Michael Zwaagstra: ‘Grade Inflation’ Gives Students False Sense of Their Academic Abilities

Commentary Suppose you’re scheduled for major heart surgery. Shortly before your surgery begins, you check into your surgeon’s background and are pleased to discover your surgeon had a 100 percent average throughout medical school. But then you learn that every student at the same medical school received 100 percent in their courses, too. Now you probably don’t feel quite as confident in your surgeon. This is the ugly reality of “grade inflation” where the achievements of everyone, including the most outstanding students, are thrown into question. Fortunately, grade inflation is (currently) rare in medical schools. But in high schools, it’s a growing problem....