"Why Colleges Shower Their Students with A's" & "The Gender Gap at School"

The differences between these two passages are as follow- In the essay titled “Why Colleges Shower Their Students with A’s,” states many points that I found interesting, but I was only allow to pick 4, so they four I chose are…
“Some departments shower students with A’s to fill poorly attended courses that might otherwise be canceled.” I think this important and kind of true to an extent because some teachers will give the students who don’t show up throughout the semester better grades than the students who do show up to class everyday. I think they do this because they like the student, or they want to have a higher passing percentage then other classes. I think it all bad because if the student don’t deserve the grade, then they deserve the grade the get the, because I work hard for all my grades and I want to be recognized for it.
“Today, colleges of every stature permit them to appeal low grades through deans or permanent boards of inquiry.” I do see this happening all the time in college, and I had to do this once in college, but I had a ligament reason which was I was in a car accident the day of my final so I couldn’t take it. Everything worked out fine and I have no problem if a student has a good reason to petition the grade.
“The evidence suggests that students and parents are demanding- and getting- what they think of as their money’s worth.” This is interesting because I haven’t noticed this in college, but in high school this happened all the time because the parents felt that their kid deserved the grade which they didn’t really deserve. I’m sure this happens in college because college is expensive and parents and the student wants to get passing grades, so they wont have to pay again to retake the class.
The Johnson plan was an eye opener which states, “Recalculating the grade point average to give rigorously graded courses greater weight.” This is an useful information because I didn’t know they were trying to do this in some colleges. I find it heard to understand why the people who “adopted” the plan, want their names kept secret. If they agree, wouldn’t they not care about the backlash? Probably they really don’t want it to pass, but doing it for the higher demands. Students will shy away from these courses because they want to pass, not fail the class, and this plan will be a risk for many.
In, “The Gender Gap at School,” David Brooks give many examples that backup his point of view. The four I pick are as follow…
I found how Brooks talks about, “The three gender-segregated sections of the airport.” This is important because people may not know how the law works. Like, if someone didn’t know that a male cops cant search females, well now they know. This is very useful information.
Brooks states how, “Male and female brains work differently.” very interesting to me because I didn’t really realize how different males and females are from one another. I never thought to much about how different the brains can be from each other, but this points out many key facts that verifies its true.
Didn’t agree with Brooks on, “Nor should it be a surprise that men are drifting away from occupations that involve reading and school.” my profession and many of my friends are involved with lots of reading courses and school, so I disagree with him because I think that now-a-days professions that deal with men and women are intertwining with each other. Men are doing more with school related things now then back in the day, well that’s what I think.Dr. Leonard Sax makes an important statement which is, “Men and women can excel at any subject. They just have to be taught in different ways.” This is useful because kids out there can realize that it doesn’t matter what sex you are, but how you are being taught and how you study. I think that anybody can do whatever they want to do in life, if they really try at it and have that mentality set into their minds that they can achieve all there dreams in life.