Love it.

In law school I saw professors “imposing” their views on what students did. In Advanced Legal Research the professor flat out stated that she did not like corporate nor business law and recommended students not research those topics for the class.

Students were no better. They would sit around reading the latest legal reports on how much money lawyers were making, illustrating, in my opinion why they went to law school. Liberal arts degree=no job or low pay; law degree=lots of money.

Not to get sidetracked, but, in my opinion, we have too many law schools, over 180 last I heard. Even if all law schools were rigorous and had a 30% failure/drop out rate, we are still graduating too many, thus turning a JD into a commodity.

In closing, I found my MBA program more challenging. If you got two “C”s or one “D” you were dropped from the program, no gentleman's “C”s to coast through the program.

However, law schools are one place, that from my personal experience, engaged, if anything, in grade deflation. The law school where I graduated, had a reputation for letting “anyone” in. Actually, some of the people probably had no business in law school, but that is a different issue. The story was, and in seemed true, they would gladly take the first semester's tuition, fees, etc., of the people who had no business there, and then gladly flunk them out. We ran about a 50% failure rate the first semester. Even for those of us who “made” it, an acceptable grade was a “C”, a “B” was fantastic, and there “might” be 1 or 2 “A”s out of a class of 75-100. In many cases there would be no “A”'s. After the first semester the flunk out rate decreased, but never below 30% even in the senior year. The treatment was like boot camp/basic training. The only thing that was missing was the physical abuse.

I did not read word one regarding race in this article. This is typical race baiting of a myopic liberal. You do not have any credibility.

A Deist, Feminist, Goy, Zionist

English Instructor

Thank you for your comments and for the referral to other sources.

I once read Mortimer J Adler, former general editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, write that the educational system produces the society, but also that the society produces the educational system. I'm sure that he was not claiming that these two, educational system and society, were the only players in this interaction of cause and effect, but that he was pointing out that an analysis is incorrect if we let society off the hook as if it were no more than passive putty molded by the active force, the school system.

I will mention a couple well-known examples where society is the active agent and the system the accommodating putty.

Parents want their children to be given high grades and powerful parents will sue the educational system to assure those grades. Since the schools want to be popular with parents for political reasons and since the schools have little or no “fat” in the budget for lawsuits, grades acceptable to society are granted.

In order to survive, universities along with their administration and faculties need lots of students. Since students and their parents want good grades, the universities, in order to prevent their demise, must have a reputation for giving high grades.

After a more complete picture of the situation comes into view, it seems that the request that schools and universities practice honesty in grading is an recommendation of mass suicide for virtues that the society does not actually honor.

The problem is not them alone. The problem is them and us.

I won't even get into your other extremely offensive assumptions. It is, frankly, not worth my time.

Finally as one who is “in the system,” the tricky part about not going along with it in grading students is that you can destroy very good, very bright students by giving out a large number of C's, when the entire system says that C is close to a failing grade. That is, if just one person is “holding the standard” and giving low grades it gives a false picture of the student's ability and can hurt them later. Generally in my classes in the U.S., the average grade is a low B but there are plenty of C's as well. I have given the occasional F and D as well. Generally those I give A's deserve them. I have taught overseas as well, and there my average grades are C's.

All that said, of course college ratings are problematic, and padding SAT scores etc is just plain wrong. The university system has plenty of problems as most who are in this field will tell you, but let's not add to it by using stupid stereotypes about “foreign students.”

The “Student Loan” programs are a farce like the Community Redevelopment Act it gets people into something they have no concept of maintaining, thereby running up the costs. The corrupt educators like it because they can get jobs and, in the end, it is all about their greed.

Why anyone would go to college today except for a professional prerequisits and we have enough lawyers, MBAs, economists, Welfare Workers, financial analysts, etc. Student Loans shold only be for those studing the hard sciences and not to support the parasites. The Yellow Pages in my area are twenty times larger for lawyers than plumbers. Guess which have a better quality of life.? As the feminists are learning, the backstabbing on the corporate ladder is not all fun and games. Been there, done that and they can have it.

I saw it happen from a personnel perspective. While attending a respected law school,in the Midwest, only two people failed out of an entering class of 225. The 2 were failed, not for academic reasons, but the fact they never went to class. Grade inflation, intellectual dishonesty, colleges populated with students who should not be there and students rewarded for regurgitating the teacher's position on a topic instead of critical discourse of all views, have diminished the value of a college education and made the “education” not worth the paper the degree was printed on. Worse when students graduate they think they deserve the corner office with all the perks, just because they have a degree and no experience or real world knowledge.

Saddled with the modern scarlett letter, i.e. student loans, and a commodity, i.e. a college diploma, they are ill prepared for reality. Their “education” was a fraud and/or disservice perpetrated by the institution.

Sadly this will not get better. With the explosion of online and strip mall “universities” the situation will only get worse.