Leftwing media outlet Vox published a piece Tuesday that calls for the elimination of college grade point averages (GPAs) because focusing on grades “trains students for a lifetime of capitalist service.”
Progressives are planning for a Biden/Harris administration by putting all their wish list items “out there,” and writer Mai Tran at Vox is highlighting a TikTok video by Darya Nouri that Tran refers to as a “PSA to high schoolers.”
In the video, Nouri complains that she studied round the clock in high school to get good grades, including in many advanced placement courses, and “never did anything fun.”
Nouri’s video then shows someone she refers to as “this mf,” with his middle finger in the air, who, she says, “had beef w every teacher and dropped his only club and had fun.”
“We both ended up at the same college,” Nouri moans. “Don’t be me. Go have fun.”
Tran writes Nouri’s video demonstrates “a growing culture among many students” they should be “working hard.”
She says this “culture” has developed, “in part because of the ways so many schools in the United States foster gatekeeping and competitive environments.”
But, she questions, what should young people do with the “feeling of unfairness” they experience when they see peers who “worked less” gain entry to the same prestigious colleges and universities?
Tran’s theory is the education system is just another arm of capitalism, and grading a “shallow” method of evaluating students:
The education system has come to reinforce capitalist ideas, teaching students that anything is possible with hard work and that their achievements are deserved, even though academic institutions are structurally designed to be inequitable. GPAs and test scores, for example, are shallow and easily skewed representations of intelligence, but are still widely used to determine admissions and funding. In light of the pandemic, schools are finally being forced to attempt alternative forms of evaluation and learning, and to more deeply consider students’ needs.
Using the pandemic as the thrust for her claim that grades are unnecessary, Tran argues some schools have already adapted their admissions procedures by making SAT and ACT scores optional, and moved to assigning pass/fail grades.
Such a change, however, is not consistent across enough schools yet so as to be seen as a new “standard,” Tran bemoans, leaving still a “culture of elitism.”
“Underrepresented and marginalized students are left to ‘work hard’ in an attempt to infiltrate the university, but when they do make it, they often aren’t supported,” Tran gripes. “Intentionally or not, our current mode of academic institutions has sold a false American dream under the guise of education, warping people’s ideas of what learning can and should be.”