Allowing teachers to choose the metrics upon which grades are based is much like a Third World dictator being able to print currency at will. Don't have the bu

Allowing teachers to choose the metrics upon which grades are based is much like a Third World dictator being able to print currency at will. Don't have the budget for classroom Kleenex? Just issue an incentive. Want your students to be compliant? You have an incentive that most of them (or at least most of their parents) will value. Until this school in Austin audited Teachers' ability to turn on the printing presses at will, there was no disincentive to abuse the currency. The benefits of currency inflation are local to a classroom, but the downsides are macro in nature. Outsiders looking at a high school report card can't tell if a particular "A" was due to mastery or compliance, but those same observers will base the value of those grades on the aggregate of their correlation to competence over time.