Grade point average

“ There has been established a grading system, which automatically eliminates the student who falls below grade, while the university maintains a statistical comparison of school and college records, so as to follow up the work of the high-school student, not only after he has entered college, but to bring the comparison with his record as a high-school student. ”

“ When all the marks of the institution are compiled, there are a few students who are relatively very high, many who are mediocre, and a few who are low. The low ones are dropped, the high ones get honors, and the mediocres get the reward due the average student. On the basis of this kind of a classification the University gives to a student who stands in the uppermost 5 per cent of his class 1.2 credits toward graduation. The student in the next lower 20 per cent gets 1.1 credits. ”

“ Thus 10.6 per cent, of the candidates are given a grade above 90 in Greek and only 2.7 per cent, in history; 34.9 per cent, are given a grade below 50 in mathematics and only 19.1 per cent, in English. It is obvious that such grades should be standardized. It may be remarked incidentally that it is easy to select examiners by a competitive examination. If twenty candidates grade the same sets of papers, those whose grades are nearest the average of all the grades are likely to be the most competent examiners. ”

“ I have some sympathy with the students who call 'C' the 'gentleman's grade.' But if grades had some real meaning, they would be no more invidious than the payment of a salary of $3,000 to one man and of $5,000 to another. If it is said that the method is unfair because grades can not be given in accordance with exact deserts, it may be replied that this is true of all salaries and the like. Although a single grade is subject to a considerable probable error, the error of the average of a number of grades decreases as the square root of the number. ”

“ The scholars should be formed into classes, averaging seven to a class. These classes, when organized, should be seated in the school, with the view of promotion from year to year. In a school of five hundred pupils the classes would average about five to each grade.
Where these departments occupy the same room the Juniors may be seated on one side, according to rank, and the Seniors on the other side. The position of the class, being won by merit, becomes a place of honor which the superintendent wisely uses. In the first organization a perfect grade is not attainable. ”

“ This led to the systematizing of instruction and the grading of schools, so that in nearly all the towns of the United States the public schools have been divided into primaries for the younger pupils and grammar-schools for older pupils; while within twenty-five years a third grade has arisen known as the high-schools for the most advanced students. In each division there are sub-grades, and, wherever improvements in public-school education are attempted, the principle of gradation is fundamental. ”

“ He has to prescribe textbooks, assign and hear lessons, grade recitations, mark examination-papers, submit carefully prepared term and annual reports to the faculty. When the question of conditioning or dismissing a student on the ground of defective scholarship comes up for decision, his opinion must be given and weighed in connection with that of others, in order that the faculty may strike a fair general average. The number of hours that he is compelled, by the college curriculum, to pass per week in the recitation-room is seldom less than fifteen, and may be as high as twenty. ”

“ Reduce the socially necessary data of any subject to an absolute minimum and frame questions on it demanding no such slovenly standard—sixty per cent—as now prevails in college examinations. If the facts called for on an examination are really the most vital in the subject, the passing grade should be very high. If the questions seek to elicit insignificant or minor information, any passing mark is too high. It is obvious, therefore, that a student should receive two marks in most subjects,—one that rates power and another that rates mere acquisition of facts. ”

“ Although the average height and weight of all the scholarship men are below the average student of to-day, the average of the honor scholarship men is considerably above the average of the university students of 1880—while the average of the stipend scholarship men of the present time is not only below the average students of that year in point of weight, but is below the average of the stipend men of the early eighties. ”

“ The number of units, or courses, offered in high schools has increased rapidly in recent years. Especially marked is the addition to the school program of technical subjects, such as home economics, manual training, and commercial courses. The report here under discussion states that in all the approved schools of the association there is an average of 21.13 academic units, that is, units in such subjects as languages, history, mathematics, science, and English ”

“ The misery of our system, whether in town or country, is that it assumes that the chief end of man is to figure in some one of the so-called “learned” professions. So the high school is keyed up to the standard of admission to the college and university. The grade school exists to qualify pupils for admission to the high school. ”

“ To rate instructors solely with respect to the proportion of high grades awarded by them, or solely with respect to the quality of students attracted to their courses, is evidently inadequate. An instructor may give more high grades than his associates, because he has more students who deserve distinction. But if this is the case, the administrators of the college curriculum can readily devise a means of measurement which will show at a glance the justification for any conspicuous deviation from the normal distribution of grades. ”

“ Think of boys being sent up to Oxford, who, after having spent on an average six years at a public school, are yet unable to read a line of Greek or Latin which they have not seen before. Yet so it was, and so it is, unless I am very much misinformed. It is easy for some colleges who keep up a high standard of matriculation to turn out first-class men; the real burden falls on the colleges and tutors who have to work hard to bring their pupils up to the standard of a pass degree, and few people have [243] any idea how little a pass degree may mean. ”

“ It is not disguised that the members of normal schools, when admitted, do not sustain an average rank in scholarship with graduates of high schools. This is a misfortune from which relief is sought. It is a suggestion, diffidently made, yet with considerable confidence in its practicability and value, that graduates of high schools will often obtain additional and necessary preparation by attending a normal school, if for the term of six months only. ”

“ The yearly examination of candidates for admission takes place immediately after the common school examinations in July. There are at present nearly 600 students under the tuition of 14 professors, and as many tutors as may be required. The course of study extends over a period of 5 years, and is very complete and severe. Owing to the principle adopted in their selection, the pupils, representing every social and pecuniary grade in society, present a very high degree of scholarship and ability. ”

“ For an increase of fifty per cent, in the number of the students, who are fitted for the Matriculation, represents far more than what the normal increase of population or the powers of teaching as measured by numbers can be. And it seems to, point to this that the schools are beginning to acquire greater efficiency in preparing for the examination. The schools will, by-and-by, under the auspices of the University and under its guidance and control, have a new and very important duty cast upon them, that of preparing students for what has been termed the Middle Class Examination. ”

“ Even if we throw out the figures for 1900—which represent, as explained above, all the available data from the colleges that in 1890-99 furnished over 81 per cent, of all graduates—the trend is still unmistakably upwards.
Concerning the influences that have been instrumental in causing the marked rise in the median or average age of graduation in certain colleges in our list, it is not possible to speak with certainty for all. In the case of one or two, such as New York University and Bowdoin College, it would seem that the rise is due to an increase in the requirements for admission. ”

“ It is quite possible that the assigning of grades to school children and college students as a kind of reward or punishment is useless or worse; its value could and should be determined. But when students are excluded from college because they do not secure a certain grade in a written examination, or when candidates for positions in the government service are selected as the result of a written examination, we assume a serious responsibility. The least we can do is to make a scientific study of our methods and results. ”

“ Under the domination of the grading system, the school reverses or ignores most of the principles that control people in practical affairs. Under its operation, it compels the teacher to lay the greater emphasis upon the similarities among pupils, and to ignore differences, and it places a premium upon uniformity. The more closely the school grade approaches its ideal, the more strictly must each pupil work for himself; while the closer we approximate the grouping required by the social ideal, the more earnestly must the individual strive for the whole. ”

“ The school grade aims at a certain dead level of uniformity in three things, namely, age, knowledge and skill. These rigid conditions have imposed the stamp of their own arbitrariness upon the selection of subject-matter and methods of instruction, and they render it impossible to realize the highest ideals of social and civic life in the school. The grading system was established long before child-study opened the eyes of teachers, and it represents the quantity idea in education as opposed to that of quality. ”

“ Those who have watched the college have approved; the time of transition has been a time of unexampled prosperity. For the last fifteen years the gifts to the University have averaged $250,000 a year. The steady increase in students may be seen at a glance by dividing the last twenty-five years into five-year periods, and noting the average number of undergraduates in each: 1861-65, 423 ”

“ Average 4.09. Analyzing all the grades, we find that the higher grades for virtues possess a higher average of mental capacity and that this is almost perfect for both the male and female groups taken separately. An average of the two makes a curve that leaves practically nothing to be desired. There is every reason to believe that if the total were great enough the correlation would be perfect.
Females.
Males.
Both Sexes. (Averaged.)
The average number of children who reached adult (21) years born to each grade is seen below to give figures representing a less smooth curve. ”

“ That is, the average intelligence among high-school pupils is above the average for the population in general. It is probably not far from 110. College students are, of course, a still more selected group, perhaps coming chiefly from the range above 115. The child whose school marks are barely average in the elementary grades, when measured against children in general, will ordinarily earn something less than average marks in high school, and perhaps excessively poor marks in college. ”

“ This week we learned the good news that our efforts to raise academic standards for our children are beginning to pay off. The National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP, released State test scores on Thursday that show that our children'sreading scores have risen, with some of the greatest gains in States that once scored below the national average. ”

“ For relatively few general purposes in life may we expect to find so high a degree of selection. Yet in this 1 in 9 group (who graduate) the percentage of the failing pupils is as high as that of the non-failing ones, and the percentage of graduates does not drop even as the number of failures rise. So far as ability is required to [78] meet the conditions of graduation they are manifestly provided with it. Following this comparison still further, the failing pupils who do not graduate have an average number of failures that is only .6 higher than for the failing graduates (4.9-4.3) ”

“ Teachers in two of the larger schools asserted that with many pupils a kind of complacency existed to feel satisfied with a C, and to consider greater effort for the sake of higher passing marks as a waste of time. Such pupils openly advocate a greater number of subjects with at least a minimum passing mark in each, in preference to fewer subjects and the higher grades, which they claim count no more in essential credit than a lower passing grade. ”

“ For it is apparent that the natural tendency to vary is restricted within the limits and 4, the beginning and close of the high school course, with the result that reducing a science from the high school into the grades inequitably destroys its influence on the average, and that intermediate values may result from averaging extremes as well as means, while all averages tend unduly toward the middle value. ”

“ If there are at hand measurements of the actual achievements of pupils in various subjects in all the grades, it is safe to compare any single performance with the general average. It should be noted that this does not imply a demand that every pupil’s work be like the average. There are pupils who do their work under unfavorable conditions, as, for example, pupils who have difficulty in reading because they hear no English at home. Their results should not be expected to reach the average, at least in the early grades. ”