Leadership's Future: Making Grades Work
by Miki Saxon
A few of weeks ago I wrote about how kids believe they are entitled to good grades for trying as opposed to achieving.
That post was sparked by Andrew’s comment and he also sent me an article about grade inflation in colleges showing that the trend is progressing unabated.
An article today in the NYTimes describes a new approach to grades,
“In Pelham, the second-grade report card includes 39 separate skill scores — 10 each in math and language arts, 2 each in science and social studies, and a total of 15 in art, music, physical education, technology and “learning behaviors” — engagement, respect, responsibility, organization…standards-based report cards helped students chart their own courses for improvement; as part of the process, they each develop individual goals, which are discussed with teachers and parents, and assemble portfolios of work.”
“I was never the A student, and it would constantly frustrate me,” Dr. Dennis Lauro, Pelham’s superintendent said. “Nobody ever bothered to tell me how to get that A, to get to that next level.”
I think that the approach is good since it focuses back on learning and not just on testing and it’s being adopted in various districts across the country.
The down side is that most districts don’t have the money or parental ability, not just involvement, of an upscale Westchester, NY suburb.
Currently grading in most schools, K-12 through college, is on a curve where the best gets an A. But as Dr. Thomas R. Guskey, a professor at Georgetown College in Kentucky, says “The dilemma with that system is you really don’t know whether anybody has learned anything. They could all have done miserably, just some less miserably than others.”
I agree. When people do average work they shouldn’t get an A because everyone else is below average or flunked.
If it can be made to work I think the idea of the kids working with parents and teachers to set goals to work towards and the sense of accomplishment that comes from achieving them is excellent; it’s motivating and prepares them for the real world of performance reviews—at least when they’re done correctly.
This could be a step forward, but it involves change.
“The executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, Gerald Tirozzi — who supports standards-based report cards — said that many educators and parents were far from ready to scrap letter grades, especially for older students, in part because they worry about the ripple effects on things like the honor roll and class rank.”
“I think the present grading system — A, B, C, D, F — is ingrained in us,” Mr. Tirozzi said. “It’s the language which college admissions officers understand; it’s the language which parents understand.”
And we certainly can’t expect adults to change or learn anything new just to improve kids’ education—can we?
This reminds me of something that happened decades ago. Women would taste baby food and if it didn’t taste good to them they wouldn’t buy it, so Gerber added salt in order to appeal to the adults. When the public finally woke up and screamed Gerber quickly changed the formulas.
Right now the public is whining, any suggestions on how to get them screaming?
Your comments—priceless
Don’t miss a post, subscribe via RSS or EMAIL
Image credit: flickr
March 27th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Back when I was in school, in a different country, we had a 20 points grading system.
Nothing standard there, on the contrary it was reflecting the standards of the teacher. And indirectly those of the parents.
The highschool I went to was attracting the best students not because they were giving out good grades but bad ones. Because they were expecting a lot.
A few years later good students were going first to a more relaxed highschool because the other one was “too tough”.
So my conclusion is that the grading systems will always reflect the parents and teachers expectations and that will be hard to standardise.
Also is there not a risk that a lot of students will neglect difficult subjects if they are allowed to chart their own course ?
March 27th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Unfortunately it is parents and kids who are driving the grading system down the drain. I’d rather students avoid difficult subjects than take them and then moan about the homework, cry when they don’t do well and send pit bull parents to intimidate the teachers into a better grade or get them fired.
March 27th, 2009 at 11:44 am
I like the pit bull part ;)
But I don’t see that the attitude will change overall. It is lucky for the kids of parents who have high expectations as the others will be moved to easy classes.
March 27th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I agree it won’t. And the “high expectations” is usually related to acceptance to a prestige college which requires good grades, not good education. So those parents are some of the worst pit bulls!