Your kid's getting an A! (So is everyone else's kid.)

Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher HealyNote: 1940 and 1950 (nonconnected data points in figure) represent averages from 1935 to 1944 and 1945 to 1954, respectively. Data from 1960 onward represent annual averages in their database, smoothed with a three-year centered moving average.

This won't be news to veteran teachers, but there's a new comprehensive study of grade inflation at the collegiate level that suggests social promotion isn't just for middle schoolers anymore. In fact, students in private schools are more likely to 4-point than their public peers. Are students working harder? Studying more? Hardly:

They then attribute the rapid rise in grade inflation in the last couple of decades to a more “consumer-based approach” to education, which they say “has created both external and internal incentives for the faculty to grade more generously.” More generous grading can produce better instructor reviews, for example, and can help students be more competitive candidates for graduate schools and the job market.