts as compared to the expected prolific and competent professionals.Such implications increase the need for responding to such changes, and the issue of grade inflation requires an urgent response, which some people think and argue that it cannot be achieved.

Throughout the article, the writer has been able to continually emphasize facts whereby the article continuously states the name of institutions and has further capitalized on figures thereby making the article easier to believe. The issue of grade inflation has been witnessed across the world and the article focusses on emphasizing on the same, as well as creating awareness on the need to consider any valuable and significant change that could be applied to solve suchan issue as grade inflation. By stating the adverse implications that are associated with grade inflation, the article emphasizes the need for an urgent reformation and change.

In conclusion, the article has been able to perfectly capture the issue of grade inflation, which is its main focus and has further been able to convince why there is a high need to reconsider the matter. Grade inflation is a real issue that has affected almost every part of the world, where schools promise their students high grades through grade leniency which ends up raising their total average performance. However, even though such grade inflation has led to students achieving good grades, there is more harm than good since the professionals that are developed by such institutions are lazy and incompetent, lacking quality content and even contributing to the rising number of alcohol and drug addicts in the society today.

Works Cited

Rojstaczer, Stuart. “Grade Inflation Gone Wild.” The Christian Science Monitor, 24 Mar. 2009, www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2009/0324/p09s02-coop.html.

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