hankyoreh

A student's English language transcripts

"Every high school transcript we forward to U.S. universities contains only A grades. This is most certainly unethical by U.S. standards."

So said one study-abroad academy employee, who paid a visit to Hankyoreh21 bearing a hefty folder. The documents he exhibited to us were those sent to U.S. universities by one foreign language high school in Korea.

Recent English language transcripts, containing marks for dozens of classes each, were swathed exclusively in A grades.

How can this be? "Some high schools prepare student transcripts under different methods than those prescribed by Korean law to send to U.S. universities," explained the employee. In order to investigate the prevalence of this, Hankyoreh21 acquired the transcripts for foreign language high school students enrolled in special tracks for studying at overseas (primarily U.S.) universities.

In the process of the investigation, Hankyoreh21 gained access to e-mails sent to some parents of freshmen students at the Hanyoung Foreign Language High School. The messages were mostly sent by a member of the students' parents' committee, identified by his family name, Song.

Under the title of "Requesting discussion of the Resolution" he sent an email to 14 parents on April 27. "On the evening of Saturday [the 29th]," he wrote, "there will be an assembly of students' parents from Gangnam, Seocho, Songpa, and Gangbuk in Seoul to decide upon the Resolution's fate. Let me know if there are any suggestions for adjustment [to the Resolution]." The "Resolution of Parents of Hanyoung Foreign Language High School Overseas Studies Program Students" contained the following items among others: reduce the quota of standard curriculum high school classes and increase the time devoted to English language and Advanced Placement (AP) instruction, discontinue the Cash Management System (CMS) transferal method by which funds are transferred automatically to teachers' accounts each month, and also to enable the students' parents' association to voluntarily make direct payments of "lecture fees" to the teachers.

Parents of freshmen explained the contents of the resolution at a meeting of the Students' Parents' Association (SPA) during the annual Gangnam Province Tower Palace Banquet on April 29. "Song and other committee members pressed for the resolution's passage," recounted one participant. "Stating that they would make a formal request to the principal on May 3, they began gathering signatures from SPA members."

SPA representatives and the school principal held a related meeting on May 3. According to the e-mail sent by Song to nine PSA members on July 2, he had received the following guarantees from the principal: (1) letter grades are to be assigned only in those classes which are absolutely necessary for entrance into U.S. colleges, and all other classes are to be evaluated on a pass/fail basis, (2) in graded classes, all students are given a baseline score of 60 percent for course completion, and if the score exceeds 70 percent after factoring in scores from tests and class work, then students are to receive an A, (3) standard curriculum classes are to be taught in the morning hours, whereas English language and AP classes are to be taught in the afternoon, as there is more class time in the afternoon than in the morning.

At the time, a senior teacher in charge of the overseas studies program expressed his opposition to the agreement. Accoding to Song’s maill, “On 8 June, the senior theacher had presented a revision to the agreed grading system. Instead of awarding grades of A- to students scoring 50-70 percent and grades of A to those scoring above 70%, he disclosed his plans to award A- grades to those scoring 70 percent and above, A grades to those above 80 percent, and A+ to those above 90 percent.

According to Song's email, the senior theacher's reason for opposition was the "excess of A grades" and that adjustment was necessary. Yet Song and his followers in the SPA were staunchly opposed to the differentiation of A grades into A-, A and A+. "Despite his jabbering on about 'restoring confidence in our transcripts,'" they declared "reforming the system such that report cards are pervaded by grades of A- and B will not help the students in the slightest."

"We reached an agreement with the school," said Song. "Those students receiving scores above 70 percent will receive an A, and the strongest students among those will receive grades of 'A with honors.' " Yet this agreement, too, seems subject to collapse. "Despite having reached an agreement on GPA reforms after much discussion," he explained, "the SPA is disconcerted to find [the school] once more presenting reform proposals and stressing the importance of some modification."

Whether an agreement can be reached between the SPA and the school remains to be seen. There was even the unusual instance of one parent of a freshman going so far as to post a survey online in an internet cafe where other parents could vote on the appropriate scale for assessing grades. "Click 1 for A grades starting at 70 percent, 2 for A grades starting at 75 percent, and 3 for A grades starting at 80 percent" said one parent, describing the online ballot. "I clicked on number 3, but sure enough number 1 prevailed in a landslide."

The commotion at Hanyoung Foreign Language High School blatantly shows the inflation of grades in favor of students in the overseas study track. Though all students at the school take the same tests, the report cards differ depending on the track that the student belongs to. Whereas the Korean language report card would show a score of 70 as a "mi" [equivalent to a grade of C], the English language report card sent to U.S. universities would record the same score as an A.

In order to seek clarification of this, Hankyoreh21 placed a phone call to the school principal on 20 November. "I assumed office beginning in 2005," he said "and over that time there has been a custom of equating A grades with scores exceeding 70 percent. I have followed the wishes of the parents and abided by this custom." As for the grading scale, he said, "It is an issue that was decided on by the Grade Administration Committee" and "reforms to the scale were proposed, but they failed to be passed by the Committee." Hankyoreh21 requested the minutes of the Grade Administration Committee's meeting, but Hanyoung Foreign Language High School stated that those records could not be made public.

The Ministry of Education in turn has declared such inflated transcripts to be unacceptable. "All transcripts must be written in accordance with the appropriate directives," said Jang Mi-suk, an official involved with primary education policies in the Ministry of Education. "The Ministry of Education has laid down decrees regarding English language transcripts. They must be created using the very same means of notation that are used in the Korean language transcripts. Even if the Grade Management Committee of a given school decides to award A grades for scores over 70 percent, such an action is an overstepping of their rightful authority." In other words, whether written in English or in Korean, the method of preparing a transcript is not up to the whims of school administrators.

"Parents who know something about study abroad said all the other schools [inflate grades], and so they requested to the Principal that he follow suit," said Song in an interview on 24 November. "I had heard that transcript grading scales are determined school by school," he continued. As for the modification proposals at other schools to at least differentiate the A grade into A-, A and A+, Song expressed his opposition: "The school authorities told us that the system of simply awarding A grades to all students receiving over 70 percent hurts the truly outstanding students. In other words, they are saying that for the sake of a few excellent pupils, the rest of the students should be left to suffer. Why would we want to adopt this proposal?"

The Ministry of Education has decreed that grade transcripts written in English comply with preexisting regulations. "High schools cannot just make up their own [grade scales] for transcripts," said one official. The Ministry has repeatedly sent directives to city and provincial education boards banning the alteration of transcripts printed in English.

According to Ministry of Education standards, English language transcripts are to list the student's grade for each subject as well as his class standing as measured in noviles (divided into ninths). In the case of graduating students, grades of Su (90-100), Wu (80-89), Mi (70-79), Yang (60-69) and Ga (60 and below) are to be printed alongside their novile class standing. Yet this directive has become little more than a dead letter. Despite the need to raise the credence of public schooling, the Ministry of Education has done nothing beyond making proclamations, while school administrators have revised the format of transcripts with impunity.

Hankyoreh21 also uncovered that the Goyang Foreign Language High School releases transcripts in which students with scores of 80 percent or over receive A grades. "School rules indeed put A grades at 80 percent and over," said one school employee. "This is not grade inflation. The kids in foreign language high schools are excellent to begin with, so what is the big deal?"

On a visit to Hanyoung Foreign Language High School on 22 November, administrators were aboveboard on the subject of grading. "We give them A grades if they score over 70 percent and send them off," said one employee. Filling in temporarily for Principal Jang, who had retired since the phone conversation, Kim Jong-in said "I can't just change the system that is in place," continuing, "we give A grades to graduating students with scores over 70 and send the transcripts to U.S. universities." In response to this reporter's queries, he urged Hankyoreh21 to "take a look at other schools. They're doing the same thing as Hanyoung Foreign Language High School."

Indeed, it is believed that grade inflation takes place at most foreign language high schools. Seoul Foreign Language High School Deputy Principal Kim Seong-tae said "there were issues with the transcripts printed in English in the past, but those were corrected after an audit conducted by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. One employee of a study abroad company said, "The inflation of transcripts bound for U.S. has been an open secret for some time. The schools without special overseas study tracks consulted with privately run SAT study academies on how to prepare documents for sending abroad."

Even putting the issue of grade inflation aside, there is another fundamental problem demanding correction: many schools brazenly record their students as having completed the standard curriculum classes despite a widespread tendency for second- and third-year students to not even bother attending them.

Overseas study tracks at foreign language high schools also develop curriculum to raise students' scores on AP exams as well as provide knowledge necessary for entrance to U.S.n universities. However, AP class grades are subject to the "standards set autonomously by each individual lecturer," said Ms. Kim, counselor at Hanyoung Foreign Language High School. Among the students applying to U.S. universities from the high school, he disclosed, there were but two students who had C grades on their transcripts; the remainder had grades of A and B only.

"The alteration of report cards for students in the overseas study tracks is quite common," said one parent of a foreign language high school student. On the separate AP class transcripts that are compiled, students are documented as having taken classes that they did not, and the grades from classes covering the AP exams and U.S. curriculum are raised arbitrarily before being recorded. As a result of this, the majority of students applying to U.S. universities submit transcripts with inflated grades in both specialized and standard curriculum classes.

There are other expediencies used by foreign language high schools to give their students an advantage. For instance, according to a survey of five high schools conducted by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education this August, Seoul, Ehwa Girls’ and Hanyoung Foreign Language High Schools grant sustained excused absences from classes to students studying for AP exams and even go so far as to exempt them from having to take midterm examinations.

While investigating this phenomenon, parents made assertions to the Hankyoreh21 reporters such as these: "My child will heighten the national prestige if he gets into an Ivy League school, so can't a little accommodation be spared to them?" or, "The best students gather at Foreign language high schools, so we should give them the benefit of the doubt when grading them." One could reasonably call this a new form of university admissions patriotism. The point one must not overlook is that this form of patriotism happens to be rife among the rich class of South Korea.

In modern Korea, foreign language high schools are an indispensable channel in the inheritance of privilege from parent to child. With these institutions at their backs, the children of upper class families make their way into U.S. universities through various expedients and return home to find red carpets awaiting them. To these students, the foreign language high schools are at once an introduction into an elite clique as well as a sturdy series of stepping stones leading to universities across the Pacific. Yet somewhere in the process, the values of education have fallen by the wayside.

On November 9, the Ministry of Education declared they would take legal and administrative measures if instances of expediencies on behalf of overseas study track students are discovered. "We will drop in on schools unannounced to conduct investigations," said one official on November 23, continuing that "if we find problems with the English language transcripts, we will take appropriate measures." Echoing this sentiment, the national gathering of foreign high school principals on November 23-24 declared their resolve to "carry out the education process in a normal manner, such as in teaching the standard curriculum to overseas study track students during the regular time slot."

Will these words be followed by actions? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, there will be reason for thanks so long as the zeal for education and class elitism that run rife in Korean society would give but a token of deference to the Korean educational system.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]