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 11th 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 95th 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!
