Ian Walton, Mission College,
Chair
Alain Cousin, Student Representative
Dolores Davison, Foothill College
Angela Echeverri, Los Angeles Mission College
Bruce Koller, Diablo Valley College
Richard Mahon, Riverside City College
Alice Murrillo, City College of San Francisco,
CIO Representative
Janice Takahashi, San Joaquin Delta College
Table of Contents
Abstract
Introduction
The Importance of Perceptions
Grade Inflation
Promoting Conversations about Grade Distributions
Background Regulations
Influences on Grade Distributions Beyond Faculty Control
Enrollment Procedures
Final Withdrawal Date
Student Shopping
Licensing Requirements
Accrediting Commission
Funding
Influences on Grade Distributions Within Faculty Control
Plus/Minus and FW Grades
Prerequisites
Rigor
Job Security and Evaluation
Extra Credit
Broader Questions
Conclusion
Recommendations
References
Appendices
Appendix A: Conversation Starters
Appendix B: System average grades assigned,
1992-2006
Grades in selected Vocational Programs
Abstract
Assigning grades to student work, both during
the academic term and as a summation of a stu-dent s
mastery of subject matter, is a longstanding
practice in all levels of education, from kin-dergarten
through graduate and professional studies. Recently,
a variety of factors have brought the criteria
for assigning, and the resulting distribution
of letter grades under heightened scrutiny. From
increased attention from accrediting agencies,
through new online services that publicize grades,
to newly revised Title 5 Regulations, these forces
require thoughtful faculty reflection, and an
informed and collegial discussion on the rationale
for the grades faculty assign to their students coursework.
Such discussions might well reveal practices
that could both enhance the integrity of the
grading system and improve student success. One
purpose of this paper is to ex-amine system data
from the state Chancellor s Office about
grade distributions within California community
colleges; a second purpose is to identify some
of the issues that need further explora-tion,
and to encourage local faculty and senates to
pursue such conversations. This paper does not
propose specific criteria or practices to be
used by faculty, though one of the recommenda-tions
of this paper is that further work should be
done to explore that topic in more detail.
Introduction
Faculty take great professional care in designing
curriculum and the learning experience for
stu-dents, and in determining the plan for
a specific class. The assignments for the course
and the methods of evaluating the assignments
are carefully considered and should be stated
in the sylla-bus for the course. Students use
the grades that they earn for a variety of
purposes transfer, employment advancement,
and interest making grades extremely
important to both the instruc-tor and the student.
Grades are the measure used by faculty to record
the learning achieved, and the improved skills
of the student.
Education Code §76224(b) establishes that
the legal authority and responsibility for assigning
grades belongs to the individual faculty member
teaching the course. In addition, grading
poli-cies is an area where collegial consultation
with the local academic senate is required by
Title 5, §53200 and §53203. That said,
there are many conflicting pressures that could
affect an instruc-tor s decision about
grades, and many interesting examples and questions
that are worthy of seri-ous, thoughtful faculty
discussion. Faculty members now face new pressures
from two sources. On the one side, new online
services provide unscreened student evaluations
of instructors with special attention paid to
the rigor with which those instructors assign
grades. On the other hand, the Federal Department
of Education appears to have concluded that grades
are meaningless and would prefer to substitute
the results of national standardized tests for
locally assigned grades. This paper will consider
a variety of good reasons for initiating thoughtful
discussion of grading, specifically grade inflation
and grade distributions, and the possible factors
that can contribute to variances in grade distributions.
It recommends and encourages that faculty be
the ones to initi-ate and guide these conversations
within a local professional development or program
review context.
The initial impulse for this paper came from
Resolution 9.07, adopted in Spring 2007:
9.07 Grading, Student Equity, and Developing
Senate Guidelines
Whereas, The disparity between grade distribution
for students taking the same course with different
instructors, formats and lengths within the same
department/program/college raises questions of
academic rigor and common standards;
Whereas, Students can now access the grade distributions
of faculty at a given institution and may begin
to make course selections based on the grade
distribution of individual faculty;
Whereas, This practice of selecting a course
section based on the grade distributions of an
individual faculty member, could "incentivize" some
faculty to change their grading standards in
order to ensure their courses "make" and
thus exacerbate the problem of grade inflation
and/or dispar-ity; and
Whereas, The Academic Senate for California
Community Colleges, while recognizing the importance
of academic freedom in the primacy of faculty
to assign grades, also supports meaningful dialogue
among faculty about grading standards and rigor;
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California
Community Colleges research the prevalence of
grade inflation within the California Commu-nity
College System and the impact, if any, of the
availability of faculty grade distributions on
grade inflation;
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California
Community Colleges develop a white paper to empower
local academic senates seeking to initi-ate local
campus discussions on the topics of grade inflation
and academic rigor; and
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California
Community Colleges use its appropriate institutes
and plenary sessions to share the results of
its research on grade inflation.
