ACT report says pandemic grade inflation hurt US high schoolers. But local data says Chicago students improved.
A report from American College Testing on grade inflation in high schools and college readiness among students across the county suggests that students today are less prepared for higher education than they were several years ago. But data from the University of Chicago about high schoolers who attended Chicago Public Schools says otherwise.
According to ACT, which administers the standardized ACT test for high schoolers, “grade inflation is when the assignment of grades does not align with content mastery.” ACT says a sign of grade inflation is when grades in high school don’t align with improved standardized test scores.
The report, released at the end of August, found grade point averages for high school students increased nationally between 2010 and 2022, along with grade inflation in math, science, English and social studies. Grade inflation was most present in 2020 and 2021, when many schools were operating remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and grade inflation happened more between 2018 and 2021 than in the eight years prior, according to the report.
In contrast, ACT composite scores were at the lowest average of the past decade in 2021, when more students were receiving A’s during that same time frame while the number of students getting B’s and C’s went down, the report showed.
Edgar Sanchez, lead research scientist at ACT, said an example of grade inflation is taking a student from about five years ago who had a high school GPA of 3.8 and “if we were somehow able to plot that student into 2022, they might now be scoring a 4.0.”
Students who leave high school with a GPA that does not represent their content mastery face negative consequences, Sanchez said, such as not being fully academically prepared for college coursework and being placed in a higher level class than what would actually be appropriate, leading a student to need extra support, which in turn could leave students feeling dissuaded or demoralized.
“High school GPA and standardized test scores kind of provide a check and balance for each other,” Sanchez said. “So it’s always nice to have more information about a student than less because we don’t want to demotivate the students and get them in a situation where they’re not going to do as well as they possible could, delay their degree progression, incur greater debt, all of these negative consequences that could come from the high school GPA not accurately representing their content mastery.”
Elaine Allensworth, executive director of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, said that while standardized test scores and grades don’t measure academic performance the same way, a high school GPA can actually be a stronger indicator of college performance and success.
Allensworth said college outcomes for students who graduated from a CPS high school have generally been on the uptick. According to UChicago’s To & Through Project research, college readiness has gotten better for students graduating from CPS high schools. It showed high school graduation rates were at their highest in 2022, and college enrollment rates have gone up, with enrollment rates at four-year colleges specifically the highest in 2022.
College completion rates have also increased over the last decade, she said. Not only are students finishing school at a higher rate than they were in years prior, but Allensworth said students are finishing school with higher achievement, such as higher grades in higher level coursework.
Sanchez said while the ACT report can reflect a national trend and “systemic” problems when it comes to grade inflation, context does come into play.
“We know that grading practices changed dramatically in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in response to the change in the mode of instruction,” he said. “Certain school districts and schools instituted more flexible grading policies meant to support students in a very challenging time.”
Alexa Bermudez, a senior at Disney II Magnet School in the Irving Park neighborhood, did the second half of eighth grade and her entire freshmen year of high school online because of lockdown. Although it was difficult for many students to start high school virtually, Bermudez said she thrived under the circumstances.
She added that her freshmen year was “much easier” in terms of how challenging the coursework was, in part because she felt teachers were “a lot more lenient” during remote learning.
Bermudez is in the process of applying to colleges and while she said she has a high GPA, she thinks her standardized test scores aren’t an accurate reflection of her ability.
“I’m a great example of, my grades are really good but I’m just not a good test taker,” she said. “I think all schools should be test-optional, and the majority of them are. I think for just one school I have to submit test scores but it’s fine because I feel like my grades and my essay will outweigh the score I got.”
Sanchez said with the onset of the pandemic and all the changes that have come to high school grading practices, the interpretability of high school GPAs comes under question.
“If everyone was kind of floating up at the same rate, it’s not really that big of a problem,” he said, “but it is a problem because not everybody is seeing grade inflation at the same rate.”
Though the ACT study found grade inflation affected all students, it didn’t occur at the same rates for all groups. ACT reported that while the rate of grade inflation was similar for students from all income groups, female students experienced more grade inflation in all four subjects and Black students saw the most grade inflation when compared with students from other racial and ethnic groups.
But schools with fewer students of color had higher rates of grade inflation than schools with more students of color, according to the report. And schools with a higher proportion of students with free or reduced lunch also experienced higher rates of grade inflation, the report said.
Vince Walsh-Rock is executive director of the Illinois School Counselor Association, which has over 1,600 K-12 school counselor members. He also worked as a school counselor for 25 years at Downers Grove South High School.
When he read the ACT report, Walsh-Rock said what he saw happening was “actually a good thing” in terms of grade inflation affecting students of color differently.
“I think school districts did really intentional things to open up equal access for students of color to come into advanced placement classes and to perform in high school,” Walsh-Rock said. “Obviously school counselors have a role in all of this. There’s been much more interventions in place across school counseling programs in different schools that really supports students in a way that mitigates the achievement gap.”
Sanchez said high school GPAs might hold more weight than ever before as more colleges make standardized test scores optional for applications. In Illinois, ACT and SAT testing became optional as of 2022.
Allensworth said its likely students and schools are now spending less time preparing for standardized tests and more time on curriculum, which could contribute to higher school grades and lower test scores.
She said there have also been “some major shifts in schools,” from broader societal and cultural changes to the kinds of classes students are taking and even the fact that students’ coursework is “much more rigorous now than it was 10 years ago.”
“Classes have gotten harder in general, but also students tend to be getting much more support than they used to get,” Allensworth said. “Especially if you look at CPS.”
Debora Land, whose youngest daughter is a senior at Jones College Prep in the South Loop, said they’ve been “thick in the college application process.” While her older two daughters went to high school outside of Illinois, Land said she is able to compare the different eras of education her family experienced.
She said the dependence on technology has definitely changed in schools, with students learning more from a computer now than in years past. She also said she’s found that the “intensity and depth of subject matter is much, much deeper” for her youngest daughter.
“There’s been what I would call a knowledge compression, and they’re pushing more content earlier in the educational career,” Land said. “Things that you might have seen as a college student are now routinely in high school classes, at least in the high school my daughter attends. It’s a very different pace.”
Land said her daughter knows she has had to work hard to maintain her grades and is “well prepared” for college. But Land isn’t sure the playing field is necessarily even.
“As test scores become optional and students only submit grades for college applications, are we sure that students at under-resourced schools getting A’s and B’s had the same comparable training to students getting A’s and B’s at well-resourced schools? It’s a bit concerning.”
The goal of the report from ACT, Sanchez said, is to get information into the hands of decision-makers and stakeholders who can make any necessary changes.
“We have evidence that this is actually happening, and we want to encourage that conversation through dissemination of findings so the ones that are closest to the actual educational practices can then interpret the findings and drill down into their state and in their districts and then in their schools,” Sanchez said.
