Mark Goldblatt presents an interesting way to build public support for educational reform: require each teacher to distribute grades along a normal distribution with a mean of C.

I have a lot of sympathy for the idea and for the argument, but it reminds me of a joke about the Three-Step Program to Becoming a Billionaire: 1) Get $900 million, 2) Be careful, and 3) Wait a little while.

The program is straightforward and easy, but watch that first step--it's a doozy.

Comments

[Brock]

Ouch. I've had to deal with a B curve for the last two years, and that's painful enough. I can't imagine being stuck on a hard C curve.

Our expectations of what grades mean would have to change, and no curve should force people to fail when they really do understand the material, just less than others.