"The awarding of higher grades than students deserve either to maintain a school's academic reputation or as a result of diminished teacher expectations." [1980-1985] I can personally tell you this was a huge concern in 1970-1975 when the average grade at some colleges in question had already passed the point mentioned just above, yielding averages including all undergraduate courses, including the grades of "flunk-outs," still higher than a "B" which means more "A"s were given a whole undergraduate student body than "B"s and "C"s. [Actually it means worse than that, but point made.] So, we reached the point at which large numbers of a nation's high school graduates couldn't even read or fill out a minimum wage job application form, while, on paper, we were doing better than ever, excepting, thank God, the fact that testing scores showed there was something incredibly wrong, and businesses would notice they were having to interview more people for a job before they could find someone to fill it. This is what happens when we separate a country into the "Information Rich" and the "Information Poor." Don't let it happen to the entire world. For the first time in ALL history, we have the chance to ensure that every person can put huge amounts of "Public Domain" and other information into computers that should be as inexpensive as calculators in a few more years. I would like to ensure these people actually have material to put in those computers when they get them. Example: Some Shakespeare professors believe that the way to be a great Shakespeare professor is to know something about a Shakespeare play or poem that no one else knows. Therefore they never tell anyone, and that knowledge can quite possibly die with them if it is never published in a wide manner. Example: Damascus steel was famous, for hundreds of years, but the knowledge of how to make this steel was so narrowly known that all those who knew that technique died without passing it on, and it was a truly long time before computer simulations finally managed to recreate Damascus steel after all those centuries when a person had to buy an antique to get any. Some other Shakespeare professors believe that the way a person should act to be a great Shakespeare professor is to teach as many people as possible about Shakespeare in as complete a manner as they want to learn. The Internet is balancing on this same dichotomy now.... Do we want Unlimited Distribution... Or do we want to continue with Limited Distribution? The French have just given us one of the great examples: a month or so ago [I am writing this in early February.] they found a cave containing the oldest known paintings, twice as old as any previously discovered, and after the initial month of photographing them in secret, placed an electronic set of photographs on the Internet for all of us to have. . .ALL!