An Innovative Grading System

Here is my latest contribution to education reform; I strive always to be on the cutting edge of proactive pedagogical progress.


AN INNOVATIVE GRADING SYSTEM
by B.A. Libby, B.A., etc.

The traditional grading system uses the letters

A
B
C
D
F

When students receive a low grade—and, these days, “low grade” often means, in the minds of parents and students, anything below an A- —it causes misery, humiliation, and discontent.

How can we can solve this problem? One way would be to insist that students work very hard, to put academics first, to emphasize that learning and studying are not meant to be fun or diverting, and that it is in the nature of things that not everyone can do well in academics, any more than everyone can do well in, say, music, sports, or administering a school. But such draconian methods are today obsolete, of course, particularly at financially precarious independent schools that wish to retain all their students at almost any price.

I propose a simple solution. Here is the new grading scale that entirely solves the problem:

A+
A3
A2
A
A-

Another problem is that the numerical equivalents for the letter grades are 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. This also depresses weak students (and their parents), who of course want a high GPA. This difficulty too is easily solved:

A+ = 4.0
A3 = 3.9
A2 = 3.8
A =   3.7
A- = 3.6

Thus no student will ever have a GPA lower than 3.6 and everyone will be happy.

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Observe how imagination and creativity solve problems that have puzzled generations of pedagogues! We must learn to think outside the box. In fact, we should throw away the box.
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Note: Owing to limitations of the Blogspot medium, at least so far as I can figure it out, there is no way to insert superscripts. The grades A3 and A2 should be read as "A cubed" and "A squared."