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< | On the grade reform debate | >
> | I have put the new paper here, with the original masterpiece below. | | | | |
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< | -- By AaronShepard - 04 Mar 2009 | >
> | A Suggestion for Regrading our Grades
--By AaronShepard - 17 Apr 2009
One of the major points of discussion in this course, both in class and on the wiki, has been about how CLS should grade its students. Despite a vigorous discourse, there has been relatively little disclosure by the administration. For the most part, the only information students have received has been via the town hall meeting earlier this year, where the main point could be summed up as ‘employers like our current system, so we’re keeping it.’ I found this unsatisfactory, especially since this dramatically oversimplifies the issue. Without any other information from the school, I will advocate in this paper for a middle of the road approach, similar to the ones recently adopted by the law schools at Harvard and Stanford. I believe that this approach would provide significant pedagogical and overall professional benefits, while simultaneously meeting the needs of employers.
Grades with meaning
This new grading system would have tiered levels of passing, and despite having less divisions than the current system, would have more than a purely pass/fail regimen. The latter approach has significant problems, especially if almost no students failed (as is the case now). Grades must mean something other than simply acknowledging that you attended the class, and absorbed a minimal amount of material; otherwise, they serve no function beyond indicating basic progress towards a diploma.
Furthermore, student effort would likely be affected by such a system. If everyone passes, there is little incentive to work harder, or participate in class. This is not to say that effort would completely vanish; a few students would likely work hard because it is in their nature, while others would likely focus similarly on those classes in which they had a strong interest. Still, overall effort would almost certainly decline. This was an observation put forth by several faculty members at the town hall, when discussing the ability for students to take individual classes pass/fail.
Different differentiations
Because there would be no differentiation between students in such a system, the pure pass/fail option isn’t one that seems to be seriously discussed. This differentiation was the major reason, in fact, that Dean Schizer vouched for maintaining the current system. Employers widely favored using a plus/minus, A/B/C scale, he said, and this supposedly gave CLS grades a leg up on rival schools. However, this left me wondering exactly which employers he was referring to? Does an A- look sufficiently better for us than a ‘high pass’ looks for a Stanford graduate? Furthermore, if such a small difference is important, what kind of hiring process are those employers using?
Unfortunately, the ‘meat grinder’ mentality of employers, specifically law firms, must be taken into account by the Dean. The bottom line is that big law firms are the initial employer of a significant number of CLS grads, and as the head of a professional school, it is part of the Dean’s job to maximize students’ professional prospects. Alternatively, one could argue that in the long run, students would be better off if such a hiring system were not used; hence, switching to a different grading methodology could be more beneficial if it eventually influenced the overall system.
Conclusion
I think the benefits of using a tiered grading system are such that we must maintain it in some fashion; however, I think it would be worth it to take the potential short term hit on employment prospects by using a modified pass/fail system, in order to obtain the benefits that using such a system would yield. I would propose going to a scale that evaluates grades on three levels of passing, in addition to the somewhat mythical failing grade. First and foremost, this type of system would likely reduce stress among students, as minor distinctions in grades would not have quite as big of an impact. Certainly the counter argument to this is that it would reduce effort somewhat, an idea which was broached by Dean Schizer. He also specified that, in meeting with certain groups of students, they felt that such a system would not properly reward those who did exceptionally well in a course. This is perhaps true, although since he asked a group of students on the Law Review, their answers might not be reflective of overall student opinion. Still, their point has some validity, in that more students would be lumped together in the middle of a curve. But this lack of differentiation would be ameliorated overall by a more congenial atmosphere among students, leading to a more productive learning environment.
This type of scale would also fix a byproduct of the grading system, which is that professors must allocate specific grades to students in a course largely based on exam results which are, for the most part, incredibly similar. This leads to artificial mechanisms for evaluating students, which places significant emphasis on merely meeting a rubric that the professor must create. Furthermore, because of the curve, such minor differentiations can lead to dramatically different results for students whose exams are fairly similar. Ideally, grading would be more individualized, and hence able to fit within the current scheme. However, because most classes are based on an anonymous exam, it seems unfair to force such a practice to lead to such a specific result. This is not to damn differentiation; the system I propose would give similar results as to what we currently get. However, I believe it would functionally make student life better, while simultaneously forcing employers who want to superficially evaluate students to dig a little deeper. If the administration truly has confidence in our students, then they should welcome a holistic evaluation of CLS graduates. A moderated system wouldn’t go as far as some may like, but it would balance out competing interests, while establishing some progress away from the mechanical evaluations that are currently the norm. Eventually, a complete reformation of student evaluations is desirable; given the current state of the legal world, this might be imminent. The pragmatist in me though says that the time for this is not yet here.
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On the grade reform debate
By AaronShepard - 04 Mar 2009 | | | Throughout this class, one of the things I have enjoyed the most is conceptualizing how the various authors we have read would react to some present situations. I am writing this paper based on my related thoughts on the grade debate. How do you frame this issue in an overall context? Does it invoke the Holmesian ‘bad man’, where rationalization subverts the ineffective language of morality? Would Arnold merely say that grades are there to help us consciously maintain control of something that would otherwise get out of hand? How do the various options and rationalizations reflect societal values? | | | sound of your own voice on the current subject is anything but.
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< | Differentiation | >
> | Differentiation | | | The most cited reason for maintaining the current system in favor of one more geared towards a pass/fail regime is that there would be a lack of differentiation between
students in the latter schema. | | | You didn't show how you reached that intermediate conclusion,
probably because you didn't really think about it. | |
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< | Student Effort | >
> | Student Effort | | | A related aspect to differentiation is the result the lack of it would have on student effort. | | |
- What is the argument of the previous graf? And did you mean "defeasible fees" rather than "defeasible torts"?
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< | Incentives | >
> | Incentives | | | A professor brought up in the town hall meeting that if classes were made pass/fail, students would have little incentive to come to class and participate. However, even now, classes aren’t exactly a bastion of free expression and participation. I’m fairly certain I can predict with reasonable accuracy before any given class just who will speak, for how long, and whether they will actually ask a question or merely express their elongated opinion. Professors can encourage participation of course, but for the many reasons we discussed in this class earlier, students are frequently loath to do it. Hence, it does not seem to me that changing the grading system would shift opportunity cost all that much. | | | report the results of evaluation through letter
grades. | |
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< | Conclusion | >
> | Conclusion | | | In general, there are other aspects to consider here. |
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