the Evil Line

Grade inflation:

By the end of the last decade, A’s and B’s represented 73 percent of all grades awarded at public schools, and 86 percent of all grades awarded at private schools.

Each semester I get a printout telling me what my grade distribution was (in case I didn't know...) and how it compares with other sections of the same course, other classes in the math department, other classes at LSU, and so on.

According to these printouts, stepping into my class (or any class in the math department, really) is like going back to 1988 or so, for good or for ill.