The for-profit company prevailed recently in a public-records lawsuit
against the University of California, Davis, that was seen as a test case in
California. (The school initially refused to hand over the letter-grade
information, then backed down and paid Pick-A-Prof $15,000 in legal fees.)
Now the company is seeking the distribution of grades at other University of California schools, the California State University system and the state's community colleges -- to the ire of faculty members who say students will shop for easy classes...
Los Rios Chancellor Brice Harris agrees, but said in a letter to faculty
and staff that it wasn't worth losing a legal fight after UC lawyers determined that the aggregate letter-grade data amount to a public record that can be given to anyone who asks for it.
This isn't a positive development.
I myself don't consider grades and grade distributions to be "public information", but apparently UC Davis felt they wouldn't win in court with that argument.
ReplyDeleteAs for the down-side, please note the title of the post.
The reverse argument of this is that students will be able to avoid an incompetent professor. (every school has them) ratemyprofessors.com is a great tool for finding more information about this since students give comments about the class and professor. There are certainly classes where there is a poor overall GPA because the professor failed miserably, not the students.
ReplyDelete