Vignette 11: Mean or Median

It is a tough issue to debate when it comes to using math techniques to give students a final grade.  On one hand, it is traditionally reliable, and parents and students are less likely to fight grades you give them using traditional calculations, but on the other hand, there likely does need to be a change in how grades are given to students in an ever-changing school system.  There may be factors in the student's life that are affecting how they are able to perform in school, and these need to be accounted for when grading them.  Although I've never considered it before, using median instead of mean would be a fair way to grade students, and it would still be defendable if a grade is contested.  I think that parents  and students would be unlikely to feel any more hostile toward being graded using the median than they would toward using the mean to grade them.