A history of grades
The shift from internal to external communication
Grades are a big deal in the US education system, so “it can be easy to perceive grades as both fixed and inevitable,” as Jack Schneider and Ethan Hutt put it in their 2013 paper, Making the grade: a history of the A-F marking scheme. Their main claim is that grades were initially used for internal communication (e.g., for students’ families), but they became forms of external communication (e.g., for college admissions officers and employers). In this post, I’ll summarize the paper and share a few thoughts.
Yale is often cited (and cites itself) as one of the original adopters of grading in the American colonies. In 1837, the school indeed tracked grades in individual courses, but interestingly, those grades “were often kept secret from students –– an effort to minimize the day to day competition among them.”
In the early- to mid-nineteenth century, K-12 schools also began issuing grades. One overtly competitive system was called the Lancasterian model: each day, students “were literally repositioned in the classroom –– the top students moving to the front of the class and the less capable students moving to the back.” Proponents of the system argued that the competition was commendable since they believed it motivated students to work hard.
But not everyone felt this way. As educational reformer Horace Mann wrote, “if superior rank at recitation be the object, then, as soon as that superiority is obtained, the spring of desire and of effort for that occasion relaxes.” (In another post, I described some psychology research that supports this claim.) Instead, he favored monthly report cards, which could reduce competition, track students’ progress, and keep parents informed.
Between 1870 and 1910, as a result of compulsory schooling enforcement, child labor laws, and the increased use of education for social mobility, K-12 enrollments almost tripled in size. As a result, administrators needed to develop more efficient managerial systems. For example, professors used to conduct college entrance exams at individual high schools, but that became seen as unfair and required tons of effort. Instead, colleges began to use an accreditation system for high schools. This growth in standardization paralleled similar moves in other industries. For example, as the market for grain expanded, grades and standards were required because personal inspection by the buyer became too difficult.
Despite the efforts at standardization, the meaning of individual grades was (and is) unclear. Teachers assign grades in different ways, schools have different norms, and many scores are near the boundary of two grades (e.g., 89 might be a B+ while 90 is an A-). Many educators, influenced by reformers like John Dewey, denounced the negative effects of grading. But as the authors put it, “grades were not going to be dropped,” because they “were too useful as extrinsic motivation, even if such motivation was seen as having serious consequences.”
Eventually, the grading system became fairly standardized, at least on the surface: by 1971, over 80% of schools used letter grades. However, many teachers opposed letter grades; according to a 1971 survey, only 16% of teachers believed they were the best reporting method for elementary students. Furthermore, many students began gaming the system by shopping around for “easy A” courses, and colleges’ reliance on students’ evaluations of instructors (among many other factors) incentivized grade inflation.1
The paper ends on a rather pessimistic note:
The upshot of all of this is that educators are stuck in a bind… They must find a way to work within a system that is universally accepted –– one essential for national movement, seamless coordination, and seemingly standard communication to parents and outsiders. And, at the same time, they must find a way to keep students focused on learning and not merely on a set of measurable outcomes loosely connected to the process of education.
Fortunately, the authors’ book Off the Mark was published last year, and according to the official blurb, it offers “a range of practical reforms.” I haven’t read it yet, but I probably will, and I suspect I’ll write about it afterward.
During the Vietnam War, college students could apply for a draft deferment, and to keep their draft deferment status, they had to remain in good academic standing. According to the paper, “there is evidence that faculty members grasped the suddenly broader implications of their grades and became more lenient in assigning them.”