Although my livelihood partly depends on getting students to college, I
like Rick Tarara's response about what a high school education is
supposed to do. Yes, one of the things it does is prepare students for
college, but also yes, it must do much more given that many students do
not go to college.
Having said that, there is one thing I readily notice as I evaluate
transcripts, ACT/SAT scores, and college performance. This is the
correlation or lack of correlation between the HS GPA and the ACT/SAT
scores or college performance.
Having observed this for 25 years, I can tell you which high schools in
my area have the worst grade inflation, as opposed to those schools for
which the GPA really seems to be a measure of something. There are some
schools where we routinely see GPAs around 3.8 coupled with ACT/SAT
scores at the national average. Those schools have a severe grade
inflation problem and/or the curriculum isn't in alignment with what the
ACT/SAT exams are measuring.
For a more concrete example, if, over the years, I see a number of
students from a particular school with GPA around 3.0 and ACT of 23
(about national average; and at that same school I see students with GPA
of 3.9 and ACT scores of 29-30, then this school is normal. If, over
the years, I see a slug of students from a particular school with 3.9
GPA getting ACT scores of 20-23, then something is wrong.
Because students test differently, and performance in college depends on
more than the high school preparation and the high school GPA, you
cannot come to this conclusion from just a few students or from just a
couple years. But the school should have records of HS GPA and ACT/SAT
scores. If these are out of whack the school board ought to look at
grade inflation or curriculum or both.
We do the same thing in college. Chemistry and physics students with
college GPA near a 4-point ought to do reasonably well on GRE, MCAT,
etc. If that is not happening, something is wrong.
But I want end by saying my post has focused on the HS graduates that
lean toward some academic pursuit after high school. We also need ways
to measure HS strengths/weaknesses for the non-academic graduates.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton College
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu
This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.