Law schools should "substantially eliminate" "C" grades because they're stress-inducing and make it more difficult for students to get jobs, a law professor argues in the University of San Francisco Law Review.
According to Joshua M. Silverstein, University of Arkansas at Little Rock - William H. Bowen School of Law:
American law school ought to substantially eliminate C grades by settings its good academic standing grade point average at the B- level. Grading systems that require or encourage law professors to award a significant number of C marks are flawed for two reasons. First, low grades damage students’ placement prospects. Employers frequently consider a job candidate’s absolute GPA in making hiring decisions. If a school systematically assigns inferior grades, its students are at an unfair disadvantage when competing for employment with students from institutions that award mostly A’s and B’s. Second, marks in the C range injure students psychologically. Students perceive C’s as a sign of failure. Accordingly, when they receive such grades, their stress level is exacerbated in unhealthy ways. This psychological harm is both intrinsically problematic and compromises the educational process. Substantially eliminating C grades will bring about critical improvements in both the fairness of the job market and the mental well-being of our students.Does this prof not realize that if everyone is given a grade of B or better that a college degree becomes even more useless than it now is in judging a graduate for employment?
I give the prof an F for failure to understand the real world consequences of his proposal.
(ht Business Insider)
I'm pretty sure this prof understands the purpose of a law degree. It's a gatekeeper, and thus once someone pays the fee, he wants to make sure he gets a job. If large numbers of law school students borrow lots of money only to drop out or graduate with a poor academic record that makes you unemployable in your chosen profession (or decide you don't like law after all, which is a separate category), that' bad, as it will have deleterious effect on the number of would-be-students in the future. He probably understands very well what no response would mean to his job, tenure or no.
ReplyDeleteThe law school equivalent of Lake Wobegon, where all the students are above average.
ReplyDeletePathetic.
Haha he also has a theory of "grade deflation". So great!
ReplyDeleteI hate to repeat myself, buuuut -
ReplyDeleteIn other news, professor removes all doubt about qualifications to be teaching anything or anyone, by publicly suffocating in a self made tomb of ignorance.
Didn't Houdini try something like this? Oh right. He was able to escape...