Why Do We have Grading?

Grading serves Five Purposes. Consider how to balance these in your classroom.

1	Report a student's competency in the subject matter. An "A" in a writing class should accompany at least an "above average" ability writing and expression. This notice may be useful to an employer, for example, who needs to know. (Note: we're talking about above national average here, not necessarily above your spring semester seven o'clock section average. No one knows what your class average was like, so that figure is useless to anyone who wasn't there.)
2	Report a student's effort. Effort and persistence is the greatest determinant of ultimate success. If a student exerts her or himself and fulfills the classes objectives, the grade should reflect this.
3	Report a student's progress. If the goal of education is to educate (and it better be!), then grades should reflect the progress a student acheives to this end. Of course this is often next to impossible to guage.
4	Inform students on how their performace relates to their peers. When students don't get the high grades they expected, they may realize that they could do better. Without grades, they may never have considered this or taken the idea seriously.
5	Motivate students to learn better. Grades are important to most students. Keeping them clearly informed of where they stand throughout the semester and what they need to earn a good grade can keep them working toward it. Our society tends to view grades only as final reward or punishment. We waste the opportunity to create more effective teaching during the term.
6	Wait, didn't I say there were only 5 purposes for grading? Yes. That's because this one is not a valid purpose and has no place in true education: Validify an institution by keeping grades low. See the discussion on grade inflation below.

What about Grade Inflation?

Teachers (who should view their primary job as that of an educator) often confuse their responsibilities with those of administrators. When a teacher prides him or herself on the difficulty of obtaining a high grade and then makes it as tough as possible, that teacher betrays the profession and causes students to deplore education. Rather than focusing on teaching (that's what the students are paying for!), they turn education into a tricky, unpredictable, stressful, negative experience. Shame on these teachers!
Many teachers and administrators fear that a class full of A's means the teacher was too soft and the course too easy, when it might have meant that the teacher was a good motivator and the students applied themselves and learned the material effectively. The other case might also be true, but please don't jump to conclusions.
Does keeping a low grade point average raise the prestige of your school? High grades could also demonstrate success in attracting and admiting an abundance of high level students, qualified teachers, and effective teaching. Let the quality of your graduates be the final test and get busy teaching.
Remember when a C meant "average"? It's true that so many teachers (who tend to be caring people by nature) are afraid to hurt anyone's feelings by giving lower than a B. This begins in our secondary schools and does show a certain sickness in our thinking. But consider that only a small percentage of the nation continues on to college, and most of them are well above average.