As anyone who has had the pleasure of trying to pass Basic Real Analysis knows, grading curves have been the savior of many students’ grades. They work to normalize the scores of a class around a bell curve in order to lift the average if too many students do poorly — or lower it if they perform well above average. This is the theory of the curve which has been instituted in the Batten School of Public Policy and Leadership. Opponents of this grade altering claim it disadvantages over-performing students and hurts chances in competitive postgraduate opportunities. However, these concerns are put to rest with a reckoning with the fundamental point of grading curves and an analysis of the reality of the admissions landscape. The Batten Curve, like most grading schemes, is imperfect, but it certainly has its negative consequences overstated and the benefits forgotten.
With respect to Batten, the curve redistributes class grades to match a standard normal distribution around a mean GPA less than 3.5, or around an A minus. While the Batten Curve is uniquely applied to the whole school, some teachers outside of Batten also use curves to match a normal distribution. In all of these cases, the logic is the same — students who underperform get a grade bump, and those who overperform may receive a deflated grade. When applied to the whole school, every class is more or less forced to display a less-than 3.5 average, making an A difficult to achieve.
This sort of policy helps to counter grade inflation at Batten. Grade inflation is an increasingly prevalent concern across higher education and refers to the trend by which students seem to be receiving higher grades today than they did in the past despite having the same level of comprehension. Grade inflation is inarguably a greater issue than grade deflation — if colleges are able to boost everyone’s GPA, then grades simply become a number and not an indication of content understanding. The Batten Curve works to avoid grade inflation by shifting class averages further back on the grading scale.
While some students may receive worse final letter grades than their test scores represent, on the whole, Batten uses a more appropriate measure of achievement than a class without a curve. A student’s understanding is compared with their peers in the form of an average grade as opposed to being determined by whatever level of rigor a professor chooses. With grade inflation, an A could represent any level of achievement or understanding that a professor deems sufficient. A curve simplifies this by comparing a student's level of comprehension to the entire class’s level.
As all students know, their performance — as determined by grades — in any particular class can vary widely based on the professor teaching that semester, the teaching assistant one is assigned or even the particular test questions asked. This variation is frustrating for the disadvantaged students. The Batten Curve removes the effect of academic inconsistency by forcing students to compete against each other by outpreforming the average, as opposed to simply outpreforming the exam. Essentially, because the grades are reassigned based on how well students did in the class, no student need worry about their bad grade if every student got a bad grade, but would if everyone did well. Standardization is an important idea in a school to make grading as fair as possible — all inconsistencies in teaching assistants or exam writing are ironed out.
Arguing that grade deflation is a terrible thing is also contradictory to the idea of rigor at Batten. Students use the increased level of difficulty in the Batten curriculum to label the curve as a pile-on to an already rigorous course load. However, the normalization of grades should work to artificially raise an average if most students do poorly. So claiming that Batten is so rigorous that the curve is an additional deterrent is a contradiction — the curve only hurts students when they perform better than a 3.5. If so many students are getting A’s and grade deflation occurs, then the class is not as rigorous as people say.
Academic consistency aside, students have a right to be concerned about the negative effects of grade deflation on their post-graduate options. However, an analysis of the true impacts of grade deflation are overstated. The amount of Batten graduates not continuing their education and not currently in the workforce is lower than average, meaning that graduate school is not as affected as opponents of the curve would believe.
To examine these effects further, it would be helpful to compare colleges on similar levels of deflation and earnings to show the impossibility of drawing a direct line from grade deflation to earnings. In undertaking this examination, it becomes clear that there are too many confounding variables for there to ever be a direct correlation between perceived grade deflation and professional outcomes. Consider that Auburn University has double the grade inflation as the University, and graduates earn less. Rutgers University, in contrast, has about the same level of inflation, and graduates earn less than University graduates. One could look at James Madison University and conclude that their lesser earnings are a result of grade deflation. However, this would be ignoring the several examples of complete uncorrelatedness that suggest grade deflation is not significant in postgraduate results.
The Batten Curve may not be perfect — grade deflation is not infallible, as students who may outperform the test are not perfectly compensated for this success. However, using the curve is a tool to make grading fairer across myriad academic factors. Moreover, adhering to the ever-increasing trend of grade inflation would only ever work to reduce the establishment of rigor that the competitive school should hope to build.
Paul Kurtzweil is a senior associate opinion editor who writes about economics, business and housing for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
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