The way I make grades is, I first figure out what grade the student would get in Berkeley in the late 1970s. Then I go half a grade up if it is an upper division course, and a whole grade up if it is lower division, or if I feel I have been prevented from teaching the course as I feel people deserved, or if the course was over the head of the student and this had to do with logistical problems (e.g. no course at their level was being given) and not poor planning on their part.
Berkeley style grades for one course this semester: 5 A, 4 B, 2 C, 4 D, 5 F.
Vichy State grades for this class: 9 A, 2 B, 4 C, 4 D, 1 F.
Naturally I do not approve of these changes. However, the reason for the low grades is that the students should have been made to repeat earlier in the sequence. This is the end of it and making them repeat this course will do us and them no good, since we will only have to deal with them again and have no power to insist they repeat. Also, part of our budget problem has to do with the fact that we fail students, so they do not make progress to degree, so the state cuts our funding formula.
The next time I teach this class, if I do so, I will put the proverbial fear of God into unprepared students better at the beginning of the term. The reason I have as many As as I do is not that so many have performed to this level, but that I do not feel I have given all I could have to the better students had those not actually qualified to be there not been dragging me down. So I am making up to them in a grade what they did not get to learn in the class, which makes little academic sense although it is human.
I refuse to allow this situation again.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 