A fail-safe education?

See all posts

Even with just a quick glance at these grade distributions (A=4, B=3, and so forth), it is clear that one of these curves is not like the others. The right-most, blue line represents a department of education and highlights the grade inflation at a large state university - where the average grade for education courses is a full letter higher than those from the math, science, humanities, and social studies departments. This is not an isolated finding, as this forthcoming paper by Cory Koedel at the University of Missouri demonstrates. Over a dozen education departments at major universities across the country have a similar grading pattern. Can education schools really be providing vigorous teacher preparation when it appears students must make a concerted effort to fall as low as a C? The good news from this paper for anyone seeking a degree is that they now know a fail-safe route to a diploma. Unfortunately, for K-12 students across the county, this is again evidence that teacher preparation is coming up short.