Academy Examines Grade Inflation

By NATALY DELCID, SELIM KIM, EMI LEVINE, and SOPHIE MA

Recently, faculty shared with The Exonian ongoing discussions surrounding re-evaluation of grading policies, especially in response to rising concerns of grade inflation since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“During COVID we went pass-fail,” Dean of Academic Affairs Laura Marshall said. “Things were still not back to normal in terms of the rigor of our courses the following year. Expectations were lowered. I think we’re still transitioning back to our regular Exeter expectations.”

“I would say that grade inflation has been happening for at least the past 15 years pretty steadily,” Marshall said. “For the past three years since COVID hit, [it’s been] quite dramatic. Now we’re trying to really examine what our expectations should be. Maybe that is exactly the same as pre-COVID. Maybe it’s not.”

Principal William Rawson added that Exeter is not unique in this process. “Grade inflation appears to be a concern for high schools and colleges generally— we are not alone. The trend toward grade inflation also appears to have increased during the pandemic for most schools,” Rawson said. 

“We have wonderful students who come here from a variety of backgrounds and experiences to be challenged in their schoolwork and grow in confidence and ability,” Rawson continued. “As we emerge from the pandemic, we want to be at full strength academically, and our grading practices and policies should be designed to encourage and help all our students reach for their full academic potential.  Our grading practices should be fair, accurate, and understandable to students, and should align with our core values of academic excellence and knowledge and goodness.”

“The faculty read Grading for Equity by Joe Feldman before the start of the school year.  This is less about grade inflation, and more about how traditional grading systems can sometimes produce misleading or inequitable results in unexpected ways, particularly when grading practices are used to address behavior rather than assess learning,” Rawson said. “The book contains a number of interesting ideas for departments to consider, but in the end our grading practices must fit our pedagogy and academic programs.”

Marshall shares in Rawson’s vision for equitable grading. When asked about what might happen to grading in the future, Marshall replied, “I think that’s really tied into the curriculum committee’s work with grading for equity. That’s probably at the forefront. I think that work will happen first, but I think alongside that, we do need to think about what our grades mean.” 

Marshall did refer to some collaboration with Director of Student Information and Registrar Sarah Herrick. “[We] are working on collecting some data that we might show to departments, but we haven’t had a chance to do that yet,” Marshall said.

Currently, the Academy looks to let departments lead conversations about grading standards. “There are some departments that have been working together to develop rubrics, so it’s a form of standardization. The math department has been working on some mastery based learning in our Math 1 problem set,” Marshall said. “[But grading remains] very autonomous. We’re always talking about best practices. I don’t think we’d ever want complete standardization of anything, because we rely upon the professional expertise of our teachers.”

Instructor in History Aviral Pathak confirmed that the History Department has recently discussed grade inflation. “What has been noted and preliminarily discussed is an apparent trend—especially since the start of the pandemic—showing an unusual increase in the number of history students earning course grades in the A [grade]-range,” Pathak said. 

Pathak continued, “I’m unaware of any changes in grading methods in reaction to this, nor do I anticipate making any changes in the future because, as I understand it, discussions on this topic are still very preliminary.”

History Instructor Troy Samuels added, “I think generally a kind of philosophical conversation is going on about what our grades are doing. More specifically than that, I can’t really get into, but the more general conversation we are having is what are grades, and more specifically, what COVID did to grades.”

According to Samuels, the department will have more of a “robust conversation.” Samuels said, “I think hopefully there will be more intentionality in how we grade, and why we grade… That’s what our discussions have been, creating intentionality and really thinking through why we’re grading the way we are. Additionally, to a certain extent, unifying the student experience so that there isn’t this idea that there’s an easy teacher because they give A’s.”

English Instructor Rebecca Moore also noted that the pandemic had eased usual grading standards. “During the pandemic, I wanted kids to feel good. I had so little ways just to be sure of how people were emotionally, and I knew that grades were a source of stress. When I was in doubt, I graded up. We’re facing a worldwide pandemic. Don’t worry about it.” 

Moore shared that was the general consensus among faculty during the pandemic. “I think we were all trying to…keep them coming to the screen,” Moore said.

Moore then shared with The Exonian how faculty historically receive information on grading at the Academy. “Ever since I have been here in 1990, the faculty would receive at the end of every term…a matrix,” Moore said. “All the grades along this way and all the departments down [the other].”

“It would [show] how many of each [letter] grade [students receive] and the percentage of every [letter] grade given to students in every department. So, we would get to see, ‘Oh, how does English compare with classics? How does English compare with music?’ It would also be broken down by age. What are the grades for the preps? There would be a department grade average,” Moore continued. 

“I remember a time when our goal was to have [the department grade average] be 8.5,” Moore said. “Some people think of that as being very low. Other people think of it as, ‘Well, that’s pretty good.’”

The Academy also began formulating more specific data as the years went by. “A few years later…[the grade reports] got a little more snazzy, and you would get your grade report for each of your four classes, and then you would get that average for each class, and then you would get a total of your average to compare,” Moore said. “We were always getting information that would help us self-correct. You could look at your information and you got to decide what you wanted to do with it.”

In situations of extremely low-grade averages or extremely high-grade averages, faculty have the chance to adjust. “If you were way extreme on either end, the department chair would probably have a conversation with you and say, ‘How do we make sense of this?’” Moore said. “To this day, we all get those reports. And it was never, ‘You need this percentage of grades and this percentage of Harkness.’ You were given a lot of autonomy about [grades] and how [to] calculate them. I can have a really strong class…[with] kids really competent at the tasks I’m giving them.”

Some feel that the consequent grade inflation since COVID is harmful. “I am concerned that grade inflation could lead to even greater preoccupation with grades, and greater parental pressure to achieve certain grades,” Rawson said. “Inside and outside of class, we want students to have agency in their learning, pursue their passions, and focus primarily on their learning and growth, and not focus on grades just for the sake of grades.”

Marshall agreed. “I think it puts more pressure on students, because not only do you have to then get really high grades all the time, but you also have to find another way to differentiate yourself,” she explained. “It requires you to do more and it takes the focus away from learning.”

“So again, what are [grades] for? I grew up never getting any grades until I went to high school. And I think it was actually very good for me because I didn’t associate my academic identity with a letter,” Moore added.

Physics Instructor A.J. Cosgrove shared that grading discussions among physics teachers have not covered grade inflation and rather surrounded re-evaluating assessment standards. Some discussions featured the faculty’s summer reading Grading for Equity. “That reading motivated some of us in physics to shift the way we grade,” Cosgrove shared. “Basically, we’re trying to focus on making everybody as proficient as possible and not imposing a filter, if you will, to weed people out of science, and instead [to] try to get everyone better.”

Cosgrove believes that grade inflation is not an indication that grading has eased up, but rather that the school is shifting from its “sink or swim” mentality. Cosgrove explained, “I think the school has shifted…I think more extra help is given: the learning center, peer tutoring has been improved, dormitories do their own peer tutoring. There’s just way more support for students than there used to be, and I suspect that may have something to do with kids doing better and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

“If you have a classroom filled with talented, hardworking students, on average, they’re going to do pretty well. They shouldn’t be penalized for that…I think [grades] give students feedback about their general level of proficiency in the course, and that’s what it should be used for as opposed to some sort of filtering mechanism to weed people out of certain discipline,” Cosgrove added.

Some teachers shared that they would favor a different grading system. “Speaking not as Dr. Samuels, the instructor at Phillips Exeter who knows that grades are necessary things, but on a personal level, I don’t really see grading as a useful tool…There’s an expectation amongst students that A’s are expected. Because other students get A’s, I need an A to achieve ‘insert thing’. When they don’t get an A, they don’t focus on the learning opportunity, and instead it becomes the fault of the teacher,” Samuels said.

“It turns the classroom into a battleground between student entitlement and a push to center learning. I feel like in my three years here, I’ve noticed a shift from ‘the rigor of Exeter will help me learn and improve in an abstract sense’ to ‘that rigor will help me get the A’s to get into an Ivy League college,’” Samuels added.

Samuels concluded, “I wish we cared less about grades, universally. I think that it’s one of the most unhealthy things that happens... But, I know that’s me wishing for something unattainable…I think if we move away from the cult of the “A’, we’ll all be happier in the long run. I don’t know how to do that. If I found a way, I would make it happen.”

Pathak also favors a system that would focus more on “feedback and equity” as current systems of grading have the potential to “set up hierarchical differentiation.” 

Looking to the future, Marshall shared that no immediate changes to grading policies look to be in place. Departmental discussions focused on grading systems, however, are likely to continue.