I don’t know about you, but in our school, if everyone does bad, the grades of everyone are adjusted. I can understand that the teachers want students to do better in school, but this is NOT the way to do it.
Class curves are intended to raise students’ grades above the fail line. Many students see this as a way of slacking off. We’re not talking about just one student slacking off, we’re talking about hundreds of students failing the class and hoping for a bailout from students. Class curves inspire students to slack off, not do better in school. Here’s why:
The moment that students hear that the class has a curve, many of them are inspired to slack off. They know that, even if they do bad, their grades will automatically improve by a few percent and not look as bad. Everyone starts failing, and then the teacher doesn’t want students to fail, so a curve is introduced to bump up everyone’s grades.
I like to compare this with lowering the standard. Allowing students with a D average to pass. Admitting students with a 2.0 GPA to get in college. We’re lowering the standard by arbitrarily raising everyone’s grades. Get rid of this!
Then when the WASL (now called HSPE) comes around, they all forgot half the stuff and it screws the school over, and makes it look unattractive to people moving to the area.