Re: Adjusting Grades (Was: Exams)

From: Dan L Burk <BURKDANL[_at_]shu.edu>
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 00:39:58 -0500

On 1/3/99, Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 31 Dec 1998, Dan L. Burk <burkdanl[_at_]shu.edu> wrote:
> >
> > The short answer is that I don't know for sure, and the reasons
> > probably vary from school to school. The longer answer is that it
> > is likely some combination of 1) deterrring the kind of haggling
> > over points that goes on in medical schools, 2) deterrring profs
> > from grade adjustments after anonymity is breached, and 3) a sort
> > of "quiet title" for the benefit of the adminsitration and
> > registrar.
>
> While I can appreciate those interests, they seem rather secondary
> to giving an accurate grade when the professor is objectively
> incorrect, and the student is objectively correct.

Terry's error, of course, being the assumption that anything in law school exams could ever be "objective." :)

(And even were it so, he completely fails to appreciate the importance of instilling "form over substance" into the students).

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Dan L. Burk
Seton Hall University
burkdanl[_at_]shu.edu

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Received on Tue Jan 05 1999 - 05:41:19 GMT