88 - Unearned Grades: Remaking the Conversation about Grade "Inflation"

Episode 88 • 18th March 2025 • The Grading Podcast • Sharona Krinsky and Robert Bosley

88 - Unearned Grades

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were already inflated in the: 1980

Boz: Okay, so first let's break that down a little bit, because I think if you are any of those subjects mentioned, you should be a little bit angry with this statement. We're automatically assuming that if you're in a STEM where, they said science or math, that those subjects are so hard and so elitist that only the very small percentage should be getting A's and could be getting A's. While as things like English, the little fluffy English over there, everyone can get, are you kidding me? Like how insulting is that to both?

Welcome to the grading podcast, where we'll take a critical lens to the methods of assessing students learning from traditional grading to alternative methods of grading. We'll look at how grades impact our classrooms and our students success. I'm Robert Bosley, a high school math teacher, instructional coach, intervention specialist, and instructional designer in the Los Angeles Unified School District and with Cal State LA.

Sharona: And I'm Sharona Krinsky, a math instructor at Cal State Los Angeles, faculty coach, and instructional designer. 12, whatever your discipline is, Whether you are a teacher, a coach, or an administrator, this podcast is for you. Each week, you will get the practical, detailed information you need to be able to actually implement effective grading practices in your class and at your institution.

Boz: Hello and welcome to The Grading Podcast. I'm Robert Bosley, one of your two co hosts, and with me as always, Sharona Krinsky. How are you doing today, Sharona?

Sharona: I'm doing well. I actually got to stop working last night before eight o'clock at night, which is extremely unusual for me. So I am feeling rested. Yes, it's, I moved about a, gosh, a week and a half ago. And since then I haven't actually been in my new apartment before like 11 o'clock at night and I leave ~at~ six o'clock in the morning. So it's been a rough time. Good time because it's good work. It's not crazy, "I'm miserable" work, but it's just been a lot. So I'm, I'm feeling rested this morning and also it was raining the last couple of days and now I'm looking out my window and it's a gorgeous Southern California, sunny morning. And that makes me happy. How about you?

Boz: Well, speaking of weird weather though, last Wednesday, did you get any of the thunderstorms and hail?

Sharona: So, I don't know, because I live in a high rise building. Although, since I now moved to the 29th floor, I discovered that I do hear the rain on the balcony above me, because the 30th floor is the top of the building, so I actually get rain sounds as if it's on a roof, which I haven't had in many, many years, because I was on the 18th floor, we don't hear anything. But I don't think we got the hail. There was a tornado.

Boz: Yeah, I know.

Sharona: There was a tornado in Pico, Rivera.

Boz: Well, it was kind of a tornado.

Sharona: Okay. I understand, Mr. Oklahoma, it was an EF0, but it actually did damage.

Boz: Yeah, well again, we call that wind in Oklahoma, but no, it was crazy here where I live, we were getting real thunder and it actually really hailed. This is like the second time since I've been in California that we got real hail here. It was kind of cool.

Sharona: Was that at night? Did it keep you up at night?

Boz: No, no, this was in the middle of the day, like Oh wow. My, both of my daughters were at school. The oldest one said like it stopped her class for the last 10 minutes because of the thunder and then all of a sudden the not big, but very heavy downfall of hail, like so distracted their class, like it completely stopped their class the last 10 minutes.

Sharona: Well, because part of the problem, one of the reasons we don't get hail is it's not usually cold enough, even in the upper atmosphere.

Boz: You don't, it doesn't have to be cold to get hail.

Sharona: Well, it has to be cold enough to freeze the little ice particles up in the upper atmosphere.

Boz: In the upper atmosphere, yeah.

Sharona: That's what I'm saying, it's often, it's not even cold enough up there, for California anyway. So, other than that we also had some adventures relating to grading over the last couple of weeks. I'm really excited that getting to, I'm going to make you mad right now, but I'm getting to travel to go do some talks. And we had some amazing talks with different schools. And then we had some not so amazing talks internally regarding grading. And that kind of led to what I wanted to talk about today.

Boz: All right. So, what is it? Cause saying that you've had some not so fun conversations and that led to the topic that could be a lot of different topics.

Sharona: This is true. Well, it went back to. One of the things that constantly comes up, one of the concerns with alternative grading practices, it's sort of the what if everybody gets an A question.

Boz: That whole grade inflation argument.

Sharona: Exactly. So I was thinking about that last night, and I was looking at what is out there in the world right now about this idea of grade inflation, and I found several articles. And then completely independent, you found an article on the same topic, which I thought was fascinating that both of us were in the same place. But I wanted to start with something that is not in any of these articles.

Boz: Well, okay, I'll let you do that and then I'm going to push back a little bit, but yeah, go ahead.

Sharona: Okay. Well, other than some examples, maybe in the article you found, none of the articles that I found actually defined the problem specifically. They don't define what is grade inflation.

Boz: Exactly. We hear this term all the time and this is not a new argument. So let's be clear. We were talking about grade inflation when I was in pre service education, getting my bachelor's back in the early late nineties and early two thousands.

about grade inflation in the: 1980

Boz: So this is not a new argument, but it is one that seems to come up a lot with any kind of grade reform. And when you and I both started, like you said, funny enough, independently researching this, there is not any hardship in finding new, relatively recent articles about. This is a hot topic. I don't know if we're actually going to mention all of them, but we'll probably link them all. We've got five or six and other than.

Sharona: And they're all within the last I want to say year old..

Boz: All of them, but all of them, but one well, one of them's a little bit older than that, but all the rest of them are, yeah, a year to a year and a half old.

So this is..

Sharona: Many of them are in: 2025

th of: 2025

Sharona: So let me ask you what you think people mean by grade inflation?

Boz: Well, that's the other problem. I don't think it means the same thing to everybody.

Sharona: Right. But what are some of the common things that we expect people mean.

Boz: I know when we are talking about grade reform and doing any kind of alternative grading, one of the early knee jerk ones we get is, well, doesn't that mean everyone can get an A, and isn't that grade inflation?

Sharona: Exactly. And so part of the definition, I think, what most people would agree in, is grade inflation implies the grades are too high.

Boz: Yes.

Sharona: Too many high grades. So the question is, let's give them that for a second. Too many high grades. Why is that a problem? Is it just too many high grades or is there something else built into that.

Boz: Now I will, so I don't want to completely say that this isn't an issue. Because there is also a lot of pressure, especially in K 12 world. I think very well, now you're getting it in higher ed as well, but there is a lot of pressure about fail rates. So.

Sharona: But what's the problem though? For me what the hidden assumption, before we go there, the hidden assumption between too many high grades is that grades that are not earned. So it's not just that they're high, but they're unearned in some way.

Boz: Well, that brings up the big question that we often bring up in our trainings, what's the meaning of a grade? So when you say they're unearned, well, first you've got to define what it means to earn an A, what it means to earn a B.

were already inflated in the: 1980

Boz: Okay, so first let's break that down a little bit because I think. If you are any of those subjects mentioned, you should be a little bit angry with this statement. So, we're automatically assuming that if you're in a STEM, they said science or math, that those subjects are so hard and so elitist that only the very small percentage should be getting A's and could be getting A's while as things like English the little fluffy English over there everyone can get are you kidding me? Like how insulted is that to both? Like, I, I would love to have Joe on right now because he is.

Sharona: He would be blowing his stack.

Boz: Oh yeah, but he is, you know, as bad in math as I am in English. It's as hard for him to have done well in a math class as it is for me to do well in an English class. So both of these statements, the math is for the elite and the English are for the fluffy, but like both of us should be insulted by this.

Sharona: So taking a step back again. We're saying people are grade inflation, grade inflation, grade inflation. The unspoken assumption is unearned, right? And then further than that is the assumption that grades actually measure something. So let's take a moment and let's you and I define what we would mean by grade inflation.

Boz: Okay, well, and I want to start, if we are talking about grade inflation, and if we, you and I are talking about it with what we believe, I think we can't have that conversation without having the flip, which is grade deflation.

Sharona: Exactly.

Boz: So, go ahead.

Sharona: Well, I was gonna say, so basically grade inflation or grade deflation or grades, is for me, and you, I believe, when a grade does not accurately reflect the learning that the student had at the end, when they have completed the course, the term, the whatever.

Boz: Yeah. And regardless of if that grade is higher because of behaviorals, because of, oh yeah, they're just a hard worker, they played the game, they got the extra credit, or if it's actually less, because for whatever reason they didn't do some of those point gathering games. Both of those are an issue. If grades are meant to indicate and communicate student learning, then both of these are an issue. The student that has gotten most of the material mastered, but has a D or C because they were like me and didn't do homework and the student that can't really reproduce it that well on their own, but has played the game, is the student in the in the corner that you never have any issues with that does all their homework, does everything on time. So both of these are equally a problem. And none of these articles, other than the one that I brought in, says anything at all about grade deflation.

Sharona: Well, and then you said a big if in the middle of that statement. You said if grades are meant to measure learning, but, and we've said before, there's a second purpose of grades. So I want to acknowledge both purposes. So one purpose people often say is to measure or report learning. The second one is to rank and score. Now you and I are not big fans of the ranking and scoring, but there is a place for ranking and scoring in our educational system, and I would argue current grading systems don't do that well either for the same problem.

Boz: Yeah, if you're ranking and sorting based on data that is flawed data, I mean, there is a saying that we have in statistics, shit in, shit out. Like, if you're basing these rankings on letter grades that aren't measuring actual learning, then yeah, it's going to fail at both parts.

Sharona: So we ran across another article that I want to bring in at this point, since you mentioned your statistics. Okay? So now what we've said, we've got two purposes of grades, grades as a measurement and communication of learning, grades as ranking and scoring. You and I don't think our current grading system does either of them. Well, but we ran across a very, very problematic article that is specifically, it's "problems caused by grade inflation" and it's in a blog, I believe, called Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference and Social Science. And I loved sending you this article because we give a whole talk as grading as the misuse of mathematics and the measurement of student learning. This article not only doubles down or quadruples down on the math, but it also says some very insulting things on the ranking and scoring side.

Boz: Yeah. But just to kind of go back to one of your points earlier, The very first line of this there's been a significant grade inflation over the years. Having a transcript with a string of A's isn't worth what it once was. This is not good for the unusually talented who now needs to find other ways to distinguish themselves

Sharona: Yeah, this is a Math lecturer who wrote that quote. Not good for the unusually talented. Okay. Elite. Ranking and scoring. So this is a math lecturer at one of the Ivy leagues who wrote this.

Boz: Yeah, so nothing about learning. It's Oh, no, you have to be unusually talented. Because only the unusually talented can do the hard things like math.

Sharona: But now, non unusually talented students can also get strings of A's on their transcripts. But also, if you're competing on grades, the occasional slip is costly, so that's a little hint at the grade deflation side. So we have, packed into this grade inflation conversation, is the mix up, the smushing together of the measurement of learning, communication of learning, and the ranking and scoring. And traditional grades are not doing either of these things well.

Boz: And there's another line in here, and I just have to read it, because so yeah, if we were to give out more B's and C's, maybe the world would be a better place. Again, here's my biggest issue with this particular article and some of the others we're going to talk about. It says nothing about the learning. It says nothing about, maybe we have more A's because students are learning more. Yes, maybe in some places that's not the case, but just the pure assumption that if more people are getting A's, that means it's grade inflation because we can't improve anything.

Sharona: Well, and there's another line in this same article that is a throwback to me to the use of the bell curve in grading. So if you haven't listened to our previous episodes, we discuss the bell curve originally was invented and designed and measured for the purpose of proving that some people are inherently better intellectually than other people, usually based on a demographic feature such as race or gender. So that's where the bell curve came from in the use, and that's where IQ tests came from. So there's this horribly racist, eugenicist background to this.

But there's an article in here that the recommendation to deal with this grade inflation problem is to make "post hoc adjustments to assigned grades to account for differences in faculty grading policies, basically fit a multi level item response model". That's a bunch of statistical speak. And here's the key part, "to estimate students latent abilities based on their grades."

So this is not trying to figure out what they know. It is literally to find in-built latent abilities. Things that students possess biologically, genetically. None of this is about learning. It's actually intentionally not about learning. It's about discovering those unusually talented students.

Boz: Yeah.

Sharona: So this article, we now have the misuse of mathematics, layered with misuse of mathematics, layered with even more misuse of mathematics, layered with eugenics and racism. Super fun. Oh, and misogyny. Let's throw some of that in there too. Yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck. So, then, we came across this article that I thought was very interestingly titled, "Why not get rid of grades? When the goal is an A, real learning gets lost."

And again, starts very much with signs of inflation. So the very first line in this article is, "if you're looking for continued signs of inflation, bypass your local supermarket and head to Harvard Yard." So again, we are starting this conversation about grade inflation at Harvard. So we've talked to Harvard, this article talks about Mount Holyoke, the previous one was Columbia. And yet, in our world, we know that the flip side of it, when we fail students, particularly in math, in our environment, they often will fail out of college. And end up with a million dollars less in lifetime earnings. So we live in a different world than worried about the A's.

grade inflation marches on. A: 2022

Read that next line. Read the next one. This one is " why grade inflation is spreading from high school to college and how it hurts.

Sharona: So not the one not to pick on LA schools.

Boz: Yep. Read that.

Sharona: I found it. So the article is "not to pick on LA schools or students, grade inflation is omnipresent and more common in affluent areas."

Boz: That's the part I don't think it's talked about enough. Like when we, most times when I'm hearing, and again, this could be where I teach. I teach in LA USD. When I was at Santee and the schools that I'm currently working on as a coach, these are high poverty areas. We can go along on all the social economic indicators. This is the world that I have chosen to teach it. A lot of the schools that I work with are in similar. So I don't have tons of experience with affluent areas. So that might be my own, just where I work. But every time I hear about grade inflation, it's not talking about the affluent areas. It's always talking about students like mine that don't deserve to have the grades they have.

Sharona: And I don't want to minimize that there is a problem because two sentences later here, it says "grade point averages have consistently risen, even though scores on nationwide standardized exams such as the SAT and the National Assessment of Educational Progress has not." So this is what we're grappling with. On the one hand, you and I are kind of pooh poohing the word grade inflation, but we're not actually saying that high grades that are not earned are not a problem.

Boz: No, and they absolutely are. And this is kind of what I was alluding to earlier. My role at Santee, or one of my roles at Santee, was I was the intervention support coordinator. One of my duties is I would help coach and help work with teachers that had unusually high fail rates. This is something that we are as educators, as K 12 educators, are judged on all the time. And yes, I have seen where admins have put on a lot of pressure to teachers that have higher fail rates. Are all of those higher fail rates always unearned? Absolutely not. Sometimes for whatever reason the student makes the choices to not rise to the bar that is set in the class. And yes, when that happens, that student should get a subpar grade. No one, neither of us are arguing that, right?

Sharona: We're not. And we're seeing that at the university too. Because we have a lot of pressure on our, what we call our DFW rates. Because D is failing for us. And in our classes that are for students who are coming to us with the most need in mathematics, we have high DFW rates. And we have a lot of pressure because of that.

Boz: Now, I've got to ask, is that a newer thing? Because we've talked about this with several different college professors, especially some of the science ones, about this idea of what we used to call weeders. Classes that were purposely meant to weed students out would traditionally have ridiculously high fail rates. I know when I went to the university of Oklahoma back in the early mid nineties, I don't know if this is still the case. If you're listening anyone from OU, boomer sooner, and please don't get assaulted by this if you teach one of these, but it was the chemistry and the biology, those freshmen level 500 person classes, they recognized and even called themselves weeders.

Sharona: So I would say at Cal State LA specifically, because we pride ourselves as being the number one institution in the country for upwards mobility of our students, I don't know that we have that same mantra of weeding out, at least not in the math department. We are not so competitive in the math department and we are primarily a service department that in the decade or so I've been there, it's never been a perception of we want to weed these students out. I know that administratively people are concerned about high fail rates for good reason. I think the disconnect is some instructors perceive admin as asking us to pass students who don't deserve it. And I don't think that's what our administration wants. I think what our administration wants is to remove barriers to success and to provide enough student support that students can learn and actually succeed on the material.

Boz: See, and that's the same thing that most, I will say most, admins at K 12 that I worked with, when they have these concerns in these conversations with teachers that have high fail rates, that's their same goal too . First is our grading fair? Second, are we doing things to provide those struggling students with the supports they need? But I do understand that there is that pressure and that can lead to grade inflation. Here's the problem though. At least one of my issues, when this grading inflation conversation comes up as a reason not to do grading reform. Because that's the argument that you and I get all the time that, oh, this is just more grade inflation.

If we're in agreement that grade inflation is an issue, and by the number of articles that have come out in the last, really since pandemic, that this seems to be a growing issue. Isn't that a argument that we should be doing more grading reform?

Sharona: So I think the problem is, is that just like with alternative grading, the language matters. So if we accept the words grade inflation, we accept the premise that high grades are bad. I would like to shift it. And every time someone says to me, grade inflation, I'm going to turn back at them and say unearned grades.

Boz: Yes.

Sharona: Because then that changes the conversation from these grades or too high to did someone get a grade they didn't earn? Well, what goes into earning a grade?

Boz: Yep. And that goes back to exactly what I was talking about earlier. That grade deflation is just as big of an issue. So if we bring it back to the earned part, which could, like you said, open up the conversation of, okay, what does it mean to earn a grade?

Sharona: So I'm going to propose to our whole community right here and now. We no longer accept the words grade inflation. If someone is talking to us about grade inflation, we switch our language to unearned grades. Just start with that flip. That's the first point because then we can start to talk about what grades really mean and the purpose of grades.

Boz: Yeah, and again we can deal with one side of the issue without ignoring the other. We can look at, like I said, students that are getting grades maybe that are higher than what they've earned, but also the ones that are getting grades lower. And that's actually been, I think, a bigger issue for a longer time. You and I talk about some of the equitable issues. This is what a lot of stuff that came up with Joe Feldman and grading for equity and a lot of the things that some of the greats like Dr. Guskey and Dr. Bloom have talked about. Is this apparent acceptance of oh, yeah, there's just certain groups that get lower grades and I, you know, this was several things that some of our guests have talked about that. If you're concerned with equitable outcomes, then how things used to be shouldn't be an option because that grade deflation has been I think a bigger issue for a lot longer time than what people have been saying about grade inflation the last 10 years.

Sharona: I agree. So we found another article that, moving from accepting the current framing to looking at the revised framing. What article did you find that addresses this head on related to alternative grading practices?

Boz: Well, and I kind of want to go back before we go there. I want to bring up one of these issues. Kind of the question that started you off on this. Okay. Or how you started us off, actually, is what's wrong with if everyone gets A's? Why is that a problem? I want to read something to you. And this, I think, is pretty standard. Every school that I know of from K to 16, K through higher ed, has a mission and vision statement. Tell me if this one sounds familiar. Everyone boils down to something like this. Our mission. We will provide an exceptional learning environment that empowers every student to succeed in life and education today while fostering lifelong learners. If that is actually a mission statement, and like I said, does that not sound like pretty much any and every mission statement you've ever heard from an education institution. Empowers every student to succeed. Then let's say every student does get the A. Does that mean we're doing grade inflation or does that mean we have finally lived up to the mission that we stated as an institution?

Sharona: Yeah, I mean if the goal is learning then learning should be what we communicate, what the purpose is.

Boz: So yeah, this whole issue of too many A's is a problem. So article that I was looking and I showed you. It is a little bit of an older article, but it's "how grading reform changed our school." Now, this is a great article. It talks a lot about some of the issues. It actually talks about both grade inflation and grade deflation.

Sharona: Well, and I want to mention something right at the beginning of their grade inflation. So they ask a question, is there a connection between a strong bladder and grades? Now this is important because I had experienced, when I was a parent of young children with bladder issues. I had to go through hoops to get my kids the ability to use the bathroom when they needed to.

Boz: So let's because I don't know if everyone here this line would understand what this means. So this is I would say not an uncommon. I don't know if it's a common. I don't think it's a it's definitely not an uncommon practice.

Sharona: Uncommon.

Boz: I've seen several teachers that I have a lot of respect for do this. I I think I might have even done this one or two semesters or said I was going to do it never actually followed through, but there's a practice in that you get so many bathroom passes a semester or a year and then at the end of the year. Any of those that you have left over, you can turn back in for extra credit, for a grade forgiveness on a homework, some sort of prize. So yeah, if I'm not going to the bathroom and that's where this stronger bladder correlated to stronger grades. But like you said, , you had real issues.

Sharona: I had to, I mean, we had doctors involved and medication and in middle school, there were like three minute passing periods. And so the teachers would be like, Oh, you can use the bathroom during passing periods. My kids had to get to their lockers, switch books and get across two buildings. You can't like.

Boz: And even today, cause yeah, when, when you and I, and even your kids that are just a little bit older than mine, they would oftentimes need to go to the locker. Cause we had books. Even today where most students aren't carrying seven books around because all of their books are electronic on their computer, and a lot of schools don't really even have lockers other than PE lockers anymore, getting from one room to the bathroom when there's hundreds of other people trying to do it and back to another classroom in three to five minutes is not a reasonable task. Nevertheless, if it's needing to go more than just to urinate.

Sharona: Well, and then I see other ones in this one, like extra points for bringing in tissue boxes or things like if you use your cell phone to text during class, you would get two points off. Well, as we've talked about mathematically, that's horrendous.

Boz: Yeah, but all of these go back to behaviors. And yeah, I love the extra credit one, because we used to, oh, my mom could load that stuff up. Like, that was a really common practice when I was in elementary school. Because our schools were so freaking underfunded that teachers couldn't get basic supplies that they needed. Like glue and Kleenex and soap. I mean, so yeah, they would bribe their parents. And especially with my middle brother. I did not struggle in school.

My baby brother was, yeah, but overall I didn't struggle in school. My baby brother was a great student. Like he worked a whole lot harder than I did. And I think he had his first degree before I had mine, even though I'm four years older than him. But our middle brother, school was not his thing. He, so, oh yeah, my mom would come with loads of tissue boxes and the canned food drive during Thanksgiving. Oh yeah, my brother would bump his grade up a whole letter grade, dude. So, these are common practices that have nothing to do with learning.

Sharona: And then, I love the deflating grades article part of this one. Did you read that, that section?

Boz: Oh yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's why I kept bringing it up so much, cause, this again, is

Sharona: But specifically, because this doesn't happen in university, but you guys have the potential, I don't know if this is still true, but back then, to switch courses at the quarter. Like if a student is failing, say an honors level class, how long do they have to drop down to a gen ed level class?

Boz: That's really up to the school and the school setting.

Sharona: In this example, a student was failing in the honors level, or I guess it was an AP course, and she couldn't do it. So she dropped to at the quarter, she dropped to a regular course and she went from an F to an A. Well, they averaged those two for the semester grade to be a D plus.

Boz: Yeah.

Sharona: So wait a second. So a student doesn't get credit for an AP because she's no longer in the AP, but they gave her a D plus in the general course. Luckily in that particular district, the teachers could do additional assessment and she was able to get an A minus. But none of those grades are really accurate because it's switched.

Boz: Yeah, but in this article, it's not a long article. It's five pages long. Does a lot of going into a lot of the issues that we bring up, especially with the misuse of math and our getting started courses. So I don't want to go too deeply in a lot of those, but what I do want to is this last section of it, which is titled "a culture transformed". Because this particular school, even though they had some issues, even though there was lots of concerns, they stuck with this, which is one of the other biggest issues with most articles I read about knocking grading reform in schools and districts that transitioned to it and then have issues.

Sharona: Well, and I want to point out, I just looked it up. This article is quite old. This school is still doing it.

Boz: Yes, still doing it and still seeing the same results.

Sharona: Yes.

Boz: But here is some of the things that they said. "Parents, students, and teachers had been comfortable with the old system with its cushion of free points from extra credit to homework completion. We spent much of the time during the first year educating parents and students about the new policies. During parent teacher conferences, we'd have breakout sessions. We help parents understand the need for grading reform and the research supporting it." Going back to one of our favorite people, Matt Townsley, and looking at his guide to. But the more important is what has happened to this school.

So between: 2006

Number of students taking advanced placements rose from 505 to 661.

Sharona: That's a 30

Boz: do what?

Sharona: Well, it's a 30 percent increase because it's 150 more students based on the original 505.

Boz: Exactly. I don't know how large the school district is overall, but that's a huge increase. The number of students participating in AP Scholar programs rose from 160 to 258.

Sharona: That's over a 50 percent increase.

Boz: Yeah, the scores on their comprehensive statewide test that they take reading tests that the students take during the 10th grade rose from an 85.5 percent to a 92.3%. So, let's talk grade inflation now. And this article goes into a lot of the things that they did, and a lot of the prep that they did. And you can go in and kind of see some of the details. But yeah, let's look at actually, if we're going to talk about grade inflation, fine. Let's talk about unearned grades, but let's not use that as an excuse to get away from grading reform. Cause when grading reform is done right. And you and I have talked about this a hundred times. Our expectations of our students and our outcomes of our students have gone up since doing this. What would get away as a passing level of work 10 years ago in my class, would not get it done today. Period. And here is another example of it done right. Them taking real time to do trainings with everyone involved from students to teachers to parents, taking the time to do it, and there are their results.

Sharona: And that's the thing that ultimately, when you have unearned grades, they hurt everybody. They hurt the students that are learning, they hurt the students who aren't learning, and they allow a continuation of the blame game.

Boz: Exactly.

Sharona: It's this other feature, it's this other teacher, it's this previous teacher, it's this next teacher. Whereas, if we can come to some sort of agreement of what goes into earning a grade. Because I do want my students to earn their grades. I do want them to demonstrate that they have learned the material in my course, because that's the point for me. The point for me is I want a student to come out of my course with skills that will be valuable to them and knowledge that will be valuable to them. In achieving their own goals, whatever those goals are.

Boz: Well, and before we completely leave this article, I want to read the last line of it. Because I think this is the most powerful thing and one of the arguments that we keep making. "Our relentless focus on grading and assessment practices have helped create a culture of learning. It's not about the points. It's not about the game. It's actually a culture of learning". Which as educators, ain't that what we're supposed to be doing?

Sharona: And that culture of learning is for their teachers, is for their administrative staff, is for their students, and it's for their parents. All the stakeholders involved have focused on this, on this learning. And given the various crises that we are facing in education, I think changing this and giving our community the tools to have this conversation in the bigger world. Because when people come at us and say, as was said to me in the last two weeks, allowing a student to retake an exam is artificially inflating their grade without ensuring that they're learning.

Well, that person might be right in a traditional grading system, but not in the alternative grading system. And in that case, it was more of a traditional grading system. But if someone comes at you with that thing, you can talk to them and say, yes, I agree. Unearned grades are very important. So let's talk about what goes into a grade and how should a student earn a grade.

Boz: Yeah, but I'm sorry. I want to go back to that argument about if you allow students to retake, that doesn't mean they've learned. I'm sorry?

Sharona: There is a concern because sometimes, some teachers in my environment, will give exactly the same exam. So the repeat, the retake, is the exact same material. The exact same questions, sometimes they don't even change the numbers. And so there's an argument, I'm not saying I agree with it, but there's an argument that if a student has already taken an assessment, has already gotten feedback, and they take literally the exact same assessments, that essentially they're training a very small set of skills to just do those particular problems.

Boz: Okay, well, first, are those particular problems the problems that they're supposed to be learning, A. B, that's an assessment problem, not a grading problem.

Sharona: Agreed.

Boz: C, the other argument that I often hear with this, with anything we do in education, is we're preparing our students for real life. What test do you take in real life that you're not allowed to retake? Give me one. I challenge anyone that's listening. Give me one test that you ever take, that you cannot retake and get credit for.

Sharona: Well, typically the arguments that I hear are not tests. They'll say things, well, would you want your surgeon to make a mistake? And the answer is, by the time the surgeon is operating on me, he's made all of his mistakes. And in settings and in environments where those mistakes can be handled.

Boz: Yeah, either way you first time you cut on someone. They're a cadaver.

Sharona: Yes.

Boz: Because medical school realizes and understands that you learn from mistakes. So they let they let you cut on things that are okay to make mistakes on.

Sharona: And they don't fail you when you make a bad cut on that cadaver the first time.

Which is why we're actually seeing the professional schools moving in this direction faster than most of the other schools. So, I really like the idea, and I know we're coming a little bit towards the end here, but I really like the idea, as so many things in our world of grading reform, language matters. That's why we use alternative grading rather than something like mastery. That's why I use emojis.

And I think using the words of unearned grades is a good stepping stone. Now, it's going to open up the question of what it means to earn a grade. Are grades earned or given? Well, are grades earned or are they bestowed? Because that's a whole different conversation about who has the power. And some of our collaborative grading folks, that's why having the students self assign an initial grade is very difficult because aren't students going to assign themselves grades they haven't earned? So that's a whole different conversation, but I still think the language is good.

Boz: No, but you brought it up. I want to end on it. Yes, students most often will assign themselves a grade they haven't earned and usually it's because they're assigning themselves a lower grade.

Sharona: Certain demographics will do that.

Boz: Yeah, but yeah, so

Sharona: Go out there, everybody, and let's make the language of unearned grades the, the common currency of these conversations because grade inflation, which ignores especially grade deflation, is problematic.

Boz: So yeah, this is not something that we had discussed beforehand, so I don't know if this is something you had in your back pocket or if you came up with this on the fly, but I love this idea. I agree. I think we should encourage all of our listeners and not only to start using it, but to spread it. And let's see if we can get this terminology to start really becoming wide use in our community of education reforms. So.

Sharona: I love it. I love it.

ing conference this summer at: 2025

Sharona: Absolutely. You can go to thegradingconference. com. The conference is virtual. It's June 11th to the 13th. It's three days, Wednesday through Friday. Registration is open until a few days before the conference begins, but the sooner you register, the better conference we can put on for you.

Boz: And if you are looking at having more than just yourself, we do also offer a institution registration where you can find details on how to set that up. Also on the website, you can also go to the Center for Grading Reform. That website will also take you to both registration links as well.

Sharona: And that URL is centerforgradingreform.org.

Boz: All right, well, thank you all for sticking around and listening to us rant and rave, and we'll see you next time.

Sharona: Please share your thoughts and comments about this episode by commenting on this episode's page on our website. www. thegradingpod. com or you can share with us publicly on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. If you would like to suggest a future topic for the show or would like to be considered as a potential guest for the show, please use the contact us form on our website. The Grading Podcast is created and produced by Robert Bosley and Sharona Krinsky. The full transcript of this episode is available on our website.

Boz: The views expressed here are those of the host and our guest. These views are not necessarily endorsed by the Cal State system or by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

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