ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, March 1, 1997                TAG: 9703030014
SECTION: EDITORIAL                PAGE: A-7  EDITION: METRO 
                                             TYPE: BRIEFLY PUT  

WE CAN'T ALL BE NO. 1 (OR CAN WE?)

* IS VIRGINIA'S pride hurt? The state can boast it's the mother of presidents (even if not now pregnant, or at least not showing). It can boast the oldest, continuous, English-speaking legislative assembly in the Western Hemisphere. It was the first state to elect a black governor (Douglas Wilder, in 1989). Virginia even puts in a claim to have been the site of the first Thanksgiving dinner. (Granted, the claim is a mite dubious, and stubbornly disputed by New Englanders.)

What a comedown, then, to be only No. 2 in the number of executions carried out since restoration of the death penalty. To have allowed Texas, with 108 executions, to outdo us, with 39, in the killing department. What's more, there may be no catching up anytime soon: Texas has 394 inmates on death row to Virginia's paltry 53.

What say we concede this one? Let the Lone Star State take the death-penalty honors. Virginia could strive instead to become No. 1 in the prevention of crimes for which the death penalty is now imposed.

* WHEN everybody's No.1, nobody's No.1. That's a conclusion increasingly drawn these days at America's colleges and universities, as grades drift ever upward.

In 1969, according to one researcher, the grades of only 7 percent of American college students averaged A-minus or better, while some 25 percent averaged C or below. By 1993, the figures were nearly reversed: Only 9 percent averaged C or below, while 26 percent averaged A-minus or better.

Even accepting the doubtful proposition that the academic performance of college students today is that much better than a generation ago, uniformly high grades pose a problem for graduate schools and employers trying to gauge students' relative performance.

Many of the nation's most prominent institutions, reports Newsweek magazine, are tinkering with their grading systems. Duke University is thinking about junking the grade-point average and replacing it with a more rigorous "achievement index." Stanford has reintroduced the F. Harvard is studying reform.

If grade inflation can be brought under control, many strapped parents might ask, could tuition inflation be placed next on the list?

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