I thought grade inflation was already alive and healthy
Posted on
This has to be the dumbest policy to come along in a while. Besides a
fundamental misunderstanding of how grades are assigned (hint: its not a
random number between 0 and 100), it minimizes a teacher's input and
leeway into how to grade students.
When I was a TA, granted these were college students, the only reason
you received a zero on a grade was because you didn't take the test,
turn in an assignment, or do a project. If there were extenuating
circumstances, like illness, you could take the test at a later date, or
the teacher could decide to drop that exam altogether from your grade
and re-weight the other exams in the course. All this minimum 50 policy
does is give students another way to game the system. If you know
you're going to fail, or not complete an assignment, who cares? It
won't hurt your grade as much as getting a zero!
[At some schools, failure goes from zero to 50 -
USATODAY.com](http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-05-18-zeroes-main_N.htm)
> "It's a classic mathematical dilemma: that the students have a six
> times greater chance of getting an F," says Douglas Reeves, founder
> of The Leadership and Learning Center, a Colorado-based educational
> think tank who has written on the topic. "The statistical tweak of
> saying the F is now 50 instead of zero is a tiny part of how we can
> have better grading practices to encourage student performance."