dumbing down/grade inflation

[RTHolmes]

its exam results time again in the UK, and as usual practically everyone is saying that exams are getting easier. and as usual theres just a couple of teachers and education ministers saying that there is no dumbing down, and that improvements in teaching methods are the reason for better results.

I think the following data speaks for itself (even though the people responsible for our children's education apparently cant read a graph) ...



is this just in the UK or is this going on everywhere else?

[Maverick]

The graph doesn't prove or disprove the premise at all. It just shows the number of "A's" given during the time period, not if they were "earned" or "given away".

From my limited classroom teaching experiance I can say that I lean to the given away side of the arguement. There is far far too much emphasis on "social promotion" and not enough on results for work provided.

[68ZooM]

In our school system they start all the kids off with A's and its up to the to keep them, where ever there grade ends up at the end of the semester is what they receive, at the start of the new semester again they start with A's, WTF happened to earning your grade, no wonder the kids are so clueless in todays world.

[Tac]

not getting easier? BS.

Test systems have changed from written form to multiple choice & 'find the key word to guess the right answer' format.

[dkff49]

In our school system they start all the kids off with A's and its up to the to keep them, where ever there grade ends up at the end of the semester is what they receive, at the start of the new semester again they start with A's, WTF happened to earning your grade, no wonder the kids are so clueless in todays world.

This is a very funny statement to me.

I had a teacher used to tell us the same thing. The fact is this is a play on words.

At the beginning of any semester you do have an A. You have the max amount of points possible (0 out of 0 points has been achieved). This used to be a running joke with this particular teacher who also had a great sense of humor but could also get very angry when the time called for it.

[bozon]

It happens everywhere including universities. It is definitely not better teaching or brighter students and it is easy to prove. One of my professors recycled and old exam form in physics1 course from 15 years ago - the result was a huge failures rate and an outcry for an "unfair" exam. The problem is that teachers get less and less backup if the grades do not meet some expected (ever rising) standard. In that case it is always the teacher's fault, either by poor teaching or by making exams "too difficult". The authorities even encourage this so they can boast improved statistics. It is said that if you tie a donkey to a tree inside a university campus and wait 4 years, it will come out an engineer.

I the case of universities, the entry requirements keep dropping in recent decades. The increased number of students does not maintain the mean student level - the good student has always came to the university, the "extra" students come from the bottom of the stack, so the average level decreases.

[RTHolmes]

someone did a similar study here a couple of years ago, gave a few classes A-Level Maths papers from the early '80s. unsurprisingly they resulted in the same distribution of grades the same schools achieved in the '80s.

apparently alot of the current "A students" were a bit miffed that they had only been scored Cs and Ds ...


edit: worryingly (and rather ironically) Maths is the subject which has been grade-inflated the worst. Last year 45% of Maths candidates were awarded As. 45%!!!

starting this year the A* grade has been introduced above the A grade. I cant help thinking that the education department has hired this guy to consult:


it goes up to 11 ...

[sluggish]

According to my wife that graph represents how much smarter the kids are today...