If I were an administrator, I would fire or counsel any teacher who grades on a curve. Mathematically manipulating grades to fit the "standard distribution or curve" is indicative of flawed educational educational practice.
Well, there's curves & there's curves.
I have little problem with fitting the class to a bell curve, since that reflects reality, if not the currently inflated grading system. Most folks are mediocre, some few are stars, and some few are mouth-breathers.
I recall one instructor who would always use the smartest student's grade on a test as the baseline for 100%. He explained it this way, "I don't assume infallibility on my part when composing exams."
You're a fourth-year General History student and you've never read Burkhardt? GTFO.
Now, I am as big a fan of Burkhardt of Würzburg as any, but he might be a bit obscure to even most general history students & buffs.
Oh, you mean the Swiss fellow?
<insert BW's future article to the Chronicle of Higher Education>
Yes to almost all of it.
My point in the OP and the point of the article was not necessarily a rebuke of academic culture or to debate educational philosophy & motivations, but a rebuke of its practices that provide less & less value to more & more people.
Culture, philosophy, and motivation are more qualitative than quantitative. Answering a quantitative challenge with, "Well, what about learning for its own sake?" is not to answer the question.
Also, the original article focused on the margins, the deltas, because that is where one finds the most sensitivity. Kind of like with home mortgages, where the most qualified buyers were already served and mortgaged up before gov't tossed regulation, threat, and money at the system. Higher education also has had previously-unsuitable jump into the market by means of subsidy(0), regulation(1), and threats(2).
(0) Grants, subsidized student loans.
(1) "The top 10% from any high school shall be admitted to the state school of their choice."
(2) The SAT discriminates unfairly against <insert NAM group>, so you'd better find a way to admit more of them.
