Question of fairness

saxo-archive

Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2008 | midnight

Competition for merit-based college scholarships is stiff, but some parents say it also is unfair because school districts don't grade on the same scales.

The minimum score for an A can be higher in some districts, as can the number of points that students earn for completing Advanced Placement or college-level courses. As a result, The Washington Post reported Thursday, parents in many areas of the country are calling for colleges to minimize the importance of grades and rely more on Scholastic Aptitude Tests and other standardized examinations when awarding scholarships.

School counselors and some education experts say not so fast -- college admissions officials are aware of, and take into account, school districts' differences in grading. Robert Massa, enrollment vice president for Dickinson College, told the Post that schools rely on more than grade-point averages in selecting scholarship recipients and that “parents need to chill out about grades.”

Advocates for students from low-income urban and rural families say grades actually are better indicators of those students' achievements than SAT scores. Some students aren't great test-takers but still do very well in classroom work and college courses.

Granted, most adults probably can recall having, or hearing about, a teacher who announced at the beginning of the semester that he or she did “not give As.” There also are teachers who use points toward grades as rewards for attendance or who grade on curves, which can raise or lower achievement standards depending on students' overall performance. But there also are many teachers who don't do any of those things.

Respected education experts have lined up on both sides of this complicated debate, and the Post notes that there isn't a lot of research to support either point of view. Nonetheless, a UC Berkeley study says high schoolers' grades still are better predictors of academic performance.

No one component -- be it an SAT score or a GPA -- should be the sole basis for awarding merit-based scholarships. Whatever the mix, however, grades should remain part of the equation.