I've been posting for awhile now on the case of Frederick Lang, the Brooklyn College English professor who was forcibly removed from the classroom for refusing to inflate his grades. My most recent post has generated a lively discussion about a number of issues--among them the corporatization of the university, the pedagogical merits of MS Word's spelling and grammar checkers, and the therapeutic slant of contemporary educational theory (scroll down and keep reading). The discussion has also raised a number of particular questions about the precise nature of Lang's situation. Lang graciously responds below.

I want to thank Erin for her eloquent description of another injustice at Brooklyn College. I also want to thank everyone who has written a comment. The supportive comments have of course been gratifying, but the critical ones are of equal value since they have shown me what facts and issues I must clarify.Ý

First off, I never wrote in "red ink" (I think Erin is using the term metaphorically), but I did make extensive corrections and comments on a first draft. One revision was compulsory, and my students had the option of revising again. As for spelling, since even the first draft had been spell-checked, this was not an issue when it came to papers. It became an issue only when my students discovered that I meant what I had said in my syllabus: correct spelling is required to receive credit for an identification on a quiz or exam.ÝÝÝ

I'll allow one of my former students to explain--an English major in one of my electives who wrote a complaint about me, which, at my arbitration, BC used as evidence of my harshness:

When my paper was returned to me there was a D on the top of my quiz. At the end of class I approached Professor Lang about my quiz grade. The answers to number one and two were "sadist" and "masochist", respectively. I spelled them both wrong. . . . The next class I decided to put the whole thing behind me and continue on. From this point on I would look up any words he mentioned during class that I did not know how to spell.Ý

Ellen Tremper, chair of the BC English department, used such complaints as her rationale for suspending me from teaching. (I haven't taught since spring 2002. The arbitration I spoke of resulted from the grievance I filed against Brooklyn College for contractual violations; I won't know the verdict till the end of May.)

But I was suspended from teaching not because of my policy on spelling, but because, as Erin has pointed out, I refused to lower my academic standards and inflate grades. Had I done so, the "consumers," as the CUNY lawyer referred to my students at arbitration, would have been kept happy-deluded, but happy. And I would have continued teaching, rather than doing "non-teaching activities," which, as Provost Roberta Matthews recently informed me, I did not do properly. She added that I might face disciplinary charges as a result.

How do I know that my academic standards weren't unrealistic? Well, BC has never issued any grading guidelines, but I was a "reader," or grader, for the CUNY-wide writing assessment examination (the CWAT) from 1982 to its disappearance at the end of the last millennium. This exam was used both to establish minimum proficiency and to place students in composition courses.

When I was transferred to BC's English department, remediation was no longer offered at CUNY's senior colleges. But, partly because of the new "softer" entrance requirements, BC had students who needed remediation. Erin has explained that the NC (No Credit) grade allowed students to repeat composition without harm to their GPA. So, I thought that having weak writers take English 1 and English 2 more than once was the best the college could do for them in the absence of remedial courses.

But BC was being criticized for allowing students to take longer than four years to graduate, and students couldn't graduate in four years if they repeated courses. I was the last person BC wanted teaching composition.

I learned a great deal at my arbitration. Tremper had wanted to get rid of me since she became chair in fall 2000; in fall 2001, Matthews had given Tremper her full support. Both Tremper and Matthews testified against me. According to Matthews, any F or NC (No Credit) I ever gave indicated my failure to teach the student anything. Even if a student withdrew from my course, it was my fault. Then, she got to her main point: having students repeat a course is expensive for the college.

I have never given a dishonest grade, and I have given As and even A+s at BC as well as those NCs. I've never seen myself as a saint, and I certainly didn't want to become a martyr. It's just that I couldn't bring myself to betray my profession, my students, or myself.

On the last day of my arbitration hearing, I was allowed to read a closing argument. My next-to-last paragraph was this:

In deciding for [BC students] that they should be taught very little, Professor Tremper and Provost Matthews have made certain that they will learn far less than they ought to. In insisting that students receive academic credentials without benefit of a genuine college education, they have condemned them to a false sense of accomplishment, to ignorance they will continue to remain ignorant of.Ý

I've promised Erin that I'll let her know what the arbitrator thought.

only about half of the nation's 12th graders report being regularly assigned papers of three or more pages in English class; about 4 in 10 say they never, or hardly ever, get such assignments. Part of the problem is that many high school teachers have 120 to 200 students, and so reading and grading even a weekly one-page paper per student would be a substantial task.

On the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam, only about one in four students in Grades 4, 8 or 12 scored at the proficient level in writing in 1998, the most recent such results available. And only one in a hundred was graded "advanced."

Further, a 2002 study of California college students found that most freshmen could not analyze arguments, synthesize information or write papers that were reasonably free of language errors.

Good luck to Lang, and:
What is wrong with college students and college administrators who do not understand/admit that a college degree is reflective of a certain level of education? I really do not understand this attitude. Even if one plans to take a low- or medium-skill job after getting a Bachelor's (which seems to be the intention of many BC students), basic skills, like writing, are a must. I would understand the frustration of a future accountant who does not want to learn a foreign language; but *English*?

Wow--that really could have prevented several pages worth of spell-checking discussion.

For Prof. Lang, did you not give the student any credit for her answers on the quiz? Because I'd have to agree that no credit for misspelled words on a quiz is probably too harsh. It's not worth being barred from teaching for, certainly, but it's still a tough penalty.

I normally am a big fan of high standards in the classroom, but why uphold them if no one else in your Dept. does? Martyrdom? Pride? If you don't have tenure, you won't get it (if you're not eligible, you won't be renewed). If you do, you may be barred from teaching or no students will sign up for your classes. If you're a graduate student, you may not get a job (well, for that and a hundred other reasons).

I think, in all seriousness, that if your entire Department is not grading seriously, then you should not either. The war can't be won that way. Give registrar "grades" and actual grades on all assignments. Publicize the issue; do anything but actually hold students to high standards in the classroom. It can only work as a group effort.

Actually, I wouldn't have much sympathy for the future accountant, either. If he ever hopes to work for a multinational corporation, or provide services for one, he will find foreign language skills very valuable..

To Infect_polo_opus:

Why can't Dr. Lang lower his standards to match those of his colleagues at B.C.? I suspect he is inflicted with a very troublesome case of integrity.

My 16-yr-old looked over my shoulder at the previous post and comments. The part about how his students got their work back all marked up caused her to blurt out, "I wish he was my teacher!" Her essays come back marked "A" and "very good" but she gets no specific feedback at all. It worries her that her stuff is OK for high school but she's not being prepared for college. Maybe she has a legitimate concern, maybe not.

Laura--it hurts the feelings of the Infect_polo_opus people to imply that we said that Dr. Lang shouldn't have integrity. Our point was that unshared integrity in a department can only serve to frighten and confuse the students.

Lang should instead work to promote integrity, and maintain an amiably corrupt grading system until it spreads.

I hate to overgeneralize, but your daughter is not being prepared for college in high school. If she's a voracious reader, she will have the "critical" thinking skills necessary to accept Baudrillard. If not, high school's not going to give them to her.

Infect_polo_opus thinks that "unshared integrity in a department can only serve to frighten and confuse the students".

And I think that even one example of integrity in the school, among the mindless herd of corrupt don't-rock-the-boaters, will be sufficient inspiration to students of intelligence that a few may escape the community of ignorance that BC institutionalizes.

The worst frightening and confusing any student can encounter is to be subject to the sort of Politburo groupthink recommended by I_P_O.

I'd suggest ignoring the right deviationism advocated by the aptly named "insufficienty sensitive."

First of all, I can think of few historical institutions as meritocratic as the Politburo. Do you remember Brezhnev? Andropov? Chernenko? A fine model for our contemporary academy.

Second point: students of intelligence do not want to be challenged; they want to be left alone. They are already sufficiently challenged--by themselves. They need not the impedimenta of regimented busywork.

I_P_O, am I to understand that because everyone in a department doesn't do his job nobody should? Because a majority inflate their grades everyone should? How about this, the fortunate souls who get the instructor of integrity will graduate with the necessary skills to excel, and those who recieve the poor instruction will fail in the real world. Or do you mean to suggest that as a matter of egalitarianism all should fail? Do you really want to defend this argument? Their feelings are more important than their ultimate success? I think not!

Eklektos--I think we're misrepresenting the notion of "integrity" here. Consider this from the perspective of students. From their perspective, the least amount of effort they can put in to get the necessary grade is best. If only one teacher out of all choices requires ten times as much work as the rest, then that teacher will be displaced. Some have compared it to Gresham's law--if you substitute "firing" for "hoarding."

There is no way that you can consistently defend free-market principles applied to higher education AND Prof. Lang. Choose one, and I suspect I know which one you've chosen.

"There is no way that you can consistently defend free-market principles applied to higher education AND Prof. Lang."

I agree. Many readers of this blog will probably pick up on themes and motifs that have a lefty-liberal-progressive resonance: the notion that tougher grading standards damages students' self-esteem, for example. But to attribute this case to some sort of lefty plot (e.g., to Politburo groupthink) is to miss the bigger picture. We get a good sense of this picture from Professor Lang's statement: the CUNY lawyer refers to students as "consumers;" the main point of the provost is that it is expensive (and presumably also inefficient) to have students repeat a course. This is at least in part (and probably in large part) about the corporatization of the academy, a restructuring of aims and priorities that is as hostile to those who would maintain/reinstate a more old-fashioned and conservative approach to education as it is to liberal-lefty types.

Prof. Lang's comments bear out one of the possible components in the situation that I mentioned in response to the earlier post: it appears that BC does not have a set of overall standards for grading freshman comp. My guess is that teaching guides that recommend such standards are not common, but this is part of the problem I see with how such courses are taught.

The university should in fact have an overall policy on what levels of performance, or improvement, or however you want to put it, result in what grade. I think I was misled when I was a TA in thinking I had, or ought to have had, near-total autonomy in determining such things.

I don't think it's fair to students to have sections of courses that vary widely in grading. It sounds like this is an issue Prof. Lang faces. I think if I were defending his case, I might make a point that BC had not made it plain (if this in fact was what happened) what its grading standards were.

But to say "I disagree with grade inflation, and I am going to impose standards from a prior time when grades were less inflated" is a little like saying "I disagree with the inflationary debasement of our currency, and I am going to pay my workers the salary they would have received in 1950." You may agree, but $25 a week will not go far in 2003, and even if you are making a point, you are not treating those people fairly. By the same token, if you give students a D feeling this is what a B is really worth, you are making a point at their expense, and there is a fairness issue, in that all the other stodents are getting Bs.

So Prof. Lang's pedagogical technique has been clarified, but I'm still in disagreement with the idea of making what is essentially a futile political point using the records of students. In Prof. Lang's defense I would say that it doesn't appear that BC has codified its grading and teaching standards as it should have.

Invisible Adjunct posted right about when I posted, but it's worth recounting one of the most important educational experiences I had in graduate school: I was supposed to teach a section of comp one summer. My section made enrollment, but the summer classes of several tenured faculty did not make enrollment. As a result, the tenured faculty would not get to teach or be paid for those sections. The freshman comp committee got together and reassigned the tenured faculty to the freshman comp sessions and dinged the TAs.

This was my introduction to the cash nexus of higher education. At some point, if you don't get enrollment, you don't get paid. My view of the "disinterested" world of higher education was never the same after that. The academy is darn well corporatized, and it always has been.

Laura, your daughter should be congratulated. It took me quite a lot longer to get to the point she has alreaedy reached in high school.

I_p_o, where do I begin? From Baudrillard to right-deviationism your range is as broad as Derek Jeter. [I suspect - pure speculation on my part - that I may have treated you poorly in some earlier incarnation and, if so, my appologies.]

I do consider your dual-grading proposal, even if made tongue-in-cheeck to be so fiendishly clever that it should be implemented immediately. Giving a student a B [transcript]/D [reality] grade would comport with the school's easy grading regime and would give the Professor the comfort of being 'honest' about the actual worth of the work in question. Imagine the esteem of the student who qualifies for an A/A or B/B?

To Professor Lang, I wish you the best of luck in your struggle. From what little I know of the student body, its composition may not be noticeably different from my father's graduating class in 1936. It is a school filled with city-kids, immigrants and the children of immigrants. The range of immigrants may have broadened I suppose. Those children thrived at Brooklyn College, and indeed throughout the shining star that was the City University of New York, not because they were handed good grades on a platter but because they were challenged to perform - by their professors and their fellow students.

Professor Lang, if you are reading this I do have a question for you. We have had many comments about the minutiae [sp] of spell-checking, grading, and the increased emphasis on the heightened sensitivities of this generation of student at CCNY. We have not had too many comments about the motive. I would like to throw something out for Professor Lang's response or for anyone else for that matter.

As noted by Erin in her first post, and as alluded to by me above, the City College system was as much of a multi-ethnic and multi-racial (even back in the 1930s) melting pot as it is today. However, there was no emphasis back then on streaming or remedial programs. That was the job of elementary and secondary schools.

A the same time, since the 1970s - 1980s I think we have witnessed something of the rise of ethnic apartheid. The concept of assimilation has fallen into disrepute. Consequently, Professors such as Lang who focus on fundamentals of grammar and syntax in an English composition class run the risk of being painted as retrogade ethnocentric elitists by those who see assimiliation as a process to be avoided at all costs.

This aversion to what has been defined as assimilation has always bothered me because it fails to account for the difference between assimilation and acculturation. The former is a term that implies perhaps the end of ethnic identify while the latter implies the preservation of ethnic identity while at the same time providing the immigrant with the tools to live and thrive in his/her new city/country.

Does anyone think that yours is a battle on this larger field of ethnocentric social engineering? Just a thought.

And I have truly enjoyed reading these 65 or so posts to date on this subject. Thanks.
Ivan

Stolypin--I'm well aware that Jeter has considerably below average range for a shortstop, but I choo-choo-choose to ignore this senseless provocation.

I cannot claim credit for the dual grading proposal, which was the idea of (as far as I know) the professor at Harvard who's been writing frequently on the subject of grade-inflation.

Have you noticed that the culinary metaphors used to describe the ideas you mention--"melting pot" and "mixed salad"--represent the return of the repressed of the Western conscience which usually ignores the inconvenient fact that its economic system results in worldwide mass starvation?

John B,

I've enjoyed your posts on this thread. They have caused me too think a bit more than I normally do before posting relfexively (and politically).

It may very well be that this may be a 'corporate' dispute in which Lang's methods do not meet some corporate cost/benefit secnario. It may have no political implications at all.

I also think your analogy to paying 1950 wages is spot on.

On the other hand, it is hard not to imagine any issue involving public education in New York City not being politically driven. From kindergarten through grad-school, there is no issue too mundane to be politicized. With the possible exception of the Soviet Writers' Guild, there is no greater example of a an over-politicized, self-generating and preserving bee-hive of apparatchiks than the New York public school system. By the way this comment should be taken solely as a reflection on their bureaucratic structure and penchant for political in-fighting and not a comment or attack on anyone's ideology.

Politics is the education system's life blood in NYC. Lip service may be paid to corporate-sounding issues but my money is on politics.

I_P_O, sorry you did/did not raise to the bait re. Jeter. Fielding aside, I do admire him for his range off the field.
In return for your restraint, I will reflect at length on the melting pot/mass starvation correlation without comment as that conversation would undoubtedly suck all the oxygen out of this board - and then some.

I have enjoyed reading these posts as I enjoy discussion but I have a couple of points that have been concerning me on this issue.

1. To lower grading standards may frustrate some of the students who do not prepare or wish to improve themselves, but they also dishearten students who work for their grades. For example when I was in college I was constantly amazed at the poor work ethic of students who expected grades to be handed to them. When a teacher gave me an "A" for a grade on something I had worked hard for, that "A" was diminished when I saw work that was not even close to what I had put forth. If I received a grade I was not happy with, I worked to improve it. It appears that Professor Lang has given students several chances on the same paper to improve their grade, but they do not have the desire to do so. All this lax grading has done is devalue the true effort that millions of college students have put forth to earn their diplomas, this grade devaluing trend will only lessen the value of a college diploma

2. For the statement of Prof. Lang to change his grading system to match the other professors is not a solution at all. I find it amazing that someone with a work ethic and reasonable standards has to "come down" to another level. The department should be made to keep their grades honest and reflect true effort and knowledge base. That is what "learning" is supposed to be based on.

3. I sure hope the next doctor that has to save the life of me or someone I love had professors like Lang. How about you?

Absolutely, nyx. Lang's behavior is a fine example of non-violent resistance, and it's working - he's stirring things up, and institutional changes may result because of his stubbornness. Why in the world his behavior and his pedagogical habits should be described as futile, old-fashioned, on the verge of being crushed by the big bad corporate university, is beyond me. Just as Harvey Mansfield's form of grade-inflation resistance at Harvard is having an impact, so Lang's form will as well. Show a little patience. Encourage the dude. You have to expose destructive and hypocritical practices to the light if they're going to be changed. Recall the motto of this website: bluntness is a therapeutic necessity. The word for this disinfecting activity is not futility, but bravery.

Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful posts. I will share only one experience. When I was in graduate school at Yale a thousand years ago, one of my professors said, "There's no such thing as good writing, only good re-writing." It stuck with me and I have applied that principle to my kids (I admit I once went overboard in covering second grade papers with red ink, leading to tears and scolding from mom), to young lawyers whose work I was editing (there's no such thing as too much red ink when editing lawyers) and now to clients who ask me to review their letters and presentations. Leaving the second grader aside, I have found that the subjects of a vigorous edit are generally grateful for the attention and feedback. So whatever Prof. Lang decides to do with his grading (I'm assuming he'll win the arbitration and be restored to the classroom), I hope that he continues to cover his students' papers with thoughtful and probing comments and edits.

Fortunately, perhaps, I have no special attachment to free-market theories of education, because I think Lang is taking not only a principled stand, but an admirable one.

The problem with the anti-inflationary wage analogy is that paying a worker half (or whatever) the going salary has no possible benefit for that worker. Requiring a student to take basic freshman comp twice if s/he doesn't do passable work the first time around does, in fact, have a benefit for the student: s/he will learn how to write, analyze, etc. In fact, allowing those students to get through the class without learning how to write will probably harm them later in life -- see the remainder of Erin's post. (It also harms instructors across the humanities who are trying to teach upper-level undergrad classes under the bizarrely outmoded assumption that their students are capable of writing short papers without extensive technical support. Not that I'm grading this week or anything. ;) But, seriously, freshman comp is an issue for people outside the English department.)

The posts from toulouse, nyx, and Doug Levene all, it seems to me, ignore the effect of an "uninflated" grade on the students. To give a student an "uninflated" grade n levels below the "going rate" grade on his or her transcript does in fact hurt that student. You may hope your doctor had tough instructors in school, but consider that your doctor probably DID get "go along to get along" As in school, but the student to whom a Prof. Lang awarded an "uninflated" C may have missed the cut for medical school entirely, even if she worked harder than the A students. That student now manages a Burger King, but her paragraphs read well.

It's isn't "non-violent" in any moral sense to downgrade a student to make a political point. This is not what Harvey Mansfield does at Harvard. He will give a "transcript" A but privately tell the student she got an "uninflated" B. That is in fact the "non-violent" approach. Prof. Lang is a little more like the folks who trash the research clinic to protest whatever they're protesting.

"...the student to whom a Prof. Lang awarded an 'uninflated' C may have missed the cut for medical school entirely...."

You really think that Prof. Lang's freshman comp class might be too difficult for someone who had a good chance at finishing medical school? Good grief.

John,

I do actually appreciate good discussion so please take this post in that light (I know it is tough to convey emotions through e-mail so I don't want you to think that I am being sarcastic as that is difinitly not my intent).

The theory behind my post is that I believe that any student who truely applies themselves will get the "A" grade, if not they will appreciate and understand the grade they recieved and apply it for future use. I am not sure that I understand how a student who works harder than the "A" student and receives a "C" would apply to Prof. Lang's class. The reason I say this is because I don't think that Prof. Lang is trying to make a politcal statement by downgrading a students work (i.e. making an "A" paper a "C" to make a point). I believe (yes this is an assumption and I admit it up-front)he is just trying to prepare the students for what shoud be expected of any college graduate. Mediacl profession aside, there are so many fields where spelling and communication are vital, I would rather receive a "C" than get fired for not knowing how to put ideas on paper.

As for trashing a clinic, if feel that analogy is not really applicable in many ways but I will state that since the students have more than one attempt to improve their work. How is a politacal statement delivered, if someone is given a second chance to improve?

Thank you for the discussion

"This is what Lang--not to mention an entire generation of kids--is up against."

I don't understand what Erin means by this comment. Or rather, if she means to blame the schools, or how writing is taught in the schools, for the fact that many of today's students write poorly, then I am not sure I can agree. For those of you reading this, how did you learn to write? I honestly think I learned to write by reading -- if you read the right books you find organized knowledge, complex sentence structure, and an advanced vocabulary (yes, I actually looked up the words I didn't know). So I succeeded at (the rather formulaic) expository writing in HS (and beyond) because I already had an idea of what to do, and also (I think) because I am intelligent. Yes, I was given assignments -- topics to write about. My teachers -- who had roughly the same teaching load -- marked my papers. So I had practice, but not much (if any) more than is mentioned here. But I always did well at it -- in this sense, I did not really learn how to write in school. Again, it is worth asking: Why do the same schools (more or less) that achieved good (at least better) results with earlier generations turn out students with such deficient skills today? Earlier I suggested student demographics was one place (not the PC place) to start looking for an answer, and IMO this is definitely one aspect of the problem. But of course it is more complicated than that, and more complicated than suggested here. Finally, it seems to me that what kids (even most adults) today are "up against" more than anything else is their failure to read. And I do not blame the schools for that.

Eh, nice post.

I agree with the assertion that reading is a critical tool in learning to write. My experience also tracks yours in that much of my writing skills have been self-taught. In my case that is not neccessarily a good thing. In your case, it worked well.

However, to the extent that my (limited) writing skills have improved beyond a certain baseline level of competency I must attribute that improvement to: a) an effort on the part of some teachers, professors, and more senior attorneys to invest time in critiquing my work and b) a willingness on my part to accept their investment, analyze it, and incorporate the knowledge that they were taking the time to impart.

My father was a professional musician. I picked up the instrument when I was a child and was able to teach myself some fundamentals. However, I never would have been able to progess beyond a certain point unless he sat me down (actually I had to stand) and took the time to teach me technique, form, etc. Learning the mechanics of writing and the mechanics of music are very similar in many respects. They are essential to faciilate improvement beyond a certain point and is an area that is generally hard to be 'self-taught'.

What I see here is Lang attempting to undertake a). (And maybe he is not a saint, maybe he is prickly and difficult, I do not know. I don't know that a difficult personality impacts the analysis more than a bit. I also see students (possibly because of the grade issue) unwilling to undertake ktheir half of the teaching bargain and an administration that falls on the side of the (fee-paying) student. I am not convinced that this result is in the long term interest of the students who will someday have to compete with others who kept their bargain. Guess it is their choice - but not one that I would encourage if I were a college administrator.

To me, the really annoying thing about this story is that Lang's empoyers are trying to pretend that the university still has standards, that it still challenges its students. After all, if their intention is that every student pass, they could simple remove D and F as possible grades. They want to pretend that those are still possible results, while having the teachers pretend that none of their students have earned those grades.

Good one EH

I do remember from an upper division writing course a freewriting topic from the professor: How did you learn writing? He was surprised, and I was too, at the almost unanimous response of "I don't really recall any specific instruction, but I've been an avid reader all my life." If I walk out of my house and the grass is all pink, I know something is wrong, simply because I know what "proper" grass should look like. Same goes for the power of being well-read. However, I think this mainly affects the areas of grammar, spelling, and mechanics. This is not the same as the ability to use structures of logical argument or debate. I think those do need to be learned.

EH also mentions that demographics play a part here, and I agree. Many of our students today, apart from race or color or any of the other standard categories, might be considered a part of the "Demographic of the Unconcerned." Many secondary classes are begun with a daily journal or warm-up to help get the kids on track to begin the lesson. It is not uncommon, even with a topic as simple as "Write on a subject of your choice" to have as few as six out of a class of twenty respond. In other words, fourteen of the twenty can't be bothered to write four or more sentences on this topic. They simply won't do it. I could understand a feeling of hopelessness or giving up on some impossibly difficult topic, but on a topic this simple, can there be any other answer than simple laziness or lack of concern? This is the "Demographic of the Unconcerned."

Part of the problem, and it has been noted in other posts, is the notion that students aren't really students anymore, they're "clients". Offices at my school have Customer Satisfaction cards. I kid you not. Some may argue, "Well, it's important to be responsive to the community, so what's the big deal?" If the cards were intended for this, and if they were only used for this, that might not be a problem. Unfortunately, the cards are more closely related to a different aspect of consumer wisdom: the customer is always right.

In this situation, administrators feel the need to kowtow to student and parent pressure. They end up acting with more regard for the comfort or feel-good needs of the student than the academic and educational needs. It's a ridiculous situation, and it comes from the fact that no matter what level of public (and often, even private) education you are in, there is a boss somewhere above you who has to be, or is willing to be, submissive to political wants and desires. I truly believe that if our education system, at all levels, was run more in accord with a military or sports team model than with an everybody must feel good model, most of our problems would disappear

I am a 16 year old junior in high school this year. My English teacher this year came directly from teaching college; for the final exam we had to write down the title, author, and date of publication for every book we read in the semester. I spelled 'pomegranates' incorrectly, (I think it's still incorrect there, but my dictionary is in my other room, and I'm lazy), and the full four points were taken off, knocking me down from an A- to a B+, which then made my semester grade lower as well. I went to complain to the teacher about the unfairness of this, and she simply told me that, no, it didn't really matter, but I could not appear educated if I did not know these sorts of basics. I believe Professor Lang was absolutely right to take off for spelling mistakes on tests, especially since he told them, and especially for fairly easy words. Sadist? Come on. How can one misspell that?

I mean, of course, that we had to write the information for each book in addition to writing a couple of essays and other sorts of real exam-type stuff.

Several people have commented that a problem with the schools is excessive *consumer orientation* (as in, "students aren't students anymore, they're clients"). I think there's a lot of truth in this..but here's an interesting (partial) counterexample.

People who are learning to fly airplanes select their own flight instructors. If they aren't happy with the instructor, they change--this happens fairly often. This would seem even more "consumerist" than the schools. Yet there doesn't seem to be the kind of "grade inflation" in aviation that there is in the schools. Why might this be?

Two primary reasons. First, separation of examining from instruction. The test that determines if you get your certificate is not administered by the instructor, but by a separate individual ("designated examiner"). Second, respect for the subject matter. People are studying the subject because they are interested in it--and the connection between knowledge and safety is too simple and direct to miss.

I wonder if it would be useful to think about mirroring these conditions in the schools.

That is a good idea, seperating instruction and examination.

Of course then you run into uniform grade inflation, but then it's more clearly quantifiable, as it is by school not instructor.

And regardless of how inflated a schools grades are, you would have a very clear picture of which instructors of a course actually were better teachers.

This would nicely take care of the issue that 'good' teachers are often 'hard', and are often avoided by students.

I was a student at Brooklyn College from 1973 to 1977; I received a B.S. in mathematics. During those years, BC went through the worst of its budget crises; the school closed down for two weeks during my senior year. It was also in the the worst of the Open Admissions era. Some of the professors in the mathematics department were extraordinarily frustrated with teaching remedial courses. They did not appreciate having to teach freshmen that 7 + 6 equals 13.

However, the majority students were ther to learn. No one has ever gone to BC for the social cachet. People studied together, taught each other, and learned from each other. I was in paradise. The mathematics department was an extraordinary place; there were many dedicated teachers, and too few mathematics majors. Most of my courses had one teacher and one to four students. It was an apprenticeship.

Students are capable of learning; unfortunately, many departments and schools now are not interested in teaching. I was an assistant professor at SUNY--Stony Brook from 1983 to 1989, and i witnessed the devaluation of education. As a junior faculty member, I could do nothing to fight this. I remember the time two groups of faculty members sat in the math common room, deciding on the final grades. i heard the following conversation from the other group:

"What should the minimum D be?"

"180 out of 420."

"No, we'd fail too many people."

They eventually decided on 140 out of 420, and I was forced to comment.

"Bernie, would you trust someone who got 140 out of 420 to do your taxes?"

"Eric, that's not the point."

"Would you trust him to be your doctor?"

"Eric, that's not the point."

"Would you trust him to build a bridge for you?"

"Eric, that's not the point."

"Bernie, that is the point."

Bernie acknowledged the truth of what I said,but he kept the threshold score at 140.

The textbooks I taught from presented mathematics as a series of cookbook recipes. We did not teach mathematics as a connected whole. And then, in order to help the mathematics department compete with the applied mathematics department for students, the math major curriculum was dumbed down so far that it became possible to earn a mathematics degree without ever seeing an epsilon-delta proof!

We paid for this. We once gave a simple problem on a midterm examination that required the students to think and to understand what lay beneath the formulas. None of our 200 students gave a good answer. This was our fault, not the students' fault. I fear that this country and the world is a far worse place because of our malfeasence.

And now, education is presented solely in terms of jobs. pass this exam, and be ready for a good job. Get this degree, and be ready for a good job. We do not speak of citizenship, and we do not speak of learning for its own sake. And, we give undeservedly high grades; this is a lie.

In the end, John J. Cannell was right. Our schools still suffer from the Lake Wobegon Effect. They and our society will until our society decides that truth is more important than illusion. Professor Lang, thank you for your efforts.

Respectfully,
Eric jablow

Several people have mentioned that colleges today are too "consumer-oriented" and that this is leading to reduced standards. This may be true in some cases, but my experience has been quite different. At my college, the administration and a small majority of the faculty recently rammed through a plan to shorten the amount of time spent in class, despite intense opposition from students and parents (and a large minority of faculty) who felt their education was being devalued. The same people are now trying to push for reduced graduation requirements. Maybe that's unusual to my college, but I think there are a lot of students who *do* care about the real value of their education, not just getting a good grade that doesn't mean anything.

Also, student evaluations for professors are essential. The fact that some students may give bad evaluations because they expect bad grades is unfortunate, but hopefully the persons responsible for reviewing evaluations can separate out such comments. Personally, I have greatly valued the opportunity to give bad evaluations to professors who don't know how to teach, or who turn their courses into lefty propaganda dispensers. It's impossible to argue against "consumer-oriented" policies in the context of grade inflation while demanding that students and parents should do something about the relentless politicization of academia.

Perhaps the preposition how many pinheads can fit up the ass of an angel will be totally rejected for its vulgarity and spare the education-industrial complex from exposure as a fraud, but the alternative is without qualification most distressing as it would inevitably culminate in the sentencing of all persons of rationality to commit suicide for the convienence of the ignorant.
Without further comment I would advise BOTH students and teachers to ignore previous admonishions and HIDE YOUR enLIGHTenment UNDER the nearest bushel for the sake of self preservation. You are not paranoid if there are really some who are out there to get you!
Remember the immortal words of that great American philosopher, Clem Cadiddlehopper, " It just doesn't sound right to me somehow."