Can giving grades and assessing mastery go together?

Our school for the last two years has talked about grading and how to work an archaic system of grading into a standards-based world of mastery.  We have found that it is very difficult.  Not only is it difficult to put a grade on a summative that may not really show the true picture of a student’s ability, but it is also difficult to communicate with parents that an A on the report card does not necessarily mean their child has mastered the work given.  

I have been reading the book, “Rethinking Grading” by Cathy Vatterott and I feel that she has really been able to put into words what the true problem is with grading.  One point that she makes as she starts out her book, is that our “grading systems often reward on-time task completion and punish disorganization and bad behavior.”  That is so true!  My faculty and I have been discussing grading and our beliefs about it based on our past experiences in school.   We had been taught by our universities, our mentor teachers, how to grade.  We found that many times when we were grading papers, we would give extra points if the paper was turned in on time, or if a child had their name on the paper.  We also found that many times we deducted points for late work, no name, etc.   We noticed that we also were just trying to get through the curriculum….it was more about time and less about learning.  We were told to cover the material and if the student was not able to cover it in the time that they were given then they just did not get it, were given a permanent grade, and we moved on.  Oh my, bless our students’ hearts!  We were like a cattle farm herding them through the gates and never looking back to see if they were really learning or if they were able to apply this knowledge to new learning! 

There were two events that happened to my daughter when she was in high school that really made an impact on my thoughts about grading.  My daughter hated reading and writing, but persevered on an assignment given by her 11^th grade English teacher with some assurance from me that I would help.  The assignment was to write a paper on a certain topic, which also required her to read a book.  My daughter read the book, wrote the paper with some help from me of course, but in all honesty it was her thoughts!  She turned the paper in on time, was excited that she had actually done something that was hard for her and when she received her paper back from the teacher it had a zero on it.  Yes, I said it had a zero!  She came home, showed me the paper through her tears and anger, which of course made me angry and I asked why?  “What did the teacher say you did wrong?”  The teacher said that her “margins” on the paper were incorrect and since she did not follow all the directions, she received a zero.  I was furious!  “What do correct margins have to do with the actual assignment or the work that my daughter had completed on the topic?” Why give a zero?  I talked with the teacher with no luck and then called the principal and after much discussion the zero was removed, but the damage was done!  My daughter went to one of the best high schools in our city and if she had teachers who were more interested in following the rules and not so interested in the learning, then how many other children were going through this? To even make it more laughable, the teacher in one of her classes said that if she brought in some Kleenex boxes she could get five extra points on her test!  Really!  Kleenex boxes can raise a grade, but hard work and following through don’t count! I found out that this was normal grading behavior for high school.  Due to this assignment and others throughout her high school years where she was marked down for not doing something that had absolutely nothing to do with the learning objective, I knew that grading was a contributing factor to why our children were graduating high school, but were not able to stay in college.  They were dropping out after the first year of college or had to take remedial courses because they were not prepared.  Our present state of grading, giving an A, B, C, D or F is more about student compliance to a system of rules then about learning. 

The United States system of education has been in trouble for some time.  The government brought in NCLB (No Child Left Behind) and even though there were problems with NCLB, one truth that came from this endeavor is that educators had to look at student learning and whether our students were actually proficient and not how well they obeyed the rules of the system.   What we found was that grades given to students in class and proficiency on a standardized test were not the same.  Yes, we all know that standardized tests are just one data source and it can be flawed, but it does give us some idea of how our students are learning.  At the school level I would have students who were at the 95^th percentile in Math, but were receiving a D in the classroom or the opposite, a student who had straight A’s in all subjects, but was below proficient in all areas of the standardized test.  This is the moment that as a principal I knew we had a problem with grading!  This is what started the discussions at the school level to look at our practices and to be sure we were grading only summative work that students had been given opportunities for feedback and opportunities to redo areas of concern in order for them to move to mastery.  This is very hard to do if you still have to assign a grade of A, B, C, D, or F on a report card. 

My hope is that through discussions with teachers, our community, and our district office that we can change the way grading is done in our community.  We will look at our students as individuals who learn at different rates and in different ways and our job as their teacher is to give them many opportunities for feedback that will lead to success.  Can we work within the grading system we have and still stay true to learning?  I think we can especially in the middle and high schools.  I think our elementary schools would best be served by using a standards based report card that is about mastery.  Elementary school is the foundational years that will forever "color" how well our students do in middle and high school.  I think we can and should be transparent and authentic about student progress with our parents.  We want to create students who are prepared for this new workplace and world.  The job skills that are needed today will require workers who can solve problems without someone standing over them telling them what to do, workers who can think critically and make decisions, who will be able to communicate in many different ways with all kinds of people, and to know how to collaborate and be a team player.  It is time to make a change in how we grade success for all of us, but especially for our children!