Legal News

No more losing control in the curve for students

By Richard Binder

A recent article in The New York Times says law schools are making their grading systems more lenient.  In California, Loyola is retroactively tacking on 0.333 to every grade recorded in the last few years. UCLA, USC, and UC Hastings having all increased their grading curves. Stanford and UC Berkeley are using a modified pass/fail system, dispensing with traditional grading altogether.

The object is, according to the article, twofold: for schools to "rescue their students from the tough economic climate," and to protect the schools' reputations. Stuart Rojstaczer, a former geophysics professor at Duke who now studies grade inflation, is quoted as saying, "If somebody?s paying $150,000 for a law school degree, you don?t want to call them a loser at the end ... So you artificially call every student a success."

Full story here.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on June 24, 2010 (boomark / email).