'Grade inflation' or good teaching?

Aug. 31—For the past two decades, education pundits and others have been worrying about what they say is the scourge of "grade inflation " in America's high schools.

Grade inflation is exactly what it says it is: the act of awarding an A to a student who might not necessarily be doing A work in class.

Since 2010, the collective grade point average of the nation's high school students has been on a steady rise.

That includes the time of COVID and the inevitable drop in reading and math scores that followed, as students were relegated to remote learning while their schools were shuttered for the duration.

If grade inflation means a higher GPA on the transcript — it may not be for the best, as a student turns a corner to life after graduation.

That's the takeaway from a report issued this week by ACT, the Iowa-based nonprofit organization that administers the college readiness exam of the same name.

Janet Godwin, the organization's CEO, sounded the alarm.

"While average GPAs have risen over the past 12 years across all core academic subjects, this has not corresponded with improvements in other measures of academic achievement — particularly in mathematics, " she said.

"We already knew that grade inflation is a persistent, systemic problem, common across classrooms, districts and states, " Godwin continued.

"We now know that grade inflation is happening across the entire curriculum, and is most pronounced for mathematics, as average grades have gone up at the same time as we have seen alarming declines in mathematics scores and other readiness measures."

Translation: "Less reliable grades will make it even more challenging for students to determine their next steps beyond high school, " she said.

Call it academic math, with the averages not adding up, the study's author Edgar Sanchez said.

More students receiving an A means less students earning B and C grades, said Sanchez, a senior research scientist with the organization.

Which means that GPA is no longer an effective guidepost or mile-marker, he said — especially for those high school seniors wishing to pursue higher education.

"This makes it more difficult to use GPA to understand students' academic achievement and preparation for college, " Sanchez said, echoing Godwin.

"Grade inflation is making grades a less reliable measure of how well a student is performing academically, and how prepared they are for future endeavors, including college, " the researcher continued.

His study, which spans 2010-22, shows math as the subject that benefited most from grade inflation, followed by science and English courses.

Visit act.org /content /dam /act /secured /documents /Evidence-of-Grade-Inflation-in-English-Math-Social-Studies-and-Science.pdf to view the report online.

Meanwhile, Monongalia County's school district traditionally outpaces its Mountain State neighbors in the grade book, and deputy superintendent Donna Talerico said she knows why.

While Mon Schools took a dive in math and reading scores during the pandemic like everyone else, she said, assessments are now on a steady upturn, as the county and the nation continue to come out from the shadows of the pandemic.

Talerico gave the breakdown on the district's first day of school last week.

"Back to school, face-to-face, " she said then. "It's all about good teaching and students being in their seats, in front of their teachers."