Today’s Comment of the Day is on the post about using awards and honors to make the less fortunate and unqualified feel good, as Michael carries the issue into the related matter of grading:
“I run into this every semester. I can’t give anyone a C in a class. I can’t give anyone a B in a class. You have to earn it by demonstrating that you understand and can apply the relevant material. You may be the most attractive, most charitable, most loved person on the planet, but if you can’t do this work, you can’t pass. Usually, they still don’t understand, and I have to give a speech I title “What a C student does.”
“Where do my ‘C’ students go? What do ‘C’ students do after they leave? ‘A’ and ‘B’ students go to graduate school, medical, and dental school. They may hold people’s lives in their hands in their careers. But what about the ‘C’ student? Surely there is no harm in letting someone squeak by with a ‘C’? Well… they test your water to make sure it is safe. They determine what amounts of new pesticides can be used without causing harm. They run the tests that determine if you raped someone or if that really was a bag of cocaine in your car, or just some borrowed powdered sugar (as you insisted). My ‘C’ students work jobs where people die if they mess up. The ‘C’ stands for competence. If you don’t have it, you don’t get a ‘C’.
“It sounds simple, but it isn’t easy to hold when many others don’t. It means you have to tell this to 18 year-olds who are crying in your office because you have dashed their (and their family’s) dreams of being a doctor, or you have to tell this to the student who has to leave college because they dropped below their scholarship threshold. People will say you are mean, they will say you are heartless, and that is the price of integrity today. Think about it next time you need an operation and next time you take a drink of water.”
Ethics Alarms 
Years ago I was doing my practice teaching in English to a gang of 14 and 15 year olds at Sentinel High School in Missoula, MT. At semester’s start I told them this:
“Anybody of average intelligence can get an ‘A’ or ‘B’ in this class — and you all have at least average intelligence, or you’d be in a different kind of school. To get your ‘A’ or ‘B’, all you have to do is work for it.”
They thought that was outrageous, highly, totally unfair. But I stuck to my guns.
One kid had never gotten more than a ‘C’ in her life. But she worked hard, and at semester’s end I told her, “You’ve raised your overall average to a ‘B’.” Well, you’d have thought it was an Academy Award. She thanked me profusely, and I told her, “No need to thank me — you’re the one who did it. You earned it.”
She felt good about herself; and I about myself. Teaching can be rewarding at times.