Stuart Rojstaczer's Where All Grades Are Above Average

Back in 1969 getting a C on a test or homework was an acceptable grade. However, as the days go by, it seems that getting a C is like having the “mark of Cain.” Why is that? A professor from Duke University and a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Stuart Rojstaczer, asked that same question. After doing his own research, he wrote the article “Where All Grades Are Above Average” which analyzes the phenomena that is commonly known as grade inflation in several universities and colleges. Rojstaczer explains, “the previous signs of academic disaster, the grades D and F, went by the wayside in the Vietnam era, when flunking out meant becoming eligible for the draft.” Many parts of the United States disagreed with the country’s involvement

with the war. Rojstaczer explains that, “at the University of Illinois, A’s constitute more than 40 percent of all grades and outnumber C’s by almost three to one.” He goes on to say, of all the grading at Pomona College receiving a C’s grade is less than 4 percent.

Being a professor himself, Rojstaczer admits that he is also guilty of grade inflation. Rojstaczer describes, “If I sprinkle my classroom with the C’s some students deserve, my class will suffer from declining enrollment in future years. Low enrollment is taken as a sign of poor-quality instruction.” The author describes the challenge that he has as a professor to students and dealing with the grade inflation. According to Rojstaczer, Grade inflation is everywhere and most everyone has experienced or had done it themselves. Even though Rojstaczer is guilty of committing grade inflation, he correspondingly realizes the problems that the system and the students will have in the

future.
As the author of the article, I believe that Rojstaczer makes a good stance on the argument of grade inflation.

Where I think that Rojstaczer loses his credibility is when he is going on and on about how bad grade inflation is affecting the colleges and Universities then proceeds to say that he commits grade inflation himself. This tells the audience that sure, it is wrong and certainly, it’s bad for everyone in the long term, but if “I” as a professor do not do it then I will be looked down on as a bad professor. As a college student, myself I don’t not want to see a C or especially anything lower on any of my grades it does upset me and may say that it’s because I have a teacher that grades to hard or some other justification of why it's not my fault. However, no matter how long it takes me, I always am the one that must change or my grade won’t. Instead of teaching students that lesson, the dishonesty grading that is in the classrooms, is teaching them that if they were an A student before then it is the teacher's fault if you’re not an A student now. Which I can’t imagine how difficult it can be from a professor in a college to grade honestly. I say that grade inflation has sadly become part of the status quo from elementary through college. Trying to change the present circumstances can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. I still believe that there are honest professors and teachers that grade fairly, yet frank. Nevertheless, after doing all his research Rojstaczer

knows the effects that grading dishonestly does in the long run and instead of altering himself, he claims that ‘there must be a transformation, but it is not going to be me.’ Personally, that is precisely lost most to all his credibility of this article. Another point against Rojstaczer’s credibility is when he talks about the beginning of the grade inflation and the status of it throughout different universities I think that having that information in a paper like this it needs to have some citations. As part of his audience I want to be able to fact check him and if I wanted to find out more about this topic he should point me in the right direction. Rojstaczer has a good topic and an understandable argument but I believe he lost his integrity so much that his audience don’t believe that it is a well written paper. When I say understandable argument, I mean that most everyone can relate or comprehend what Rojstaczer is trying to say.
Grade inflation is infesting our schools and spreading like a disease in the work force. It creates an invalid sense of intelligence. Instead of getting that lower grade and working on the weaknesses of someone’s work, they will receive the higher grade and thinking that one does not have those weaknesses to work on. This is not only a problem for the schools and universities this is a major problem for the society and training for the workforce. This begs the question, what is really being done about this by anyone. We just heard that professor himself knows about it but is not going to change.
So how many other know about it and haven’t changed? I have heard personal accounts of this epidemic from family member that was a fourth-grade teacher. As common belief, a child in the fourth-grade should be able to read and write, but in her class, a class of twenty-five children only ten students at the most could read or write. When grading her student’s papers if the parent were not satisfied or believe my child has received all A’s until her class so it must be her fault. Another dilemma she ran into, obviously noticing that her students were not ready to move on to the next grade, she had suggested to the school that many of them should be held back. Instead observing this problem, and agreeing with her, the school system stated that she could only hold five students back. This was in a lower grade level I can only imagine what it is like if they have gotten the whole way through primary, elementary, junior high and high school with kind of dishonest grading. College is supposed to be an upper level of learning, it is supposed to be hard. Sadly, colleges and universities are undertaking the same process.
I think that some professors are not grading to better the student’s skills but I believe that it is to better the student’s confidence. It surely will hurt a student’s confidence if they receive a poor score but it is hurting them more by not grading honestly and not properly preparing them for the workforce. I say it in terms, that colleges are to exceed one’s skill in a specific field and by grading to improve their confidence and not properly developing that skill then they will not be able to advance the way they could have if properly trained.