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Printer-Friendly ModeStandardized testing a way around grade inflation
October 29, 2007 —
To call America's educational system dysfunctional would be an extreme understatement. But to say that it doesn't do its job would be an oversimplification of an incredibly complex problem - are America's secondary and post-secondary institutions simply not doing anything?
Obviously this isn't the case. Teachers and professors often work very, very hard. Administrators work with what they have both in public and private institutions. Only cretins take advantage of the system, which is designed to do good.
But yet, there are deeply troubling issues with the system, and in higher education, grade inflation is chief among them. Grade inflation, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the tendency for professors to exaggerate student achievement, for any number of reasons. The problem affects all colleges from Saginaw to Stanford, so if you've personally experienced it (I have on a number of occasions, especially in general education classes), you're definitely not alone.
Grades are inflated for a number of reasons, but it's almost always an economic phenomenon. If professors issue too many failing grades, students won't take their classes, and their job will be in danger. If enrollment starts to dive, everyone's job is threatened, and college administrators might take extreme precautions to ensure that the students that are enrolled actually graduate. This problem is especially prevalent at state universities, who rely partially on enrollment and retention rates for state funding.
College graduates are worthless if they don't learn anything, or learn just enough to get by. But grade inflation is probably not going anywhere, since the pressures that encourage professors to inflate grades is really out of everyone's control. Kudos to those professors who make their grades mean something - you're valiantly fighting a losing battle against the market. But that doesn't mean that colleges can't value standards. There has to be a way to measure student learning in some tangible way, since grades are, unfortunately, untrustworthy. I've met some complete morons that are straight-A students; people who write like eighth-graders and analyze material as thoroughly as a dog analyzes a steak.
There is one possibility that some have considered, although many that work within the education industry are vehemently opposed to it: standardized tests.
Yes, yes, I know. Calm down. The tests that some schools are administering to gauge student learning are in fact far removed from the bad old days of fill-in-the-bubble objective questions.
The Collegiate Learning Assessment, a test devised at the federal level and administered by many colleges voluntarily, asks students to analyze documents and prepare a report or memo, in addition to other primarily written assignments. I find it highly unlikely than an educated individual could perform poorly, since the assessment tests very basic analytical skills.
Most critics of standardized testing object to it on the grounds that the learning of reading, writing and critical thinking skills depend on the discipline. Perhaps. But if that's the case, what does general education purport to do? And what, exactly, did I learn in high school?
And professors generally hate standardized testing because they perceive it as threatening the structure of their classes. It depends on the college how important these tests are, but they're clearly meant to assess the overall quality of education in an institution, not in any specific classroom. Hardly invasive, but such a response on the part of the faculty is expected, if reactionary.
Other critics insist that learning is too subjective of a process to measure. Get a grip. The newer tests, and the Collegiate Learning Assessment, in particular, aren't administered on a Scantron. They've been fine-tuned by scholars over a period of a decade, and measure skills that any educated person should possess - writing and critical thinking - via simple writing assignments.
Grades aren't telling us much. Aren't colleges a way of measuring students' progress? Are students actually picking up the skills they're paying for? Colleges (SVSU included) should begin administering some kind of standardized assessment to test the quality of their programs. The Collegiate Learning Assessment would be a fine choice.