As a former TA (1980s) and professor (1990s) at two different elite universities, I was very aware that grading serves two functions. As a faculty member, I gave what I considered intellectually honest grades on each assignment because I though students deserved and could learn from a realistic assessment of how close or far they were from doing excellent work. Then at the end of the term, I curved so that final grades (i.e. What went to the outside world (including university administrators) and would be used to rank and sort) were consistent AFAICT with campus norms. Not hard to do – same data, just a different scale and no one complains when their final grade is higher than they expected. Basically, I thought I owed my students a first class education but didn’t think that the price of getting one should be a GPA that punished you for your ambition.
As a TA, I did whatever the prof told us to --though the person I taught for the most had a very collaborative approach to grading and worked hard to ensure fairness across sections. The course as a whole had the rep of being a hard one to get an A in.
Abstractly, I would have been delighted to have a class in which everyone earned an A on the intellectually honest scale. And, in that case, I wouldn’t have adopted the conventional curve for final grades. But, in reality, there was never a risk of that. Most of the work I saw was B level work. Acceptable but not stellar in any respect. Had some kids who produced great work, some who produced very promising work, and some who basically shat on paper. I gave detailed and helpful comments on essays and held lots of office hours after returning them. The kids who cared about why they got a low grade generally improved. But most didn’t take advantage of feedback.
One interesting data point for me came from anonymous surveys I conducted of time spent reading/studying outside of class. Very few students reported more than 2 hours a week (in a course where readings probably averaged 250 pages a week). It was a real shocker to me because, as an undergrad at a peer institution I probably spent over 10 hours a week per class on coursework. That wasn’t abnormal among my college friends, but, in retrospect, we may have been atypical.