More on education

A while back I wrote about the so-called educator who cancelled celebrating high academic achievement at his middle school, because the students who tried for good grades and did not get them would be "devastated."  As reported, "A Massachusetts principal has been criticized for canceling his school's Honors Night, saying it could be 'devastating' to the students who worked hard, but fell short of the grades."

Now we learn about rampant grade inflation in universities.  https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/344660/higher-education-revalued

In the article, the author writes, "A half-century of grade inflation has been demonstrated repeatedly by national studies. Today, an A is the most common grade given in college — 43 percent of all grades, as opposed to 15 percent in the 1960s, according to Stuart Rojstaczer, formerly of Duke, and Christopher Healy, of Furman, who conducted a 50-year survey of grading. Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, has also studied the trajectory of college grades. He finds that in 1969, 7 percent of two- and four-year college students said their GPA was an A-minus or higher; by 2009, 41 percent of students did."

Adding the two reports together provides for an alarming sum.  Recognizing achievement is yielding to rewarding attempts.  Wanting is replacing attaining.  

If these two stories characterize the state of education in our country, we are in very serious straits indeed.  Our children spend more waking hours being influenced by teachers than they do by their parents.  At the most formative times in their lives, they are exposed to subtle but dramatic influences.  If education wants to make everyone feel good by lowering the standards, the natural, instinctive competitiveness we are born with is dampened.  Through the years of exposure to this approach, in school and on the sports fields and courts around the country, our children and grand children are being taught the wrong lessons for life.

I fear that recent college graduate, who is one of the 43% to receive grades of A, departs schooling believing he/she is exceptional, as the grades received should convey.  However, it is possible he/she is merely average.  When the average individual faces the real world, competing with those who have proven themselves to actually be exceptional by their work, it won't be a pretty picture.  Self-esteem crumbles.  Work productivity, assuming they can secure a employment, suffers and they risk lost of the job.  So begins a downwards spiral.  They have been rewarded for merely wanting to achieve, not attaining.  Attempts have been recognized, rather than achievement.  Hell, I WANT to play professional baseball, but at 62 years of age, that isn't going to happen.  Shouldn't a major league team give me a lucrative contract, simply because I want it?  When failing to hit a 98 MPH fastball, shouldn't I be rewarded with a "he tried his best" bonus?  Of course not.  In the real world, achievement counts.  Certainly we look for effort on behalf of our employees, but ultimately established goals must be attained.  More over, some in the work force are average, some below average, some superior, some above average.  But no way are 43% superior.

By the way, there is nothing wrong with being average.  At the ceremony marking my retirement from the Marine Corps, I stated I made only one claim, that I was an average Marine.  I met all the standards and requirements placed before me, excelling in a few.  Average men and women built this country and made it great.  Average men won the wars in which we fought.  Average men and women share common values of hard work and ethics.  The "average Joe (or Jane)," as the saying goes, is the most important individual in the country.

So, as I sit, sipping a morning cup of coffee, I'm angry at the progressive liberals in education.  They are, from the cited stories, teaching the wrong lessons and encouraging the wrong behavior.  It is time to shake up public education and inject some conservative values.  Over a couple of generations, the hippies of the 60s have become the college presidents, senior teachers, professors, and those who control the teaching and training of the future generations of teachers.  Like many, I believe public education is severely flawed and requires the average Joe and Jane to demand it be fixed.