I was mad. I had worked too hard all semester in Biology 222 -- Genetics only to find that I came up short of the coveted A. It wasn't that I didn't deserve an A-, but why did the grade curve, which allowed students 100 total points below me to receive B's and those with an average of only 30 percent to pass, not put me over the top? After a short period of thought, I realized that this was just another example of the dumbing-down of America and our continual insistence on rewarding mediocrity.

The use of grade curves at many universities, including Penn State, along with affirmative action programs, so-called outcome-based education in grade school and other liberal experiments, serve only to punish achievement and reward mediocrity despite their original well-intentioned goals to help minorities achieve and more students to pass so as to not hurt their self-esteem.

Yet, in enacting these programs and their liberal logic, we have forgotten the importance of failure in the building of character and have risked America's competitive future by producing a work force ill-equipped to succeed in the world market.

A great thinker once said, "Success is the product of many failures." If you look at the backgrounds of the Fortune 500 members, you'll see that most have had at least one business fail. Antiquity is filled with many axioms like "If you fail, try, try again." However, the liberal establishment has placed the self-esteem of students above achievement, discouraged competition, and believed that no one should be permitted to fail.

And because of these very ideas, test scores have been steadily dropping and illiteracy and drop-out rates have been increasing. But instead of directly addressing the problem, standards keep getting lowered and end up aggravating the problem even further. What is being taught has been drastically simplified because of a fear that not all students will be able to achieve at a higher level, thus endangering the students' self-esteem. For the same reason, the SAT scale has recently been adjusted so as to not allow any test-takers the emotional trauma of getting a stigmatizing 800 or lower.

The fact of the matter is that raising standards and setting high goals enables people to be the best they can be. Set your goals low and you will achieve little. Set them high and there is virtually no limit to what you can do.

Some movie characters may come to mind: There was Jaime (Stand and Deliver) Escalante, the mathematics teacher who taught underprivileged Hispanic students advanced calculus over the objections of naysayers who said they weren't capable. And there was Joe (Lean on Me) Clark, the principal who brought order, discipline, and success to a crime-ridden inner-city school in New Jersey.

But in the liberal educators' paranoia of failure and inequality, competition, achievement and success have become dirty words.

John Taylor Gatto was named New York state teacher of the year in 1991. He leveled a stinging indictment of public-school education when he condemned the dumbing-down of our population and the standardization and regimentation that depersonalize students and emphasize equality and mediocrity while discouraging excellence. "School," he said, "is a Goodyear jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned."

Which brings us to outcome-based education. Outcome-based education makes failure acceptable and removes all incentives for achievement by eliminating D's and F's and states that there is no objective right or wrong. A principal in Ohio answered a concerned mother's question of "(Are you saying) that two plus two can equal five in your school?" by saying, "Yes. What of it?"

The importance of poor grades is to inform parents and the student of where he or she is underachieving. This accentuates the importance of the parents' role in their children's education. Of course, this goes against the liberal educators' arrogant notion that they know what is better for the children than parents do.

So now we have more and more students ill-prepared for the work force, lacking all motivation to achieve, and, in many cases, unable to read their own diplomas. Students are pushed through school even though they don't demonstrate mastery of the previous grade's material.

Did you know that of those same Fortune 500 members, there are nearly as many high school dropouts as there are are MBAs? I'm not advocating dropping out of high school, for the education you get is invaluable at that and the college level but it just goes to show that more important than anything else is a great work ethic, drive and attitude. Which is exactly what practices such as affirmative action and grade curves discourage.

Affirmative action, which is essntially a legalized quota, basically states, "OK, you may not have worked as hard as others, but because you are of a certain skin color, you can have a place at a school or at a job, possibly at the expense some ne more deserving."

Not only, does affirmative action in some instances, favor less qualified people over the more qualified on the mere basis of skin color, it has the effect of stigmatizing its intended beneficiaries by lowering standards so they aren't as well prepared for the work force, and implies that they aren't good enough to make it without liberal intervention.

The same thing goes for grade curves. Why should I bust my butt when I can sit back, do half the work, and still get a C with a 50 percent average? Because so many people feel this way and act on those legitimate feelings, many employers are finding their new employees dreadfully ignorant of the basic knowledge they require and, hence, American companies find themselves losing their competitive edge. Sure, the company may invest time and energy educating its employees, but these employees are lacking something much more valuable than any amount of knowledge: the work ethic, drive, character and discipline which comes with hard work, competition and possibly occasional failure.

Industries and professors should get together and say, "Listen, this is the bare minimum knowledge needed to succeed" and set the grade scale accordingly and rigidly. So what if in the short term more fail? The important thing is that students will have those virtues I spoke of, reinforced and installed in them what it takes to succeed. In the end, I'm sure people will adjust and the success rate will in fact increase. What could possibly be better for their self-esteem? Empowerment of the individual in this way is the best and most compassionate thing we can do.