Rounding up grades shows mercy for Kansas students, but it doesn’t add up

Figuring out how to round (or not) students' grades at the end of a semester presents philosophical challenges. (Eric Thomas illustration)

Is an 89.49% a B+ or an A-? 

That’s the question that Kansas teachers are asking themselves this week as first semester wraps up and grades are due.

For most of the state universities (Kansas State, Emporia State, Fort Hays State and Wichita State), grades were due a few days ago. The University of Kansas, where I teach, gives us until Dec. 30, because finals wrap up Dec. 20 — so close to the Christmas holiday. 

In this moment of filing final grades, teachers wrestle with the age-old question of whether to round. And how much.

There are basically three philosophies on rounding: 

• The Half Rounders: These teachers are willing to round up anything .50% or higher to the next percentage. My unscientific sample from decades of teaching says that this is the most popular. It is also the default rounding setup loaded into most grading software. 
• The Full Rounders: All percentages get rounded up, whether .01% or more. What a merciful bunch the Full Rounders are!
• The Scrooges: Nothing gets rounded. If you have a 79.99%, well, that’s a 79%. It’s not 80%.

I am a proud Scrooge about rounding. I don’t.

That leads to knife-edge grades. In my large lecture class of more than 400 students, there are dozens who would vault up to the next grade if they had answered one more test question correctly.

If they had submitted one more assignment.

If they had improved their in-class essay.

If they had done that extra credit.

As teachers, we stare at our grading software and notice these students and their grades, poking their noses through the door that is closing on them. It’s difficult to shut it.

Until the 21st century, most teachers pointed the same obsessive grading energy at physical grade books. I remember the brown leatherette cover of my gradebook, issued to us each August. I would stare at the grid of green and white boxes, filled with student grades expressed as numbers, and plug the scores into a desk calculator. There you had the final grade.

The grading grid is still here. Today we click through it on a computer — left and right, up and down — to enter student grades. Whatever software we use, Canvas, Google Classroom, PowerSchool, the basic format remains the same as the spiral-bound notebook. A grid of numbers. 

Each of the hundreds of squares on the screen represent something that took time to grade and time for the students to complete. Maybe I am sadistic, but I am constantly doing this math. For instance, the 90-question final exam I just graded for 461 students meant that they answered more than 40,000 questions as a class. For the in-class essays earlier in the semester, my graduate teaching assistant and I spent dozens of hours grading student responses. 

In many ways, that intimidating math is one of the reasons that I don’t round grades. Students had 16 weeks to show what they knew in class this semester. Expert eyes spent entire work weeks grading what they completed. Why flick their final grade to something different after all of that effort and evaluation?

Boosting a grade is an act of mercy, for sure. Teachers, who are overwhelmingly compassionate people, ooze mercy. We have likely extended mercy many times during the semester. We often give forgiveness for late work, full credit for mediocre responses to tough test questions or opportunities to re-do rickety projects.

We grant mercy in many ways along the path of the semester. For me, that mercy stops with rounding the final grade on the last day of class.

Also, I often wonder where I would stop once I started rounding, especially in large classes. In one of my classes this semester, 22 students are lined up at the door of receiving an A- (between 89.01% and 89.99%). Who gets in?

If 89.48% is good enough to round, then why not 89.43%? Or 89.33%? Or 89.21%? Once the door opens, it seems impossible to slam shut.

Whether you call it grade inflation or grade increase, student grades have risen historically at most U.S. schools, including KU. Perhaps a bit less rounding would at least flatten this trend before a majority of students earn A’s.

I hear my students angrily banging on the other side of the door as I make this moral argument for not rounding. This is not a popular stance. My decision can mean the difference between a passing grade and a failing grade, between tuition money squandered or well spent. That rounding can determine scholarship eligibility for students who need to maintain a certain GPA.

Less cataclysmic, but still important to many students, the difference between an A and a A- is whether mom and dad will be impressed. It can mean the difference between a 4.0 semester and, well, not.

Knowing that students will want their grade rounded, I have learned to make this announcement at the end of the course.

“If you beg for a higher grade, you are less likely to get it,” I say with a stern expression at the front of the classroom. “Please don’t email me with your pleas for a rounded grade. I stick to the syllabus.”

Predictably, they email anyway (perhaps because of the logical fallacy in my announcement). Of course they do. We have told young people to push for what they want. Advocate for yourself. See what is possible. So, good for them.

Unfortunately for them, I usually respond with a quick message, reminding them of the policy.

What I don’t say is this: Of course there are instances when I nudge a grade. I just did it this morning. Staring at the online gradebook, I saw a student dangling from the precipice of the grade that she needed.

I knew that she needed it because during office hours I often talked to her, one of the few students who struggled in the class and cared enough to come learn and study with me. She showed grit from the first weeks of the semester, determined to improve through tutoring, new study methods and stellar attendance. I clicked onto her grade and added one more point. Her grade sprung up. It was all the mercy that she needed to earn that vital grade.

My personal softness for rounding grades? This semester it has a number of one. And that student earned it 100%.

Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.