Mark Berends

Changes in High School Grading Standards in Mathematics, 1982-1992 Mark Berends

Observers recently have maintained that grades in secondary andpostsecondary institutions have become inflated. Grade inflation would betroubling to many K-12 educators and policymakers but this possibility is anespecially serious concern to many colleges and universities because suchinflation could bias their admissions decisions and make it increasinglydifficult for them to distinguish among high-achieving students. This studyexamines this possibility by evaluating changes in high school gradingstandards across the nation as a whole from 1982 to 1992. The authorsexamined not only changes in the grade distribution over time but alsochanges in the educational system and in the characteristics of the studentpopulations. They investigated how grades have varied between males andfemales, minorities and nonminorities, and poor and rich students; trends ingrading standards across types of schools; relationships between grades andstudent performance on achievement tests; and the influence on grades ofchanges in tested proficiency and course-taking. The authors detailedanalysis concluded that no such grade inflation has taken place, at least inmathematics, over the study period.