Reply #26: Some measures overstate this case [View All]

[Alcibiades]

Back when I had an academic job, I had lots of kids harangue me for better grades, partly because of a pervasive grade inflation that they have come to expect. Additionally, many kids today have access to AP courses we did not have, and have inflated GPAs as a consequence. The SAT test has also been changed over time, rendering results incomparable.

Though I was born in 1968, I do see myself a bit in the portrait depicted by the author:

"The early Xers' location in history also plays a large role. Quite simply, they were children at a uniquely unfavorable moment -- a time when the divorce rate accelerated, when the media image of children turned demonic and when the "latch-key" lesson for kids stressed self-reliance rather than trust in others. By the time they entered middle and high school, classrooms were opened, standards were lowered, and supervision had disappeared. Compared with earlier- or later-born students at the same age, these kids were assigned less homework, watched more TV and took more drugs."

He neglects to mention that the 1970's, when we were growing up, was a profoundly anti-intellectual moment in American culture, or at least it seemed so to me at the time. In this regard, it has been superseded only by every subsequent decade. I really hope that we are finally entering an era wherein we can say to the kids that it's OK to be smart, that it's OK to get good grades, and that failing to even try to achieve is the very definition of a loser.