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Frances Woolley is a professor of economics at Carleton University, where she teaches public finance
Those on the left of the political spectrum generally support economic equality.
In a paper forthcoming in the American Economic Journal, Talia Bar and Asaf Zussman argue that this preference for equality has impacts in the classroom, too.
Bar and Zussman began with data about students' grades at "an elite university in the United States." Then, using local voting registration records, they identified the political leanings of 44 per cent of professors at the university. Of those, 27 (5.3 per cent) were registered as Republicans, 370 (76.3 per cent) were Democrats. The rest were registered with smaller parties or unaffiliated.
The authors then compared Republican professors' and Democrat professors' grading practices. They found, "Republican professors are associated with a less egalitarian distribution of grades." Republicans are more generous than Democrats with the high-flying students -- ones with top scores on the SAT (scholastic aptitude test). Democrats give higher grades to average and below-average students.
Bar and Zussman conclude their paper by arguing that "To the extent that the application of objective standards is an important university goal, policy makers should consider limiting the discretion professors enjoy when it comes to grading."
But when control over grading is taken out of the hands of teachers, it is put into the hands of someone else -- and that someone else will also have political leanings.
In Canada's elementary and high schools, the provincial curriculum sets out grading norms and standards. For example, the Ontario Ministry of Education provides teachers with detailed exemplars describing how work is to be assessed.
Ontario currently has a Liberal government. If Bar and Zussman are right about partisan grading, a Liberal government will focus on raising the performance of low-achieving students.
Indeed, Ontario high school graduation rates have risen from 68 to 77 per cent in the past four years. The Ministry of Education explicitly rebuts allegations of grade inflation on its website, writing: "There is no pressure coming from us for educators to make unwarranted adjustments to student marks. We will not compromise the high-quality education provided to Ontario students." They argue that the improvement in the high school graduation rate has come from better tracking of, and assistance for, students at risk of dropping out, and the introduction of "new learning options that continue to uphold our high standards of achievement."
Yet there is no way to know whether an increase in the performance of weaker students represents more generous grading, or higher levels of academic achievement. Bar and Zussman even acknowledge this fact in their study: "it is possible that Democratic professors…devote more resources (e.g. in office hours time) to helping low ability students while Republican professors… devote more resources to nurturing high ability students."
I am not completely convinced by Bar and Zussman's research. Because their sample size is so small -- just 27 Republican professors -- they cannot fully control for factors such as the greater concentration of Republicans in the natural sciences.
Yet their work raises serious issues about the meaning of grades, and the allocation of educational resources.
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