image: A University of Mississippi researcher gives the American grading system an 'F' in his new book – and said it is harmful to students.
Credit: Graphic by John McCustion/University of Mississippi Marketing and Communications.
OXFORD, Miss. – America’s obsession with grades is failing students and jeopardizing the future of education, a University of Mississippi professor argues in his new book.
Josh Eyler, director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, recently released “Failing Our Future: How Grades Harm Students, and What We Can Do About It” (Johns Hopkins University Press), in which he argues that the traditional system of grading is harmful to students.
“This book looks at the issues with grades in learning, the kinds of Issues grades cause with parents and children, and how grades magnify inequities and how they are a contributing factor to the mental health crisis,” said Eyler, a clinical assistant professor of teacher education at Ole Miss.
"The second part (of the book) looks at what parents, teachers, schools and universities can do to help mitigate the damage.”
More than 70% of American high school students report anxiety and depression as being a "major” concern for their peer group, and suicide is the third-leading cause of death in people aged 14-18. The student mental health crisis may have been magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic, but its roots go much deeper.
“We've also known for a long time that mental health among students is bad and getting worse,” said Emily Pitts Donahoe, the center's associate director of instructional support. “We think a lot about ways to help students deal with academic stress, but we don't always think about how to get to the root of those problems and actually mitigate some of the practices that are causing that stress.
“One of the things that I think is so great about Josh's book is that it helps us see that.”
Traditional grading also reinforces inequity, Eyler said.
Students whose schools have received more funding often have more tutoring, more teachers and more resources for students. Students from those schools often receive higher grades, are more prepared for college and are often selected for more opportunities.
“There have been inequities that have been baked into the fabric of American education from its founding,” Eyler said. “States and local governments have historically diverted more funding to wealthy white communities and less funding to communities that historically marginalized groups have lived in.
“What does that mean in the long term for the schools with fewer resources? Fewer textbooks, higher teacher turnover and fewer educational opportunities for students.”
This inequity makes grades more a reflection of the opportunities a student has been given, not how intelligent or capable a student is, he said.
“The grades are reflections of their past inequitable educational experience, rather than their potential for what they could do in the field, right?” he said. “The issue is those low grades shut doors when those students could potentially have succeeded in any number of ways.”
Besides being a source of anxiety and inequity among students, the grading system is also set up to reduce students’ intrinsic motivation and curiosity for learning, he said.
“Intrinsic motivation is what is necessary for deep learning to happen,” he said. “People need to want to learn for their own sake. They need to be interested, curious about all those things in order to learn in a meaningful way.
“Grades, however, are classic extrinsic motivators – straight out of the school of behaviorism. They are prizes and rewards for certain behaviors that communities – in this case, schools and colleges – are prioritizing.”
Instead of teaching students to be curious, the traditional grading system forces students to memorize information long enough to pass a test or quiz. Instead of encouraging students to take risks and innovate, grading teaches them to be compliant, he said.
But alternatives exist. Many colleges, high schools and even middle schools – including professors such as Donahoe and Eyler –practice alternative methods of grading.
The first step towards a newer, better education system is understanding the problem, Donahoe said.
“As an individual, I can make a lot of changes to my grading and I have a lot of freedom, especially in the higher ed space, to experiment,” she said. "But systemic change, it requires the cooperation of parents, administrators, K-12 teachers, higher ed teachers, even employers and graduate schools. It requires a lot of people.
“That's why Josh's book is important, because it puts all of those different pieces in conversation with each other.”