What do you guys think of the grading system in schools? Would you get rid of it if you could? I’m sure most of you don’t agree with compulsory schooling. I don’t personally agree with it, either. However, what would you replace the grading (A, B, C, D, E/F) system with if you had a choice?
I find my schooling to be getting in the way of my education a lot. I love teaching myself about economics, math, science, etc. outside of school, but I feel like I need to keep going to school or else I won’t get a job when I’m older.
For example, I studied for nearly 12 hours straight (not including previous studying) the night before an exam in Developmental Biology. I really, really taught myself the inner functions and structures of proteins, and a bunch of other stuff that we talked about in class. Then I took the exam and probably failed it, though, because it was full of questions like “What year were Watson and Crick awarded the Nobel Prize?” And I didn’t study any of that because… well, why would I possibly need to know that?
I’ve just been pretty angry about all of my exams lately because they’ve all been like that, so I figured I’d start a thread on what you guys think about the current school system so I can have some relief knowing I’m not alone (hopefully).
Public school suffers from the same problem as any State function: Arbitrariness. You don’t need to know when Watson and Crick were awarded the Noblel prize. The fun thing about markets is that it weeds out unnecessary inefficiencies. I’m sure with free market schools, parents and kids alike would have more control over curriculum and what types of classes you have to take. The reason you had to learn about Biology is because some people on a school board said you have to. It doesn’t matter if it the student on the receiving end either cares or believes they will need it in the future.
That said, I don’t really mind the grading system, just the way they go about teaching things and developing curriculum for students.
All exams are moronically designed. Get used to it. They couldn’t care less whether you know anything remotely useful; only whether you know the price of potatoes in Praha. I remember taking my English exam in high school. I probably had 99% because of one impossible to answer question obviously put in to rig the exam against being aced. They use %, not letters in CA.
Both public and private schools, at the college and highschool level, have a real problem with grade inflation. Something like 20% of my class graduated cum laude, and almost everyone graduates with at least a 3.0 GPA (if they graduate at all). I know Harvard is having the same problem. This makes standardized tests the most effective signaling tool, which is probably why most PHD programs require a 760+ quant score on the GRE’S (and MA programs require 740+).