I recently heard a news report about the push to change how teachers grade their students’ work from a points-based system to a standard-based evaluation. Part of the ideas behind this push for “equity” in grading includes allowing retakes for tests, multiple revisions for essays, and eliminating behavioral considerations such as late work and absences as part of grades.

A couple of years ago, North Carolina public schools mostly deserted the seven-point grading scale used since I rode a dinosaur to school and carved my homework in stone. Most schools use a 10-point scale, so the lowest passing grade is 60 – not 70. 

One argument was the 10-point scale meshed more closely to the college grading scale. However, I know that many college nursing classes use a seven-point scale.

Believe it or not, the trend toward grade inflation and watering down requirements began at the college level. Mark Horowitz, Anthony L. Haynor, and Kenneth Kickham investigated what most of us would call the dumbing down of education. In doing so, they focused on large state universities of average selectivity and focused on departments of English, sociology, and math. They received 223 responses to their questionnaire from tenured faculty. They found:

• Forty-eight percent of tenured faculty agree that grade inflation is a serious problem, versus 21 percent who disagree.

• Forty-seven percent agree that academic standards have declined recently, versus 27 percent who disagree.

• Thirty-seven percent admit to routinely inflating grades.

• Thirty-three percent confess to reducing the rigor of their courses over the years.

I spent many years of my teaching career trying to develop a consistent method for grading. I used the seven-point scale at the high school level, and for my college classes, I used the 10-point scale. I made assignments as concrete as possible. I developed grading rubrics so students would know which skills I expected them to demonstrate.

When I gave written assignments, I allowed students to submit their papers to me for preliminary critique before the essay was due. We also did peer review in class using a check sheet I developed for each type of paper. A narrative is not the same type of writing as a process analysis or a persuasive essay.

When I finished grading tests or essays, I analyzed the grades to discover the average and median grades. I knew I had graded the work properly if the average grade was a mid-range C. I also allowed students to revise an essay after I graded it to regain up to half the points they lost, so a 70 on a paper could potentially become an 85.

(I cannot tell you the number of students I had in high school who came back to Farmville Central and told me their college English class was easier than my English II class.)

If a student ran into difficulty preventing them from turning in work on time, I granted extensions if they let me know ahead of time. However, I was not so gracious if the student just showed up without an essay or skipped school on the test day. Being responsible is a life skill I felt the need to reinforce.

College students are notorious for “killing off” grandparents. I think the record was the students who – throughout the semester – had six grandparents pass away. Well, that’s what the student told me. I had no qualms about asking for a copy of the obituaries to verify.

We must find a balance that sets up ways for students to succeed without cutting corners. We should not allow behaviors and accept shoddy work that we know people outside of school will not accept or tolerate.

We must foster responsibility and accountability in the next generation.

Mike Parker is a columnist for the Neuse News. You can reach him at mparker16@gmail.com.