Passing Grade

The following quote caught me off guard this morning. "Back then, there were as many “F”s as “A”s and as many “D”s as “B”s. The average grade was a “C.” “F”s and “D”s were failing and many failed. In graduate school, “C” was failing."

Coming to the US from the Netherlands in my mid twenties I had been part of a school system which pretty much resembled the situation described by Hugh Nazor (74), who recently wrote this in response to a request from columnist David Brooks of the NY Times. Actually, Hugh account depicts a system slightly more tilted towards an even distribution throughout the rating scale (6 on a scale of 1 to 10 or C on the A-F rating scale) than how grades were doled out in my elementary and high schools and also in college.

It was a popular notion in the 1970's in western Europe that a subservient American educational system had willingly capitulated to students and parents by severely deflating the grading scale. Until I read Hugh's story this morning I had assumed that a B grade had always been the new C, but based on Hugh's recollection, grade deflation was not the norm in the 1950's and early 60's.

Not having kept up with the state of education in Europe, one wonders whether the same phenomenon has also taken place there, delayed maybe by 15-25 years? I would like to hear from the many readers of this blog if Europe indeed also in this regard ended up following the US example. Anyone?

For the benefit of full disclosure, I moved to the States in 1976 to complete my graduate studies because I twice failed to complete my MS degree in time to accept a PhD position in Analytical Chemistry at the Van't Hoff Institute of the University of Amsterdam. As such I probably benefited from grade deflation by barely passing my cumulative exams at Northeastern University in Boston. Note to self: This is not to say that I would not have succeeded in getting my doctorate in the old country. For a start, in Holland there were no cumulative exams to start your doctoral studies.