As if all the Pennsylvania news wasn’t enough, I stumbled onto this story about a student, whose family may sue their daughter's high school history teacher. They seem bitter. I’ll update as the story develops. <snark alert>
Scranton, PA
April 23, 2008Grand Inflation in Pennsylvania?
AP—In a move that is sure to arouse controversy among educators, the parents of a 17-year-old senior at Scranton High School are preparing a lawsuit against their daughter’s history teacher, Mr. Ayers Bitterwright, for refusing to change his final grade. If the grade is not adjusted, it will likely keep the young woman from entering Penn State University in the fall. The student is a very popular hometown girl, who most residents expected to attend PSU.“Everyone in my family attended that school,” the student said, “and I have a right to do so too, especially because my parents gave a lot of money to the university.” The girl’s father, a former president of his student class at Penn State, said his daughter is “entitled to admission.”
The relatively new history teacher, Mr. Bitterwright, has been with the school three years. He noted in an interview with the school newspaper that the girl, whose name has not been released to the media, received an 89 percent in his class. Penn State’s admission policy clearly states that students need 90 percent on their history final to be eligible.
The student and her parents have repeatedly told friends and the school newspaper that she received a 90, although an examination of the final records suggests otherwise. The 90 percent story has been picked up and reported by other wire services and media outlets.
“Look,” said the girl’s father, “it’s no big deal to round up. Who wants to say 89? It’s an odd number, it has a lot of syllables, and it's not easy to spell. It’s just so much easier to say 90, and the media seem to agree with us. They’ve been using 90 in all their stories about this case.”
Mr. Bitterwright, the teacher, sees it differently, calling the media's repetition of the student’s 90 percent score “grade inflation.” The history teacher also pointed out that the local newspaper and television station are owned by the girl’s uncle, Mr. George Gibson, who has been one of her loudest advocates.
Gibson has repeatedly stated, for example, that his niece would have received a 90 percent "if the school had counted all of the tests she took." An exasperated Bitterwright pointed out, however, that several of the class projects were not part of the final exam and therefore cannot be added to her final score.
“What don’t you understand?” he asked Gibson. “She knew going into this course that those other projects were not part of the final and therefore could not be added to her score, yet now Gibson and others want to change the grading policy after everyone agreed on the rules.”
Bitterwright added: “This student had every opportunity to score better than 89. Just a few weeks ago she was testing at 96 percent, and this course was made for her. The subject is one she knows well. Her ancestors are part of our town’s history, and there were even questions about them on the final exam.”
“On top of that,” Bitterwright continued, “her aunt is the district’s curriculum specialist, and she even helped design the final exam. Clearly this student had the system working for her. She’s very popular around here and the test couldn’t have been engineered better for her, but still she couldn’t pull off 90 percent, even though they’d like you to think she did.”
I’ll add a break here so I’m not accused of copying a press release in full without the usual diarist comment. So there.
Classmates have said the student turned negative toward Mr. Ayers Bitterwright and the final exam recently. “She wasn’t much fun to be around,” said one former friend, “and none of us really wanted to help her study. She lost a lot of friends.”
One student pointed to an incident that took place in class. “Well, Mr. Bitterwright didn’t want to wear a logo of the school mascot on his jacket the day before the Scranton-Hazelton game,” said the classmate, “and ___ got really mad at him, since she’s a cheerleader and all. She would bad-mouth him every chance she got, even though most of us really like his teaching style, and we really learn a lot from him."
The media appear to have taken up the girl’s cause. As the case nears resolution, the headline in the local paper today reads: Student Receives 90 Percent! Deserves Admission! Without explaining that the student actually did not receive a score of 90, the accompanying article questions Bitterwright's brief experience in the classroom, and it claims he is an "elitist egghead" to expect a 90 from everyone. The article goes on to say that the student’s score is a “decisive” rebuke of the teacher and a "big win" for the girl, even though she was expected to perform much better.
When asked how far the family is likely to push the matter, the young woman's father said their first line of attack is to convince the PSU trustees to change the policy. “If we can make the school’s history exam and Bitterwright himself the issue here, rather than my daughter’s performance,” said her father, “perhaps the higher-ups at Penn State, who we’ve been waiting to hear from for months, will come around.”
“Absent that,” he continued, “although we’re nearly out of money at this time, we’re prepared to carry this through to the courts, even if it means sullying Penn State’s reputation and jeopardizing our daughter’s chances of getting into another school.”
UPDATE: Supposedly, the girl and her parents will appear on NBC’s Today Show and CNN’s Larry King Live this week. I made repeated calls to the networks, but received no response, although NBC and CNN press releases both state there are no plans to interview the teacher, who they characterize as inexperienced, out of touch with regular students, and someone who does not support the school's football team.
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