An A for Effort

In its latest issue, The New Republic mentions a study by the University of California, Irvine that concludes many students expect a good grade just for showing up at class.
The article includes a quote from a junior English major:

"I feel that if I do all of the readings and attend class regularly that I should be able to achieve a grade of at least a B."

Had they interviewed me, I could have given them similar statistics just from the students I recently taught. Although I kept grades posted on the web so each student could track their progress, or lack thereof, daily, every semester ended with a string of conferences involving both parents and students. Invariably, they would recite class attendance or turning in homework as evidence they deserved A’s no matter what the homework or test grades were.

I found the quote from a senior kinesiology major even more egregious.

"If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?" he added. "If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher's mind, then something is wrong."

Such an attitude, not to mention the poor reasoning skills, frightens me no end. First of all, how can anyone else, especially a professor who only sees you for three hours a week, know whether you had put forth your best effort? But more important, do these students not realize that competency is absolutely necessary in most, if not all, fields of study.

Which one of them would choose a surgeon who got through med school and internship with good grades because he made the effort, not because he learned anatomy?