Teachers, like other people, are human, and are just as prone to forming wild prejudices as the rest of the population. I think every teacher should be able to prove why they gave a grade, because it is all too easy to grade people for who they are, rather than for the work they do. Standards based education will help teachers below the college level do this. We use strict guidelines now, and with testing and samples of work, we can clearly show whether a student has met, failed to meet, or exceeded a given standard. Our rubrics for assessment should be so clear that every student, and every judge, would be able to understand what an A, B, C, or D grade consisted of. Not to mention the fact that standardized testing makes a child's attainment of skills measured on those tests easily identifiable.
Having just taken some graduate courses, I think it is very easy for a good instructor to be fair, and to prove they are fair. All the instructor needs to do is provide samples of previous work that met the rubrics for the projects in the class, and point out how the rubric or rubrics were met. If the rubrics are clear, as they should be, they will be clear to every reasonable person. If the grading is so ambiguous that a reasonable student cannot know how to achieve an A or B, than the teacher deserves to be sued, imo. Malpractice isn't just for doctors. I don't think anyone is entitled to do a bad job, insulated from the threat of lawsuit. On the other hand I think their should be greater penalties for clearly unreasonable law suits, to discourage the merely whiney. |
