It is inspiring to hear of the University of New England’s recent announcement that it will be offering free tuition to qualified low-income students, provided they show an economic need and graduate from high school with a GPA of 3.85. Good for UNE, and good for Maine.

As a retired educator, who spent time wearing multiple hats (teacher, administrator, school coach) in multiple institutions and grade spans for 40 years, my observation is that UNE’s generous offer arrives on a landscape characterized by chaos and inequity when it comes to grading and reporting. Disparities often exist between and among teachers in the same school, as well as between school districts across Maine. Every one of us has surely experienced this inequitable reality, whether as students, parents, or both.

Grading and reporting is still, somehow, treated as a non-discussable private practice in way too many American school systems. As long as this mindset persists, there is little to no way to trust that one teacher’s “A” would not be another teacher’s “B,” even in the same school, even for the same course, and perhaps even for the same students.

UNE and, more importantly, our students, deserve consistency and comparability when it comes to generating classroom grades and calculating GPAs.

Craig Kesselheim
Southwest Harbor