The Negative Effects Of Grade Inflation

The Negative Effects Of Grade Inflation Grades have always been disputable and have caused controversies; whether they are fair or not; whether they represent students’ knowledge or not; whether there are other alternatives that can be used instead of them. However, I believe nobody has come up with better solutions than the five letters grade system. A major issue is that has appeared in recent years related to grades is the so –called grade inflation. It means an escalating boost of grades for effort that would have received lower grades in the past. Grade inflation happens for variety of reasons, and it leads to several negative consequences. Grade inflation has negative effects on people and society because it leads to problems, such as unprepared students ending up in difficult classes, students becoming overconfident and procrastinating, and most importantly. If the majority of college graduates are straight A students, there will be no standards for industries to recruit employees. As a result of grade inflation, some students face difficult time in college because they don’t have the necessary background to complete the course. According to Enrico Uva (2012) in his article “The Causes and Consequences of Grade Inflation”, one of the negative effects of grade inflation is that students who have mediocre or average ability in their course work end up placed in advanced classes, which leads to frustration in both students and teachers. Students can hardly keep up with the difficult tasks, and this can make them demotivated, lower their self-esteem, increase hatred towards the particular subject, and eventually will force them to drop the class or fail it. Moreover, Professor Alicia Shepard (2005) in her article “A’s for Everyone ” believes that students, who have earned undeserved A’s in secondary school, will be facing hard time when they enroll in college. In addition, grade inflation is not fair for students who work really hard and get B’s compared to students who don’t put efforts and get A’s. For example, when I was in high school, my history teacher was very strict and he demanded a lot from us to get a B. Earning an A was almost impossible. On the other hand, my friend’s history teacher was very lenient and he gave almost the whole class an A at the end of the year. As a result, when I went to college, I was doing excellently in my history class, while my friend was struggling and had to take additional tutoring to keep up with the lectures. Grade inflation has bad effects on students because if students used to earn A easily, they will not learn any things; and they will face hard time with difficult classes because of their learning skills limitations. Students who do not deserve an A, yet receive this grade especially at the beginning of the semester, become over confident and lose interest in the subject. They stop studying and learning, thinking that they have managed to get the highest grade, which leads to procrastination. Uva (2012) mentions in his article that “if all is made easy, the students is never obliged make adjustment to life curve balls, and they are not redirected to a more suitable or remedial avenue ” (Para.2). So, if students used to get A without challenge themselves, there is no achievement. Also if students expect easy classes with easily earned grades, the education will not be stimulating for students. According to Shepard (2005), students who procrastinate and then work hard only on the night before the exam will not learn the material. Some students believe that studying hard on the night before the test is enough because they are used to the lenient grade system. However, after they get accepted to college, they have high expectations for their grades, and they are shocked and complain if they receive anything lower than an A. Shepard article (2005) she mentions that her students who were relentless. In the spring semester, they showed up at her office to argue their grades and she reviewed their papers and boost their grades. The students asked her to retake tests that they didn’t do well on. In this day and age, education has become more of a business, which results in grade inflation. Shepard (2005) states that in her article “there’s consumerism, ... Pure and simple, tuition at a privet college runs, on average, nearly $28,000 a year ”(p460). Students’ parents who pay a high tuition have high expectation and they refuse to accept less than A’s for their children. But students and their parents don’t realize the problem and they think if their children get A’s in all subjects and graduate with high GPA, they will find a good job and will have a great future. In fact, students and their parents are wrong because the one of the most negative effects of grade inflation is that when most of the students have a GPA of 4.0, it is very difficult for companies to hire employees because they have no foundation for hiring. This leads to industries having to create subjective interviews, additional testing, etc. This leads to people experiencing unnecessary stress and anxiety over the hiring process. Uva(2012) mentions that in his article “when the majority of specialty college program and university graduates get A’s industry has little basis for hiring someone ” (para.4). For example when I was working in the bank in my country we used to hire people with high GPA but then we realized there grades had been inflated because their knowledge was not sufficient. Contrary to the opinions of Uva and Shepard, author Alfie Kohon, in his article “The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation” believes that “ the real threat to excellent isn’t grade inflation at all it is grade ” (2002). He refuses the fact that grades have been inflating in recent years, and claims “contrary to the widespread lamentations, grades actually decline slightly in the last tow decades.”(para ,5). He believes that even if the grades have increasing overtime it doesn’t mean that the grads are inflated. Kohon believes one of the reasons maybe increasing the grades that students are put better efforts in their assignments or the instructors become fairer with students then before.in addition, he states that the system of education is change overtime, so it’s hard to compare different of period time. However, if the grads are not inflated as kohon believes the question is why students who graduate from high school with high GPA they ending up in difficult classes, which make some of them, fail the classes. Students used to get A with less efforts and they are shocked when they enrolled in hard classes because they unprepared and their learning skills less than college expectations. All in all, students are facing constant grade inflation which means are being rewarded for something they have not learned. Students have forgotten that there are five letters to the grading system, and they will not settle for anything less than an A. Shepard claims that the reason for this phenomenon dates back to the Vietnam War and other events of the 20th century (Shepard, 2005). Some say that the major reason for grade inflation is parents who “have the monotonous expectation that their children will become university graduates (Uva ,2012). It is also possible that one of the reasons could be consumerism, and that colleges have become businesses where the teachers work for the student and students and their parents ask for A’s all the time with out knowing they affect the industry and companies when they want to hire workers, which lead the industry to do a lot of tests and interviews to choose the qualified employees. In addition, education is losing the value of learning with grade inflation, because education becomes about the grades and it’s not about knowing and learning. Whatever the cause, this tendency does not seem to be going away in the near future, and brings nothing but negative results in the way students learn.

References Kohn, A. (2002). “The Dangers Myth of Grade Inflation”. http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/gi.htm. Shepard, A. (2011). “A’s for everyone ”. In G.Goshgarian&K.
Krueger. (eds) Dialogues (PP.457-462). United State:Pearson.
Uva, E. (2012).” The Causes And Consequences Of Grade Inflation”. http://www.science20.com/chemical_education/causes_and_consequences_grade_inflation-90781

References: Kohn, A. (2002). “The Dangers Myth of Grade Inflation”. http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/gi.htm. Shepard, A. (2011). “A’s for everyone ”. In G.Goshgarian&K. Krueger. (eds) Dialogues (PP.457-462). United State:Pearson. Uva, E. (2012).” The Causes And Consequences Of Grade Inflation”. http://www.science20.com/chemical_education/causes_and_consequences_grade_inflation-90781