by Steffani Carerra ‘14

High school grades, particularly GPAs, have long been an important aspect of the college admissions process; however, as a steady trend of increasingly higher grades among students continues, speculation rises as to whether these grades are truly an accurate indication of a student’s knowledge.

Grade inflation, or receiving higher grades for work that has remained at a constant level of rigor, is an increasingly significant problem in high schools nationwide. While many teachers agree that this trend occurs at Sherwood, there are various explanations as to the cause of the problem.

“Homework completion is, by default, grade inflation,” commented social studies teacher Beth Shevitz. “Giving students points for simply completing an assignment is automatically boosting their grades.” According to MCPS policy, 10 percent of a student’s overall grade must come from completion assignments where students are awarded points based not on achievement or comprehension of a concept, but on whether they completed the homework assignment.

Social studies resource teacher Christine McKeldin agrees that completion assignments are an easy way to raise a grade that is not necessarily justified. “I don’t like giving grades for completion because I often feel that when I do, I am rewarding students for what they’re supposed to be doing,” said McKeldin.

Another possible explanation for higher grades is an unintentional lack of awareness in regard to assignments’ point values. “Teachers may not be applying point values that correlate with purpose. For example, a take-home test may have the same point value as a test taken in class, even though they carry different weights,” explained McKeldin.

Others feel the rise in grades can be attributed to the high number of assignments graded per quarter. “There are so many formative grades that in some classes it ends up making each [formative] assignment less significant,” explained English resource teacher Shelley Jackson. “A student is able to receive very poor grades on a couple of formative assignments without it having a significant impact on his or her grade. If we had fewer grades per quarter, I think the overall grade would be a more accurate reflection of the student’s knowledge.”

Despite the different theories about the cause of the inflation, all can agree that this trend exists at Sherwood. Data for the first semester in the core subjects of math and English indicate a higher than expected percentage of students receiving As and Bs. The semester final grade serves as the best representation of overall student performance in a particular class as it encompasses both marking period grades as well as the semester final exam. This year, 18.9 percent of English students received an A for their final semester grade, 43.7 percent received a B, 26.3 percent received a C, 9.3 percent received a D, and 1.8 percent failed the semester. The grade breakdown for math classes is similar: 19.0 percent of students received an A, 30.2 percent received a B, 31.7 percent received a C, 14.4 percent received a D, and 4.7 percent failed.

The grade distribution toward high grades is just as pronounced in honors and AP classes, where it is common for roughly half of students to receive an A or B for their semester final grade. In some classes, the percentage of high grades can approach 75 percent. Of the 314 students who take AP Language and AP Literature, for example, 23.6 percent received an A for the first semester and 51.3 percent received a B.

Such a high percentage of As and Bs stands in stark contrast to the method of grading on a curve, in which assigning grades is designed to yield a pre-determined distribution of grades among the students in a class. This method is based on the belief that a grade of C truly represents the “average” for the class. Therefore, approximately 70 percent of the students should get a C, with as few as five percent of students receiving an A in the class.

“The problem is Cs and Bs used to be okay, but now, because we know the way people from the outside will be viewing it … we’re more reluctant to give out Cs … We know what kind of work it is but a college is going to look at it as below average,” said science teacher Mary Baker. While grade inflation may seem beneficial for students, it actually results in lasting negative consequences. As more students receive higher grades, the grade distribution grows more crowded at the top, leading many school systems, such as MCPS, to refrain from releasing class rank. Withholding this information makes it harder for a college to find meaningful distinctions between applicants, which is detrimental to a student’s chances of getting in.

As grades become less reliable, the emphasis on standardized testing increases as it is a form in which all students are judged by the same criteria. Additionally, any schools without grade inflation are penalizing their students by giving them lower grades in comparison to students at other schools even though the students may be performing at the same level, or an even higher one.