An article published this week in Quillette (which, along with Substack, is one of the best sources of thoughtful, intelligent journalism in America today) argues persuasively that grade inflation is destroying education in the United States. Author Shane Trotter describes a system where grades are no longer tied to actual achievement, where high school standards have been lowered so much that a college degree -- and absurd levels of debt -- now takes the place of a high school diploma, where self-esteem is more important than achievement and where the performance of American students relative to the rest of the world keeps dropping.