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Virginia Parents Fight for Easier Grading Standards

32 mins ago
To the grade-grubbers go the spoils. And the grade-grubbers in this case are rabble-rousing parents in Virginia's Fairfax County. Residents of the high-powered Washington suburb have been battling the district's tough grading practices; chief among their complaints is that scoring a 93 gets recorded as a lowly B+. After forming an official protest group last year called Fairgrade and goading the school board into voting on whether to ease the standards, parents marshaled 10,000 signatures online and nearly 500 in-person supporters to help plead their case on Jan. 22. After two hours of debate, the resolution passed, a move critics consider a defeat in the war on grade inflation.

At most schools in the U.S., a 90 earns you an A, but in Fairfax County, getting the goods demands a full 94. Merely passing is tougher, too, requiring a 64 rather than a 60. Nor do students get much help clearing those high bars if they take tougher courses. Compared to the kind of GPA "weighting" many districts give for Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses, Fairfax County's half-point boost is peanuts. The upshot, protestors say, is that Fairfax kids are at a disadvantage on multiple fronts: snagging good-driver insurance discounts (which often factor in GPA), earning NCAA eligibility, winning merit scholarships, and - oh, yeah - getting into college.

Sure, admissions officers say they take into account the fact that some schools are more rigorous than others. But as more universities downplay the SAT or drop it from consideration altogether, colleges are making it known that GPAs are more important than ever before. And this shift is fueling a growing firestorm over grades: 75 districts in 12 states have relaxed their grading standards since 2005. Meanwhile, attendees at the annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities this month in Seattle argued for ditching grades in college and instead using the long-form "narrative evaluations" already required by some universities.

Fairfax was never considering anything that drastic, but in response to parents' complaints, in April the superintendent launched a study on how the district's grading system affects students. (Fairgrade, initially a cosponsor of the study, jumped ship in December when its members disagreed with how the school board characterized the results.) Based on the findings released in early January - which showed that changing the scale would slightly boost GPAs but was inconclusive about whether this would help students get into better colleges - last Thursday the school board agreed to start using a higher premium for tough courses and to adopt a new variant of a 10-point grading scale.

Fairgrade is "cautiously optimistic," says the group's president Megan McLaughlin, a former Georgetown admissions officer whose three sons are 8, 11, and 13. Her husband is a Fairfax County high school grad, and McLaughlin says her in-laws recall fighting the current grading system in the late '70s before it was implemented in 1981. McLaughlin and others are cautious because the details of the new grading system still need to be ironed out.

The vote is also good news for local business leaders who have joined the Fairgrade effort, warning that families worried about their kids getting into good colleges may move out of the county if the school district doesn't change its grading system. Talk of a possible exodus killing off business and destroying property values sounds a tad melodramatic, but given the tanking market and ongoing credit crunch, it's no wonder people are trying to do everything thing they can to shore up the local economy.

Opponents of Fairgrade counter that any move perceived as encouraging grade inflation could tarnish the school district's sterling reputation. Stuart Gibson, a Justice Department litigator serving his 14th year on the school board, voted for changing the grading system but will continue to oppose lowering the passing grade to 60. And he wants to maintain rigorous standards despite the three dozen e-mails he gets every day from Fairgrade supporters. He notes that in a neighboring district, 36% of students who graduated in June had a weighted GPA of 4.0 or higher. "I moved here from Minnesota, but I'd never been to Lake Wobegon," Gibson says, referring to the fictional town where all the children are above average. "Do we really want to have a reputation as an easy-A jurisdiction?" He adds, "It doesn't improve their achievement. It just improves their achievement on paper."

Gibson's foes argue that when you're talking about some of the best schools in the country, regular statistical rules don't apply. In 2007, for instance, Fairfax County's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology produced 158 semifinalists in the prestigious National Merit scholarship competition - more than any other U.S. high school - and boasted the highest average SAT score in the country. Yet out of 432 seniors that year, according to McLaughlin, only 16 graduated with straight A's. "They happen to attend a school that has a large percentage of bright, high-performing students," she says. "You should hope that the student GPAs reflect the SAT averages, which are a national measure of the caliber and the abilities of the students." McLaughlin adds that high standards should come from tough teachers and a rigorous curriculum, not from artificially deflating grades.

Whether grade inflation exists and how it affects students has been debated at least since 1894, when a committee at Harvard declared that A's and B's were awarded "too readily." Princeton in 2004 became the only Ivy League school to adopt a grade deflation policy, including quotas for A's. To skeptics like Gibson, grades should be guides to help students see where they can improve, not rubber stamps to confirm a smart kid's hunch that he or she is smart - or gold stars on a resume. "Grades don't only exist to be reported to college admissions officers," he says. Gibson also rejects the Fairgrade argument that adjusting the standards would improve the dropout rate among those at risk of failing. "I don't think it helps any student to say, 'Well, we're going to lower the standard to pass so you can stay in school,'" he says. "When you go out in the world, there are certain skills and knowledge that you need to succeed."

Despite the apparent victory for Fairgrade, in the end both sides still have to manage expectations. Gibson recalls an e-mail he got from one parent: "It said, 'My daughter's a solid 'C' student, and if you don't change the grading scale, she's never going to get into the University of Virginia,'" he says, referring to the state's highly selective, flagship public university. "I'm thinking, no, we're going to have to change the grading scale a lot." After all, the goal is achieving fairness, not fantasy.

I can see both sides of this issue. I live in Fairfax County and my kids attended one of the public high schools. It really is tough. I have heard parents from many other parts of the country comment on how much tougher the schools, the curriculum, and the grading is here. I'm talking about areas the also have good schools.

My kids' high school was in the top 100 high schools in the US in US News and World Report. That's one of the reasons I bought a house here. MyGod! The amount of work these kids have to do boggles my mind sometimes. The grading IS tough. OTOH, both my daughters have gotten a very good education.

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
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Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

I couldn't believe that report. Frankly I think those parents are a disgrace. Dee8go's comment about his daughters having a very good education is surely what it should all be about?

- Peter.

__________________
2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

X2. Just because they pay out the ying yang in taxes doesn't mean the standard needs to be relaxed, honestly what's next buying your childs diploma?????

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"It's normal for these things to empty your wallet and break your heart in the process."
2012 SLK 350
1987 420 SEL

It's easy to have opinions about things you don't fully understand.

__________________
" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

You would know...

__________________
"It's normal for these things to empty your wallet and break your heart in the process."
2012 SLK 350
1987 420 SEL

I grew up in fairfax county. I am utterly not suprised at the parents. I'm glad to have seen the last of that place.
Colleges in the region also seem to know that fairfax co. has tougher standards, at least as far south as NC and north as far as NY. I didn't apply further.


I went to a private school with a point or two tougher on the upper scale, and a 69 was a fail. I think my GPA was 3.4 but it's been a while. I did not have problem getting into college.

__________________
1984 300TD

If the rest of the schools in the nation held to the same standards, we may actually graduate a generation of kids with the ability to compete technologically with the Japanese...

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2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

Thomas Jefferson High School (TJ to the locals) is well known outside it's area for it's academics. Drop those standards and see how much easier it is to get into college from there.

__________________
1984 300TD

I don't get your point. Are you advocating for or against a lowering of standards?

- Peter.

__________________
2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

When did grading get lowered? I have wondered that for some time. When I was going to schoool:

93-100 = A
85-92 = B
78-84 = C
70 - 77 = D
>70 = F
I grad. from HS in '73.

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Thank You!
Fred
2009 ML350
2004 SL600
2004 SL500
1996 SL600
2002 SLK32
2005 CLK320 cabrio
2003 ML350
1997 C280 Sport

Don't tax yourself--talking about Virginia standards here.

94 makes an A mean something. There's just too much disparity between straight A students these days. I mean, everyone's GD kid gets straight A's in school. Some of them are downright brilliant and some of them you have to baby through biochem. I'm sick of hearing about it.

__________________
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

In 1975, I graduated with this being my HS's grading breakdown...


And, during the four years I was in ('72-'75), our whole school system was on a split-schedule...

HS (9-12): Started at 0700 - Ended at 1212
JH (6-8): Started at 1145 - Ended at 1700
Elementary (1-5): Started at 0830 - Ended at 1500
Kindergarten: Started at 0830/1145 - Ended at 1212/1700

6 loads of bussing going on...1200+ kids in a building built to handle 600 between the hours of 1145-1212...that cross-over time was where you had two versions of study-hall going on...HS in the gym and JH in the cafeteria...5 days a week...

Nobody went "POSTAL" - classes were around 45 minutes each, class-change was 3 minutes, nobody was late...including breaks for restrooms and between classes waterings at the "bubblers" (water-fountains for you non-Wisconsinites)...

The reason?

8 years of "New School Referendums" being voted down...finally approved on the 9th try...during my Freshman year...my class was the last to graduate from the old School, the Junior Class became the first to "cross the stage" in '76 in the new HS...

How'd that prep my schoolmates and me?

We had to move fast, think fast, get it done faster and we didn't dwaddle around...

I think those four years really whipped us up to be better because if we didn't keep up, we literally got run over...

As for the grading? I KNOW I could have done alot better...but I still ended up in the upper 20% of the class...and out of a starting count of 138 in '72, we ended up with 128 in '75...the rest were either farming (family issues) or "family issues" - and two dead in car-wrecks...

None failed due to their grades...

NOW...

Today's kids?

Wet paper bag, side ripped open and the bottom's missing...and they're still trapped...

Anyone got some "Government Cheese?" for these needy ones?

__________________

M. G. Burg
'10 - Dakota SXT - Daily Ride / ≈ 172.5K
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...'67 - El Camino - 283ci / > 207.00 K
....'75 - Yamaha - 650XS / < 21.00 K
.....'87 - G20 Sportvan / > 206.00 K
......'85 - 4WINNS 160 I.O. / 140hp
.......'74 - Honda CT70 / Real 125
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“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~

I'm saying that devaluing the A isn't going to help students. Working harder for it does.

__________________
1984 300TD