When a 4.0 Is Average, Educators Start Fretting

Alison Moody had to settle for a 4.5 grade-point average because of her dancing.

Four years on the dance team meant two class periods each year dedicated to practice for the teen now newly graduated from Tustin High School. That’s two grades of 4.0 each year, pulling down an average that otherwise would have been a lot closer to 5.0.

“It’s a little unfair to students who want to be involved,” said Moody, 17, who heads to UCLA in the fall. “And those who don’t do sports or other activities really benefit from the GPA system.”

It’s stories like that--students who see an A, or a mere 4.0, as a liability to avoid--that have a handful of educators working to curb grade inflation.

“It’s been called a curricular arms race,” University of California spokesman Terry Lightfoot said of the rush for bumped-up grade-point averages. “Manipulation of this grading system has caused us some concern.”

This week, the University of California regents will consider cutting back on credit for high school grades that go above 4.0. And Moody’s school district, Tustin Unified, recently pulled in the reins on super-high scores.

Typically, schools reward an A in an Advanced Placement or honors class with a 5.0 grade, in recognition of the tougher work involved. A grade of B gets a 4.0, and so forth. That “weighted” grade has pumped more students into such courses to the point where, at some top-ranked schools, such as Sunny Hills High in Fullerton, a 4.0 average is apt to be regarded as the mark of a merely competent student.

The Tustin school board recently decided the trend had gone far enough, and then some. It eliminated the extra point given to a batch of advanced courses and reduced the number of classes labeled as “honors.”

Its plan will not cut any classes, said Frank Southern, the district’s director of secondary education. The goal is to prod students toward a fuller high school experience rather than the pursuit of bloated grades, he said.

“Some students are just taking weighted courses to raise their grade-point average and class rank,” Southern said. “They feel compelled to take the courses rather than important extracurricular opportunities that would broaden one’s perspective.”

Course Correction May Follow in Big League

At this point, Tustin’s move is a little like a lone minnow swimming against a tidal wave of grade inflation. State education officials know of no other districts that have taken similar steps. But now the biggest fish in education statewide--the University of California--might begin a swim in the same direction.

UC’s Board of Regents is reexamining its own admissions policy, dating back a little more than a decade, of granting a full extra point to high school courses it has defined as honors.

An ongoing UC study on the topic has found that high school students with weighted grade-point averages usually performed worse than expected when they reached college. Students who came to UC with a weighted 4.0 average, for instance, pulled 3.0 averages as college freshmen.

Students who took regular courses in high school generally earned similar grades in college, the study found.

“If students were doing equally as well once they got to the university, then the extra point for honors and AP courses would be fully justified,” said Keith Widaman, chairman of the UC faculty committee that conducted the study. “But students are not getting grades as high as you would expect.”

As a result, Widaman said, he and other committee members believe honors and AP courses should get a half-point credit, for a possible 4.5 rather than 5.0.

At the regents’ meeting Thursday, the committee will ask for time to study the matter further. Its final proposal on revising admissions criteria is expected in December. Any changes would start in the fall of 2000.

“A lot of students who take the AP courses are not necessarily better prepared than others who take regular courses,” UC’s Lightfoot said. “We’re giving students additional credit for taking these courses when in a lot of instances it doesn’t translate into better-prepared students.”

Ironically, it was UC’s original decision to grant the extra points that set off much of the insatiable demand for advanced classes in California. At the time, the policy was meant to encourage students to take more challenging classes rather than settle for easy courses that would guarantee good grades. Many school districts followed suit.

“It worked,” said Jeanne Ludwig, senior policy analyst with the California Postsecondary Education Commission. “And it kind of surpassed everyone’s imagination.” And their desire.

The number of students taking AP exams, for example, has more than doubled in the past decade. Some take as many as 15 AP tests by the time they graduate.

This trend has contributed to a steady rise in grade-point averages.

A study by the commission found that student grade-point averages rose from 2.60 in 1986 to 2.78 in 1996, a significant increase that analysts say is not fueled by improvement among midrange students, but by top students aiming at that 5.0.

But UC officials also complain that although more students enroll in AP courses, many do not take the AP test at the end of the year. This suggests, some say, that students are going after the extra grade points rather than the full experience of the AP program.

“There’s a fair number of students who never take the AP test,” said Widaman, also a professor of psychology at UC Riverside. “They get the benefits of an extra grade point but they never demonstrate [through taking the test] that they learned something extra.”

Wealthier Schools’ ‘Unfair’ Advantage

Another concern, college officials say, is that the emphasis on high-level courses leaves inner-city or smaller schools at a disadvantage. How can a stellar student at Manual Arts High School in South-Central Los Angeles, where only 14 AP courses are weighted, compete against another from Fullerton’s Sunny Hills High School, where 35 AP and other honors courses are available with an extra grade point?

“It gives an unfair advantage to those schools already better off,” said Perry Zirkel, Lehigh University professor of education, who has been tracking grade inflation at the high school and college levels. “And it punishes schools with fewer opportunities.”

Gaps like that are one reason UC is taking a second look at its policy, as part of an overall examination of how to maintain an ethnically diverse student population without affirmative action.

In addition, Manual Arts gives the extra grade point only to students who pass the AP exam. This is a way of rewarding serious students who strive for excellence more than booster points, Principal Wendell Greer said.

With different high schools grading students on different scales, college admissions officers say they have a tougher time figuring out student performance. Many colleges rely on their own formulas to compute students’ grade-point averages. Selective campuses, including Stanford and Harvard, say GPAs have little bearing on their decisions because they pay more attention to the letter grades.

“We don’t really take it on its face value,” Stanford Dean of Admissions Robert M. Kinnally said. “The GPA is a guideline, but we give more credence to the transcript and how students performed in the classes they selected.”

But as competition for college admissions stiffens, many school administrators say students are better off taking challenging courses. An ambitious course load helps students win scholarships and qualify for academic awards, they said.

“The reality is, colleges expect students to be great in the classroom, and they are supposed to be the student body president, do volunteer work and be leaders,” said Cynthia Martini, guidance counselor at Sunny Hills High School. The universities “are the ones driven by the numbers.”

At Sunny Hills High, 21% of the school’s 2,100 students last year had a grade-point average at or above a 4.0. From time to time, a student has earned an overall GPA of 5.0.

Sunny Hills student Raj Vyas, 16, is pretty close. He will enter as a senior in the fall with a 4.87 grade-point average.

Playing on the varsity tennis team kept him from inching closer to the 5.0 mark. But he said he can live with it.

“Getting A’s in tennis actually pulled my grades down,” Vyas said. “An extra point can make a difference between a 5.0 and 4.87, but it doesn’t mean that much to me. What colleges mostly care about is how many A’s you have and how many challenging courses you take.”

Some schools have never hopped aboard the 5.0 train.

At well-regarded Davis Senior High School, near Sacramento, extra points have never been condoned. An A is worth four points in either an AP or regular course. The school, rated by the state among the top 10% of high-performing California schools, has firmly kept to the four-point grading scale to maintain high standards, Principal Howard Cohen said.

“It breeds artificial competition,” he said. “Kids glom onto the numbers instead of the courses they might find interesting.”

Similar concerns were behind Tustin Unified’s move to scale back on 5.0 courses. Under the new policy, all AP and some honors courses will remain on the five-point grading scale.

Six honors prerequisite courses, including geometry and biology, were reduced to the four-point scale but will keep their “honors” title. Seven more courses, covering fine arts, will lose their “honors” label and their status on the five-point scale.

Tustin Unified’s decisions were made after a 20-member committee--composed of educators, students and parents--reviewed courses and surveyed students’ reasons for taking them.

The committee found that some of the courses were not of college-prep caliber and did not deserve the extra grade point. More, students were selecting courses based on how they could boost their standing rather than enrich their education.

The course changes have stirred mixed sentiment among Tustin students. Some, unhappy with fewer 5.0 courses, say they won’t take courses lacking the extra point. Others, like Daniel Choi, say the decision makes sense.

“Colleges take your grades and reconfigure it to their way anyway,” said Choi, a Tustin High School senior in the fall. Choi, who has played on the school band for the past three years, added that his extracurricular involvement has hurt his grade-point average--a whopping 4.57.

“It’s something I’ve lived with,” the 17-year-old said. “The GPA thing hasn’t diverted me from being in band. I’m getting a lot out of band, even though it lowers my GPA.”

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Times correspondent John Pope contributed to this report.