When standardized test results are poor, some common responses are that too much emphasis is put on these tests, that some children just don’t test well, that the tests are racially and socioeconomically biased, and that classroom grades are a much better gauge anyway of how students are doing.
At least on that last point, one should gag.
The grades that students receive from their teachers can’t be fully trusted, precisely because they are not standardized. Students showing the same level of mastery of a subject can get much different marks depending on the expectations and standards of their teacher, their school and their district.
A legislative watchdog group underscored that point this past week with a report showing that grade inflation is widespread in Mississippi’s elementary schools.
The Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review contracted with GlimpseK12, an education technology company headquartered in Alabama, to conduct a comparative review of 30 Mississippi school districts. (The Greenwood Leflore Consolidated and Carroll County districts were not part of the sample.)
The researchers found that roughly one-third of students in grades 3 through 8 are getting higher grades from their teachers than these students objectively deserve.
To reach their findings, the researchers compared students’ grades for the 2022-23 school year in math and English language arts with their scores on the standardized tests the state mandates every spring in those same two subjects. The theory was that students who received high classroom grades, either an A or a B, should be able to score at least at the proficient level on the state exams. If the grades were better than the test scores, that would be evidence of grade inflation.
The report’s authors acknowledged that some grade inflation is to be expected, but if more than 25% of the A and B students do not score at least at the proficient level on the state tests, that would strongly indicated there’s a problem.
The overall average of the 30-district sample doesn’t tell the whole story, though. In some classrooms and some districts, A’s and B’s are like sports participation trophies. Most every student apparently gets one.
The Wilkinson County School District in the southwest corner of the state is a prime example.
According to the PEER report, Wilkinson County has one of the highest rates of grade inflation in the 30-district study. In fourth and fifth grade math, some 90% of that district’s A and B students failed to demonstrate proficiency on the state math test. Although those are the extreme examples, grade inflation is pervasive throughout the district. The lowest percentage in the 12 subsets considered was 44%, nearly double the rate of what the researchers said would be tolerable.
One might expect grade inflation to be most pervasive in the lower-rated districts, since they would have a higher percentage of students who struggle on state tests, and thus more opportunity — and possibly incentive — to inflate their classroom grades.
The research generally bears this out. A-rated districts on the whole were less guilty of grade inflation than the average. There were exceptions, however.
In Attala County, for instance, that A-rated district had the second-highest rate of grade inflation in sixth grade English and the sixth-highest in fourth grade math.
Meanwhile, Hollandale, a C-rated district, had zero grade inflation in eighth grade English and just 6% in fifth grade English. In both cases, it put Hollandale at the top of the rankings. The closest A-rated district in either category was Grenada at 11% in fifth grade.
Why does grade inflation occur? There’s no one explanation.
Teachers who give low grades, even when deserved, are not popular with their students, their students’ parents and even sometimes with their principals. It’s easier to keep everyone happy with a high mark.
Then there are those in education who fall victim to the self-confidence fallacy. They believe if they just make students feel good about themselves, even through false praise and inflated grades, those students will try harder and eventually raise their performance. Most likely, the opposite happens. If you tell a student that mediocrity is good, they get comfortable with mediocrity.
As the PEER report notes, grade inflation performs a disservice to the students and their parents by giving them false assurances that the student’s academic progress is on track.
“When a student receives an inflated grade, both the student and parents assume the child is mastering all the required content. This causes several downstream problems. First, there is no ‘alarm bell’ to alert parents and students that there is an issue. Second, the student may not test proficient on standardized tests. Third, the weak foundation hurts future student performance as the student progresses to more advanced content and advanced courses.”
In fact, where grade inflation is severe, the only alarm bells are those standardized test results. Parents would do well to pay as close, if not closer attention to them than their child’s grade card.
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
