The Harvard administration is currently considering a new grading policy that would cap the number of A grades a teacher can give in a class to about 20% plus four students in a class. This is a way to cap the number of A grades that have been given out in past years. There is no cap on A minuses, just affecting a full A grade.
Harvard has a vote coming up in a few weeks on whether to move ahead with this grading reform.
Campus Reforms reports that students not happy with this plan argue it is racist and unfair against low-income and first-generation college students. As a result, they are lobbying the university to reverse course on this policy.
Zachary Marschall, editor in chief of Campus Reform, tells AFN that he does not see a problem.
"I would say that this is a shockingly sane move by Harvard, and I can't believe I'm talking to you about something that Harvard did right for once," Marschall says.
He believes that there needs to be an enforcement mechanism on grade inflation and number of A grades a teacher can give.
"Not just for its own sake, but because the excessive allocation of A grades to students is symptomatic of teachers caring about things and prioritizing values in classes that aren't really academically centered," Marchall states.
If one asks Marschall, grading as of late has become more about the politics of feelings.
"It's about this lowering of standards, getting more about replacing intellectualism with social justice activism — things that Campus Reform has been reporting on for years," he says.
Marschall thinks this policy is needed not just at Harvard, but other universities. That's because of what he described as "a competency crisis" when it comes to Gen Z Americans.
A person in Gen Z is someone born between 1997 and 2012.
"Whether they're on a college campus or just entering the workforce, they're being failed by their teachers. They are unprepared for jobs after graduation, and a lot of employers are just not wanting to hire Gen Z applicants,” says Marschall. “One way to fix this cultural problem is to take the first step in classrooms and tell students at every level that I expect more out of you, that I take you seriously and that you're capable of doing well."
That motivates students, he says, no matter if they're a C student trying to get a B or a B student trying to get an A.
In Marschall's opinion, the last thing any student needs to hear is "racist messaging like the student petition that says minority students are less capable of getting As on their own merits than white students."
That, he says, is not true.
"I've seen time and time again in classes that I've taught personally that the most serious people, students I have, the ones who work the hardest and the ones who improve the most at the end of each semester are the ones who come from those disadvantaged backgrounds who want to be taken seriously and want to be challenged," said Marschall. "There's nothing racist or discriminatory about telling students it's going to be hard for you to get an A, but I believe you can do it, and you have just as much shot as anyone else."
