Standards in higher education have been falling for decades, mainly because school officials think it’s more important to keep students happy than to maintain high standards. Since so many students are poorly prepared and poorly motivated, it’s necessary to find ways of keeping them enrolled.
In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Adam Ellwanger introduces us to “contract-grading.”
He explains that when he was in high school, the grade for swimming was based on a contract. To get an A, the student had to do 40 laps, to get a B, 30 laps and so on. But the quality of the swimming didn’t matter, and there was little effort put into verifying that each student had really swum the number he said he’d done.
The same concept now applies in higher education. Ellwanger writes, “Sadly, though, the idea of ‘contract-grading‘ is now gaining prevalence in disciplines of critical academic importance — not only in high schools, but in many prominent colleges and universities. This development is only the latest front in a larger war on intellectual excellence, where the focus has now moved from lowering standards to eliminating them.”
How does this work? Ellwanger teaches English and explains that, “In the context of a writing course, it looks something like this: in the first week, each student elects a) how much writing they will do for the course, b) how much drafting and revision will be done for that writing, c) when the writing will be submitted, and d) how much ‘peer-review’ of classmates’ writing he will do. Various choices on these bases correlate with different grades in the course. Assuming the student does the laps he promised, he will receive his preferred grade . . . regardless of the quality or competence of the writing.”
Therefore, grades no longer objectively mean anything. All the students are happy, though. And professors don’t have to worry about writing critiques of student writing, which is an onerous, thankless task.
Ellwanger sticks the landing: “Rather, contract-grading is only one particular manifestation of the larger attempt to remake higher education. If successful, our universities will become nothing more than state-funded houses of ideological indoctrination. In this way, our opponents seek to remake the nation.”