Statement on Grading Policy (Rutgers, English Department)
To my students:
As most of you know, I have been strongly opposed to "grade inflation" as it is widely practiced at Rutgers. My position has been that grade inflation establishes a dishonest relation between teachers and students, lying to average students about the real quality of their work, and leaving no way to give meaningful recognition to work that is genuinely outstanding.
In practice, this has meant that I have been known as a "hard" grader, reserving A's for the best two or three students in an average-size class, retaining the B+ and B grade for students whose work is above average, and not hesitating to give D's and F's to students whose writing remained badly and consistently ungrammatical, who persisted in certain rudimentary patterns of error in spelling and punctuation, or whose performance on tests and analytic exercises showed that they had not been doing the class assignments.
Change in policy
This semester, certain events have made me aware that there is an element of unfairness involved in my continuing to grade on a scale markedly different from that encountered by students in most of their classes at Rutgers. As a consequence, I shall from this point on adopt the following scheme:
1) 200-level courses. In courses at this level, I will give A's to the top 30% of the class, B+ to students in the next 30%, B to students in the next 30%, and C+ to the remaining students.
2) 300- and 400-level courses. In these courses, I will give A's to the top 45% of the class, B+ to the next 45%, and B to the remaining students.
3) In grading essays, I will no longer call attention to ungrammatical writing, loose or illogical organization, or persistent errors in spelling and punctuation.
Reservation Clauses
1) I reserve the right to give grades of D or F to students who fail to meet the minimum demands of the course through uncompleted assignments and/or excessive absences.
2) The percentage scales given above are meant to be approximate. I reserve the right to adjust them in cases of "grade clustering" or other cases of statistical necessity.
3) I mean to pursue the policy stated above only so long as grade inflation persists at Rutgers. In the case that (a) academic departments at Rutgers cease to give inflated grades, or (b) the University as a whole adopts a system of "grade indexing" on student transcripts, I reserve the right to revert to a policy of giving honest grades.
April 21, 1995 wcdowling@aol.com
Society for a Return to Academic Standards
Last Updated: 11 March 1997
Send Comments to: donald.crumbley@tamucc.edu
