The concept of grade inflation is nonsense.
Inflation presumes grades should function as currency and that the goal of education is to rank students against one another (rather than to help students learn).
By that measure, I’m actually in favor of grade inflation, insofar as it frustrates the ability of grades to effectively rank students and thereby reproduce systems of privilege.
I also think grades communicate better when we give fewer of them. If students get nothing but As, or no grades at all, the other more meaningful feedback they get becomes the focus.
If students get only As, Bs, and Fs, the distinction between those grades has concrete meaning. There are simply too many gradations for distinctions to make sense between A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, etc.
It’s possible to describe the difference between an A, B, and F. The only explainable difference between a C+ and a C is that a C+ is better than a C. And when multiple graders and students are involved, these distinctions become even more idiosyncratic and subjective.
Grade inflation does nothing to further frustrate the inability of grades to make meaning. If anything, grades in an inflated system offer more meaningful feedback. And it becomes harder to neatly compare students to one another, which is a good thing, in my view.
The concept of grade inflation also presumes that it would be a bad thing to give all As. If all our students earn As, wouldn’t it be incredibly confusing for us to give the group the full range of grades? And why wouldn’t it be our goal to have all students succeed or excel?
And as we become a better teacher over years, wouldn’t it make sense for our grades to inflate, as we find more effective ways to reach all of the students we work with?
Grade inflation should be a mark of an incredibly effective, experienced teacher.
If grades are going up, and the teaching is not getting better, it seems like our concern should be for the teaching, not the grades.
And what if educational experience gets worse, while grades get better, because the population of students is working harder and is more committed to their education.
Over 20 years, the grades my students get have gone up, because I work with students who are increasingly dedicated (at all of the varied institutions where I’ve taught). And they do a ton of work. Not all of them, but most do. (And I don’t buy into “kids these days” crap).
Grades will (and should) go up as we find ways to create more points of entry for different kinds of students who learn in different ways and who face different challenges.
Ultimately, I’m opposed to grades as a system, so I’d rather spend time worrying about grades than inflation.
