Steering the ‘client’-oriented schooling ship: a moral-ecological assessment framework to preserve professional integrity

Grade inflation has been at the centre of heated debates in nations where schools are gradually shaped by a market-based praxis. Utilising teachers' interviews in one US private/non-government faith-based school, this study examines how grade inflation shapes their sense of integrity and morality. The paper focuses on the faith-based schooling space for having the highest enrolment of all private/non-government school students, as well as an extensively distanced relationship with most US states – being subject to broad consumeristic demands. Following Santoro's 'three dimensions of integrity' model – supplemented with her 'strategies for re-moralization' – findings illustrate contestations of governance/assessment that violate teachers' professional integrity, capturing a moral crossroads between their personal integrity and integrity of teaching. A moral-ecological assessment framework, reflecting principles of equity, authentic relationships and social justice in three domains of activism – classroom, school and community – helped the teachers navigate their fractured professional integrity and steer the 'client'-oriented schooling ship.