Grading on a curve is immoral and is not an accurate measure of knowledge

Grading on a curve is immoral and is not an accurate measure of knowledge


When I was in Engineering School at the University of Illinois, all my classes were "Graded on a curve."  This practice was used by all instructors and professors because it was said to be "impartial," "more fair," and "methodically unbiased."  Unfortunately, it has taken me almost forty years of contemplation to realize that it is not an accurate measure of knowledge.  In fact, it is exploitative.  Let me explain.

In an education curriculum that is designed to impart a specific knowledge or skill, your progress is monitored by a series of tests.  If you master the skill being tested, then you move on to the next skill.  If you learn all the skills and facts, then you get a certificate.  The performance of other people is absolutely irrelevant to your ability or knowledge.  If you have the skill and know the facts, you get a certification.

This is an honest system of knowledge testing which is in stark contrast to the experience I had in Engineering school at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.  All my classes were "graded on a curve" where the distributions were something like: 5 % got an F,   10% got a D,   50% got a C,   25% got a B and   10% got an A.  This was explained to be the most fair system.  THAT explanation was a lie.

When I was in graduate school I worked for the University Broadband Cable TV station.  I was a station operator, and occasionally I would help video tape events.  It was during the videotaping of a graduation ceremony that I realized:  For every college in the school of Engineering the graduating class was about half the size of the incoming Freshman class.  This seemed like an odd statistical event.  Years later, I checked the class size numbers "on line" by checking student registration and graduation data.  I came across an astounding realization: for almost every year from 1950 to 1985 the graduating class at the School of Engineering was about HALF the size of incoming freshmen.

When I mentioned this to my friend "Mr. S. G.",  he remembered being told in Freshman Engineering Orientation of this fact.  One of the professors stood up in front of the class and said, "Look to your left and right.  When you graduate, one of those two students will not be there."  This 50% flunk out rate was a planned event.

And then it occurred to me: 0.85 x 0.85 x 0.85 x 0.85 = 0.52   If only 85% graduate each semester, then only about HALF of the total number of Freshmen will get a degree.  This was efficiently planned, so no individual professor could be held accountable; and they ALL went along with it.

Here is WHY:

It is much more economical to just flunk out the students that you cannot teach, than actually try to ensure that they achieve specific skills and knowledge.  This is especially true in a discipline as complicated and rigorous as Engineering School mathematics and modelling.

The grading on the curve conveniently obscures specific points of knowledge and is used to spread the student scores far enough apart so the least likely candidates can be flunked out of school.  The advantage to this system is money.  You can advertise that it will cost X dollars to get a degree and invite families to compare cost.  What you don't tell them is that half of the new students will never get a degree, but they will still pay significant money towards maintaining your college system.  It is a great way to scam or fleece innocent and trusting lower class students and no one will ever know.  The few that succeed will be forever grateful and a shining example of the quality of the education.  The many that fail, will just be ignored and forgotten, and blamed for their own failure.

Grading on a Curve is a mockery of an authentic educational practice.  It is a scattershot way to efficiently separate students from their money and find the ones who can learn by the most brutal and coast effective manner possible.

It is too bad that it destroys as many lives as it helps while it is pretending to be philanthropic.  There is no real measure of specific skills and knowledge learned, but a broad spectrum of intelligent students that are statistically determined to be good employees.  Too bad it destroys so many optimistic young students that "never saw it coming."   Too bad the University of Illinois pretends to help you better yourself, when really they are just "weeding you out."


copyright (c) 2018
William Schaeffer