Below is my column in The Hill on universities reporting soaring grade inflation and failing academic standards. Some of us have been writing about this trend for years, but there is little sign of commitment from departments that they are willing to take action to restore academic standards. Any solution will require a national compact of willing schools, a critical mass of institutions willing to adopt a standard curve and basic admission reforms.
Here is the column:
This week, a faculty report at the University of California San Diego found that one in eight of its students requires remedial math classes due to plummeting admissions standards at the school. This follows a similar disclosure at Harvard, where students are also being given remedial math training.
It is only the latest example of the dumbing down of education in America. The implications of this trend are dire for the nation as we march toward an economy with unprecedented challenges for the coming generation.
If we are to save higher education in the U.S., we will need a radical reboot. We need a national education compact to change admissions and grading in our schools.
For more than a decade, some of us have been writing about the decline of academic standards in higher education, from lowering admissions standards to increasing grading curves. Faculties have shown no willingness to address grade inflation or declining standards. That will not change. Most faculties have been purged of dissenting voices and most conservatives. The outrage being voiced outside of schools like Harvard is not being heard within this academic echo chamber.
Years ago, advocates for greater diversity in admission began to rail against the concept of meritocracy itself as racist. Others denounced the use of standardized testing as racist and a barrier to entry for many minorities in top schools. At the same time, the Supreme Court appeared to be moving closer to declaring the use of race in admissions to be unconstitutional — which it ultimately did in 2023.
I wrote about this effort in the California university system in 2021, when then-University of California President Janet Napolitano announced that the ten schools in the system would no longer base admissions on standardized tests. What was most striking about this announcement is that Napolitano went forward with the plan, even though the findings of her hand-picked study group did not support the change.
The final report concluded that at the University of California, “test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average, and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.” To make matters worse for Napolitano, the panel also found that standardized scores were also better predictors of outcomes for non-white students within any given school.
Napolitano thanked them and proceeded to kill standardized testing anyway. Now, the system is dealing with a 30-fold spike in freshmen who can’t do remedial math.
Other schools have faced similar concerns after discontinuing standardized testing and have recently returned to using the tests. However, there remain objections that schools are circumventing the 2023 Supreme Court decision and finding less obvious ways to use race as a criterion for admissions.
A recent report in San Diego of the Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions said precisely what some of us said years ago: “Admitting large numbers of underprepared students risks harming those students and straining limited instructional resources.”
One way to address the lowering of admissions standards is to inflate grades to erase differences in performance. And yes, that is happening.
Harvard is the most ridiculous example of this trend. Recently, then-Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana gave his annual report to the faculty and noted that the average GPA at the school is now 3.8. Upon his announcement that Harvard now gives A’s to virtually everyone, Khurana and the faculty members reportedly broke out laughing at how they have made a premier institution into a bad joke.
When a recent report at Harvard noted that it is impossible to maintain academic integrity and excellence with such grade inflation, students reportedly rebelled. Most faculty are perfectly willing to keep the joke going. After all, giving mostly A’s makes grading easier, guarantees great student reviews, and avoids objections from any aggrieved students.
But in the long run, the joke is on the students. These degrees are becoming meaningless as employers have little basis to judge the comparative ability of these students.
In San Diego, the faculty study also found that grade inflation had contributed to the collapse of standards at the school.
Last week, I addressed a class at Harvard Law School, noting that the Trump Administration was correct about the lack of intellectual diversity at the school. For many of these students, the closest they get to a libertarian or conservative professor is through such guest lectures or occasional speakers.
But despite agreeing with the Trump administration, I disagree with some of its actions toward Harvard in seeking to dictate diversity. We do not want the government to play such a large role in higher education.
Instead, what we need is a voluntary National Education Compact. Donors, students, and others should encourage colleges and universities to join a national agreement between schools to implement some basic changes to restore excellence in higher education. First, schools should agree not only to utilize standardized testing but also to guarantee that the scores will be weighted at a minimum level. For example, the compact could specify that scores would represent at least forty percent of the points that go toward admission (and that the combination of those scores and their grade point averages (GPA) will be given a minimum of sixty-five percent of such points).
The specific percentage can be addressed, but participating schools would ideally assure students and employers that admissions will be driven in significant part by objective rankings while allowing, in the remaining points, for significant variables in other forms of achievement or distinction. Among broad bands of combined scoring, the difference can still be individual distinctions beyond mere tests and grades.
Second, a standard curve should be published with a B as the fixed mean. Individual department faculties often set the mean and inevitably inflate it as students complain that they are at a competitive disadvantage to more generous schools. It is an irresistible temptation just to repeatedly increase the mean to appease students. This can become a variation of the prisoner’s dilemma between schools, in which they come to the worst outcome as they anticipate what other schools will be doing to help their students.
By creating a standard curve among schools and establishing a standard testing mandate, we can establish an objective baseline for comparison. Schools will be listed as either joining the compact or being in non-compliance. Employers can then give greater weight to those schools committed to academic excellence and transparency. Likewise, donors can refuse to contribute to schools with administrators and faculty who refuse to take basic steps to maintain the standards at their school.
The compact still will not address the hiring practices of these schools or the loss of traditional courses. Schools will no doubt continue to offer courses in subjects such as “social advocacy.” However, those courses will no longer be able to give every social justice warrior an A. Students will be expected, as in real life, to distinguish themselves through merit and their work to secure higher grades.
This is admittedly going to be controversial. But what is clear is that we cannot continue on the current path. The dumbing down of higher education is now a national crisis. It is time for a National Education Compact.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the bestselling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Universities and college probably lack qualified professors who actually can teach advanced classes because they, themselves have been brought up in a system with reduced standards.
Was Larry Summers the Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton?
The curve in grading was the beginning of the standard going down hill. It is imperative to have a standard for the curve is deceitful. My aunt cried as if someone had died when the curve was implemented against the will of the teachers many years ago. She even stated through her tears, “You will see the damage in 50 years. It breaks my heart.” The teachers’ high quality of individuals such as she was in by gone days cared about the country, the republic, the constitution, biblical standards, and standards of excellency. The curve was seen as a planned effort to bring down the standard nation wide. And, it worked.
Well expressed article. However, might it be simplified by reducing the complexity of the messaging:
1. The value of “Education” in America today is certified indoctrination – much as seen in “progressive” socialist states, examples: People’s Republic of China (CCP), The United Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), The Third Empire(Reich is German for Empire), The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (The Bolivar vision of nationalism, socialism, and regional unity), . . .
2. To reform this, the emphasis must be changed from “what to learn” into “how to learn”
3. The education resulting in growth and innovation cannot occur if the only actual value in education reflects an Eastern “proverb” of “The nail that stands out gets hammered down”
4. Education today has nothing to do with the student or knowledge seeker – it is nothing more than a power structure focused on hatred and fear with the simple message of “You will become one of the powered oligarchy/autocracy if you worship those who tell you what to think and who to hate, and if you don’t, just get ready for your ticket to the gulags/work camps/reeducation camps – because that’s where we will send you.
External exhortations to reform themselves will have little to no effect on our esteemed institutions which have become ideological fortresses confident in the righteousness of their side of history. What’s needed is a change in incentives in particular one that has done much to create the problem – the subsidization of student loans that underpins the faster than inflation growth of the past few decades in tuition. The free flow of free money has done much to undermine the traditional merit based academic foundations of our schools. This happened because in the student loan structure the primary beneficiary of the loan, the school, suffers no consequences when the loan defaults. This has led to student becoming customers to be pleased and professors and administrators servants towards that end. Grade inflation, takeover by leftist ideologues, massive increases in costs of education, and a loss of academic standards which had filtered down through the system to infect K-12. Top down exhortations will fail to inspire significant reforms. Trump’s frontal attack via another major source of funding will be effective but we must attack another key pillar and put consequences to the schools for failing to educate by charging some percentage of defaulted loans back to the school. No harm will come to the chemistry and STEM in general but expect the grievance majors and their professors to come to quick ends. School managers unable to adjust will be replaced. Affirmative action will become too costly as will the army of administrators that has grown to coddle the customer students. Professors will regain their former positions of authority both over their subjects and their students, and students who cannot get by on merit both at admissions and in their course work will become too costly to keep around.
I love this! Can’t come soon enough!
It would help if students were actually prepared for college when they arrive. But then, that would require high school teachers to educate their students.
The case against Comey is now officially on a fast-track to oblivion, and Halligan and Bondi will face disbarment.
Judge Fitzpatrick has ruled that the DOJ committed fundamental errors in the Comey indictment proceedings that may rise to the level of misconduct.
The Justice Department engaged in a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” when it secured an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, a federal judge ruled Monday in directing prosecutors to produce to defense lawyers all grand jury materials from the case.
Those problems, wrote Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick, include “fundamental misstatements of the law” by a prosecutor to a grand jury that indicted Comey in September, the use of potentially privileged communications in the investigation and unexplained irregularities in the transcript of the grand jury proceedings.
In his ruling Monday, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick said his review of the materials revealed “substantive irregularities” and apparent errors by Lindsey Halligan, one of Trump’s former personal attorneys turned temporary U.S. attorney.
These concerns, the judge said, may arise to “misconduct” on the part of DOJ and warrant disclosure of grand jury materials to Comey — a move that almost never happens in criminal proceedings.
“Here, the procedural and substantive irregularities that occurred before the grand jury, and the manner in which evidence presented to the grand jury was collected and used, may rise to the level of government misconduct resulting in prejudice to Mr. Comey,” the judge added.
First, Halligan appeared to tell the jury that Comey would not have a Fifth Amendment right to not testify at trial, which, the judge wrote, “ignores the foundational rule of law that if Mr. Comey exercised his right not to testify the jury could draw no negative inference from that decision.”
Second, Fitzpatrick said Halligan appeared to tell the jury that it did not have to rely on the evidence before it to approve an indictment.
“That statement clearly suggested to the grand jury that they did not have to rely only on the record before them to determine probable cause but could be assured the government had more evidence–perhaps better evidence–that would be presented at trial,” the judge wrote.
In addition, Fitzpatrick raised sharp doubts about an account of the grand jury proceedings provided by the Justice Department and whether it had turned over all records of the interactions between Halligan and the grand jurors. He noted that Halligan had claimed she had her last contact with the grand jury at 4:28 p.m. that day, while the jurors were deliberating. But he also noted that the grand jury initially rejected one of the counts against Comey, leading prosecutors to prepare a new indictment that Halligan ultimately signed. Yet nothing in the record reflects the grand jury’s initial decision or consideration of the second indictment, Fitzpatrick said.
The short time span between the moment the prosecutor learned that the grand jury rejected one count in the original indictment and the time the prosecutor appeared in court to return the second indictment could not have been sufficient to draft the second indictment, sign the second indictment, present it to the grand jury, provide legal instructions to the grand jury, and give them an opportunity to deliberate and render a decision on the new indictment. If the prosecutor is mistaken about the time she received notification of the grand jury’s vote on the original indictment, and this procedure did take place, then the transcript and audio recording provided to the Court are incomplete.
If this procedure did not take place, then the Court is in uncharted legal territory in that the indictment returned in open court was not the same charging document presented to and deliberated upon by the grand jury. Either way, this unusual series of events, still not fully explained by the prosecutor’s declaration, calls into question the presumption of regularity generally associated with grand jury proceedings, and provides another genuine issue the defense may raise to challenge the manner in which the government obtained the indictment.
In other words, Halligan lied in a sworn statement regarding the events surrounding the mysterious presentation of two conflicting indictment documents. The judge is saying that the second indictment document used in court was never presented to the grand jury. He is saying that the audio recordings and the transcript of the grand jury proceedings do not reveal that this document was ever presented to the grand jury.
“The Court is finding that the government’s actions in this case–whether purposeful, reckless, or negligent–raise genuine issues of misconduct, are inextricably linked to the government’s grand jury presentation, and deserve to be fully explored by the defense,” Fitzpatrick wrote.
Halligan and Bondi will be disbarred for this gross misconduct.
Laughable
Laughable indeed.
The hysterical laughing you hear is from Comey and his team.
Harris is going to obliterate Trump…
Laughable
Laughable in the sense that we ALL know Comey is guilty as Chit, yet some wordsmiths BS gets the indictment thrown out. Yet another travesty of justice for all America to watch. Another bad day for America.
The “wordsmiths BS” to which you refer is the Constitutional rule of law, the lawful procedures of grand juries, and the presumption of regularity normally afforded to the DOJ, all of which have been grossly violated.
What is more interesting is how quiet Professor Turley has gotten regarding the Comey and James cases. If this were the Biden administration he would be all over it like white on rice. But because it is the Trump administration it’s not cause for concern about the incompetence of Trump’s DOJ. Bondi and Halligan are in serious Trouble.
The list of lawyers disbarred or forced out after having even tangential contact with Trump is getting longer.
Turley is not rewarded for pointing out the massive failures in the Trump administration nor in Trump’s character or actions.
Comey will have a slam dunk suit for wrongful and malicious prosecution with an award of substantial damages.
You can see that it is a serious matter because Turley chose this other subject to hop onto instead.
Judge William Fitzpatrick was appointed by President Joe Biden on May 9, 2022, as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Say no more.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
Actually, Fitzpatrick was simply appointed during the Biden administration as a Magistrate Judge.
Magistrate judges are not Article 3 judges appointed for life by the President.
They are appointed for 8 year terms by the judges of the US District Court in which they serve, upon the recommendation of a merit panel of lawyers and other citizens from the district.
He was not chosen or appointed by Biden or anyone in his administration.
Biden had absolutely no role in his appointment.
Judge Fitzpatrick was selected for an eight-year term by the United States district judges of the Eastern District of Virginia on the recommendation of a volunteer merit selection panel comprised of lawyers and other citizens from Northern Virginia.
https://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/sites/vaed/files/WEF%20MJ%20announcement%20Nov%202022.pdf
Three of those judges were appointed by a conservative republican, the rest were appointed by liberals and RINOs.
The District Court judges did NOT select Fitzpatrick.
He was chosen and recommended by an independent panel of lawyers and lay citizens.
The judges simply appointed him upon the recommendation of the panel.
The judges had NO role in selecting Fitzpatrick.
If students graduate high school with inadequate skills, in addition to examining the grading and promotion policies of school administrators, the skillset of their teachers should also be critically evaluated. I can recall a second or third grade parent-teacher conference 40 years ago where I questioned the rationale behind the method used by the teacher to teach grade level arithmetic/math to her students. Even I, with an advanced professional science degree, could not understand the rationale behind that was being used to teach the topic.The teacher responded that she too did not understand the method used to solve the particular problem, “. . . (she) just needed to know how to teach it.”
In many communities there is a vast cadre of retired physicists, mathematicians, physicians, and other STEM individuals that would gladly volunteer to step in and help teachers teach students the importance of excelling at science and math and to help teach the topic. There are likely similarly retired writers, lawyers, and journalists who could do the same to teach students reading and writing skills. Both could serve as role models and mentors. The public education establishment (that is, the Union) has, for the most part, precluded the involvement of this retired community recourse because of their lack of an education degree. As if an education degree insures success in teaching. The fallacy of that claim is now clearly apparent.
It really boils down to those with generational wealth vs. those with generational poverty.
Those with the wealth get not only good teachers, but also good food, good access to tutors and laboratory equipment, the best audio and visual reinforcement. They are well fed and in excellent health due to regular access to medical care and the rapid and effective treatment of any problem that is discovered.
Those trapped in poverty don’t get good teachers as the salaries are low in impoverished area and the experience of a year or two is enough to move to a better paying location. The students don’t eat quality food as they haven’t got the funds to do so. There are no tutors or laboratory equipment. The buildings often have mold from failing roof coverings and lack sufficient heat and air conditioning. The books are very old as the school system cannot afford new ones. Often, in higher grades, the students are working 20-30 hours a week to help make rent and pay for food and clothing, severely limiting the time and sleep they need to study. If there are health problems, they have to get bad enough to make an ER trip to get it treated. They may have to choose between eating and purchasing medication.
I’m sure the typical racist is thinking about the hopeless ones who are on street corners. They can’t ever afford to go to college; the ones I am talking about do have hope and ability, but not the means to compete.
And so, the wealth vs. poverty disparity remains a constant in higher education as those at the bottom get repeatedly kicked in the face by those who were helicoptered to a higher location on the ladder. The cycle repeats.
Please swallow that clucking tongue that says the poor should fix their own problems, that a child raised in abject poverty should resolve to efforts ten times that which the wealthy could equal and, in a lifetime, would be stripped away as fast as they accomplish it.
It really boils down to those with generational wealth vs. those with generational poverty… And so, the wealth vs. poverty disparity remains a constant in higher education as those at the bottom get repeatedly kicked in the face by those who were helicoptered to a higher location on the ladder.
The evil generational wealthy forced the commie Democrats to be poor?
79% Of Millionaires Are Self-Made — Lessons From Those Who Built Wealth Without Inheritance
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/79-millionaires-self-made-lessons-160025947.html
One of today’s Democrat commies is channeling the theology of Karl Marx.
You MUST believe them telling you that there is absolutely no upward mobility in your financial life – and of course, you also cannot lose your wealth if you’ve got it. If your first job was a minimum wage job at a gas station market, you are sentenced to remain working there your entire life!
You must believe you are a permanent victim – why, you can’t even join the military to further yourself in life, to learn an occupation/trade, and to qualify for the GI Bill to pay for a higher higher education like those disgusting wealthy people have the money or student loans to achieve.
This is a perfect example of why today’s communist Democrats should never be allowed anywhere near where they can screw up the economy.
Professor – good luck! Given the less-than-universal acceptance of the Chicago Principles by American universities to promote free speech, I am skeptical about the acceptance of a university produced compact for education reform being accepted across the land. Various interest groups will want to personalize it. But the exercise may be most valuable as each university goes their individual, albeit similar, way.
Regarding the use of a grading curve, this was my experience as a TA a very long time ago. For the most part a students overall grade was pretty obvious but there were a few borderline cases. I hope that your proposed grading curve will still leave some room for local discretion.
What did I look for when hiring an employee? Honesty and integrity were first, then experience, and finally education. When hiring employee’s, you become adept at profiling those with everyday knowledge (common sense), specific knowledge applicable to the opening and if the applicant can follow instructions. With that said, it mattered not what education applicants had, success came down to motivation.
A joke: There were three applicant left for an opening as a manager, they were all sitting in the waiting area for a final interview, the first applicant went into the interview and was told they were well qualified but the interviewer asked a final question, do you see anything in particular/peculiar, at which time the applicant said yea you don’t have any ears at which time they were excused. The second applicant was invited in, the interviewer again said they were well qualified and could be offered the opening but, asked if they also saw anything particular the applicant said yea you don’t have any ears, excused the applicant walked out of the interview and told the third applicant “whatever you do, don’t mention the ears”. The third applicant was interviewed an offered the job and again the interviewer asked about particularity where the applicant said yea you ware contacts lenses, the interviewer said, well you are very observant, at which time the applicant said yea you’d be wearing glasses it you had ears.
I look for candidates who can write their thoughts without making a grammatical error in the first paragraph.
As to profiling, I think that says enough.
Funny joke. If the interviewer doesn’t have a strong enough self image to accept the truth of an observation about them, one made without malice and invited, that interviewer is not someone worth working for.
Is there any future for “higher education” other than higher unmerited pay for professors and administrators? The prestige degree is simply a tool to further the extant corruption. Which biological student will compete with diminishing-cost AI?
Real life incoming college freshmen – 79% or so got these right:
7 + 2 = ? + 6.
Sarah had nine pennies and nine dimes. How many coins did she have in all?
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1152922140274335
Return to one room courty school. Local control by parents. All 8 grades one room. Bright children hear upper classes. Also better generational connections. Math is essential in life as each life is a business, all real science depends on this accurate. Math is the only planet wide language.
Script also essential for unlimited reasons.
Peg
Unions are illegal and unconstitutional criminal organizations with which no contracts may be licitly executed.
Peg,
In the one room county (courty, ffs.) school the lone teacher was the one making the lessons, not the parents. The parents were sad they lost the labor of the children on the homestead while they waste time at school.
I expect that a one room school with 40,000 students would be a challenge in larger cities.
Not sure what else, but your writing could have used a better education and harsher grading.
Uh, they are teaching the three R’s in education –
Racism, Reparations, and Rioting.
🙄
“[We gave you] a [restricted-vote] republic, if you can keep it.”
– Ben Franklin
_________________
You dastardly milquetoasts entirely without resolve—certainly not the resolve of the Founders—couldn’t.
The college administrators must also stop treating the students as the clients and relying so much on their evaluations of the professors.
We can all begin by ignoring your push piece op ed’s, Turls.
WE? You got a mouse in your pocket GiGi?
The dilution of the meaning of a certain degree or diploma has been severe in three generations.
In my grandfather’s day graduating from 8th grade was an accomplishment to be proud of. To have a high school diploma was an indication to employers of learning ability.
It was noticed that those with a diploma earned more money and so sold the idea that everyone should get a high school education. This made the diploma meaningless to employers. They did note that those with a university or college degree were the distinct group.
Again, it was noticed that a college degree was the path to a better job and insisted that everyone be able to get one. You see the pattern. Now a degree was meaningless, but those with a master’s degree were the new select.
Today, there is no select group. The education system does not allow failure and so does not allow success.
Thomas Edison’s schooling ended with the eight grade.
Was Thomas Edison’s life typical of eight graders?
There are likely more billionaires who have graduated college than billionaire 8th grade dropouts.
Money money money money. They hold their noses in the air saying, Oh darling don’t you see that we are a part of the upper ruling class and our institution avowed by the gods must and cannot survive without the stipends given by the fat daddy government in the form of student loans provided for those who have already been given a dumbed down education in grades nine through twelve. Fear not. The teachers union will protect us even if we fail the student. The socialist government will continue to support us and we will continue to support the socialist government. There is true wisdom in the saying “one hand washes the other.” Corruption pays even for the aloof with their noses held high in the air.
I wrote an Obama poem back in 2008 as Freeman S. Peach. One of the verses was, “it won’t be far out for our Nation to fail when a vote can be bought with a check in the mail…”
Truer words never spoken.
I went to a private Jesuit law school. It competed with an inner-city, lower-tuition law school, known for preparing students in “black letter law” through rote memorization rather than critical thinking and analysis. Thus, that law school was able to produce and maintain the requisite number of students who could pass the bar exam, -and its enrollment applications were much higher in number than my school’s.
Through years of court-room litigating, I could close my eyes and pick out the lawyers who went through black-letter-law educations- just by the arguments they made. When I opened my eyes, I saw the same lawyers that were advertising in TV commercials.
So this is the MATH that I learned in law school:
Power is in the masses. By reducing the masses to the lowest common denominator, we expand the mass and its correlative power.
Schools and teachers need to go back to teaching “the 3 R’s” again. They need to go back to teaching things that matter, that will get people jobs and STOP teaching all this WOKE crap and STOP INDOCTRINATING our kids with all this garbage!
Woke crap is what the New Testament of the Bible is mostly about.
Not sure what indoctrination you think is going on. Is it learning to treat people kindly?