The devil is in the details

Two years ago, this page supported Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel's grade deflation policy in principle. We did so because we believed that this new system, if implemented properly, would lead to fairer and more honest evaluations of students' course work. But our support was based on certain conditions: first, that the grading quotas would be applied on a department-by-department, rather than a course-by-course, basis; second, that grading standards would be clear to students and uniform within departments; and third, that there be a strong effort to ensure uniform grading standards within different precepts of the same course. Malkiel repeatedly assured skeptics that all of these conditions would be implemented along with the new grade quotas. But it has become increasingly clear that though the University has been quite successful in depressing grades, it has failed thus far to promote the equity that made its proposal attractive in the first place.

We are particularly discouraged by much of the material revealed by Monday's 'Prince' article "At two, grading policy confronts growing pains." It found that some professors continue to award fewer A's than they feel students deserve in an effort to conform to the new policy. Others have awarded students their deserved grades but only after conferring with Malkiel. The allocation of A's was not meant to be decided by Malkiel but within the departments themselves. This top-down approach is emblematic of a system which is far less flexible than it should be.

We are also disturbed to find that, while some departments, like history, have established uniform grading criteria, many others have not. Frequently, students are not provided with any guide explaining which level of performance on class assignments warrants which grades. Grading standards should be provided in every course. Furthermore, many departments have not taken proactive steps to establish uniformity within their courses, much less between them. A student might receive not only a different grade than a friend doing equivalent work in another course, but also a different grade than a friend in the same course. Course instructors need to do a better job of ensuring that papers, exams and other assignments are being graded uniformly across precepts. Improving communication between instructors and preceptors and grading tests by questions rather than by test are two effective ways of implementing this idea.

We do not mean to suggest that full reform will be easy, but until it is attempted, the promise of Malkiel's plan will remain unfulfilled.