Current Grading Practices Used By Many Schools No Not Necessarily Reflect Accurate Student Achievement?

Education is a long-term investment. We, as students, work hard to acquire knowledge and to hone our skills so that we may use them one day. The effort we put into a single assignment should be considered as both for that specific assignment and for our rounding as complete, educated individuals. And with this mindset, students should be motivated even more to put more effort and hard work into academics, with the goal of bettering themselves for the future and advancing their prospects as individuals. And with this hard work and effort will come progress, and this progress should be reflected in the grading—not necessarily on individual assignments, but on the student’s education as a

While reading Ken Bain’s book “What the Best College Students Do” of the five different types of students he describes, I feel like I fall under the label of one having mediocre grades but achieving success. I make good grades, however I do not necessarily believe my grades always reflect my hard work, determination and effort put in, similar to his theory on false hope in standardized testing. Throughout my school career, I have consistently made A and B grades. I can remember only one C grade, which was a quarter grade, and very disappointing, but a lesson learned. At the same time though, and as Bain helped me realize through his text, grades are not everything and making a C is not something that is going to kill me; there is simply more to school than a letter grade. In fact he points out through most of the 1800s schools only used two grades, pass or fail. As seen nowadays, schools have since adopted the letter grade system.

Alfie Kohn discussed multiple fabulous points in his article, “Degrading to De-Grading”. The author suggests more effective ways to assess students’ progress other than numerical or letter grades. Kohn goes into detail about why our current grading system is flawed. Grades can cause students to lose interest in learning which causes them to stop taking challenges. If students are not engaged and interested than they are not retaining the information they are being taught. The grading system can also cause students to develop unhealthy competition with one another for instance, “I got a better grade than you!”. Indeed, grades are a wonderful concept, but they tend to be more hurtful than helpful. In some cases, grades can have positive effects on students. For example, setting goals for various assignments, or receiving help where they are struggling. Though, there are alternatives that could make positive changes in the system.

Historically, letter grades have served as a tool to rate educational intelligence. By looking at the progression of a student’s grades over time, people are able to determine whether or not the students are developing skills in certain areas. Using a one letter grade to determine progress has received many critiques as a common system used in America’s education. Critics claim letter grades cause students motivation and creativity to decrease because grades shift students focus from learning the material to obtaining a good grade.

Pragmaticism, indeed, will dictate that schools, assessments, and organizations long-established will not be altered for light and short-lived causes. Hence, a gradual shift in culture and method must occur which reforms the quantitative nature of grading systems. However, let the negative effects of the current grading system be known in a direct way:

Furthermore, the author points out that grades are not improving because students and education are improving but rather because parents and students are demanding grades to be adjusted according to what they think it is needed not what it is deserved. “Students and parents are demanding -- and getting -- what they think of as their money's worth” (Staples, 216). Students are not receiving the grade they truly deserve based on their work but what the parents and the students themselves

While many believe that the grading system has a concrete standing in the success of education, other’s believe that it actually can inhibit or at least lessen the effectiveness of learning. In “A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System,” Jerry Farber states that for the longest time, many have dismissed the fact that grades could be harmful to the learning process. He argues that grades lack the ability to bring about self-discipline within the students learning the content. While the educational system has rendered changes throughout the years, the grading system maintains its virginity and has been fairly untouched. He insists that many educators are in strong belief that grades are the only way to ensure that learning is to take place within the classroom. Most of society would dictate that the system has been fairly effective in getting individuals through their schooling. But as Farber points out, students tend to focus more upon the grades they are receiving and less upon the content itself. Throughout his writing, Faber uses many forms of rhetoric to persuade the reader to believe the fact that the grading system is corrupted and should be changed, and offers a solution which is referred to as the Credit System. With this being said, it can be stated that Farber effectively conveys his argument through his appeal to a younger

Over the years one major issue of grade inflation has often come up. Teachers frequently question the importance of grades and how that data is used to compare students. Many teachers see the need to place a high emphasis on grades, thus causing stress and anxiety when students have a low performance. As a result, we have a school wide problem of grade inflation from teachers who believe students effort and work habits should determine the grade they earn. I would propose taking a deeper look into the purpose of testing. Thoughtful educators see the goal of testing as the observation of progress being made by a student. We need to begin to hold students to high standards by gathering a balanced picture of a student’s ability and mastery. In doing so we must use different forms of assessing students, and not solely test or papers. Once we can begin to utilize all forms of assessments we can begin to get parent involvement in helping children to learn and develop proper work habits and study skills, hopefully resulting in true grade

Have you ever gotten an A on a test before? Were you happy or excited? How would you feel If that grade was replaced by a number? This is what Standards Based Grading is doing to schools. While some will say SBG is helpful and less threatening than traditional grading, they are wrong. SBG is more harmful than helpful because letter grades are more precise, letter grades give more motivation, and collages are harder to get into with SBG.

The third choice of the required reading that I read for my internship is Fair Isn’t Always Equal written by Rick Wormeli. This book is written to help schools and school districts transform their standard grading on assessments and homework to a standards based grading system. The book reasons why schools should look to change to a standard’s based grading system, and the benefits and the amount of information that this type of grading can give us about our students. Not only does this book give the benefits of the grading, it discusses ways to rewrite tests, how to use attendance and effort to give grades, and how to differentiate instruction and assessments to get a true picture of our students and their knowledge of the materials. Wormeli uses quotes from teachers and educational leaders in the different section of the book that have opposite views of standards based grading and the process they used to get to where they are at. This book was assigned to me to read over summer break to begin to prepare us for the change in grading formative assessments using standards based rubrics and the reasons why the change in necessary to truly see if students are learning.

    It's June, and another graduating class is hoping, among other things, to achieve high grades. Of course, "high" is a subjective target. Originally a "C" meant average; today however, the expectations and pressures to give and receive "A's" and "B's" takes its toll on teachers and students alike. This nullifies the value of the traditional grading scale and creates a host of entirely new problems. The widespread occurrence of grade inflation seriously affects the credibility of secondary and post-secondary education in America.

Three teachers in a small rural high school transformed their grading system so that it better reflected student learning. They began by defining letter grades as indicators of particular levels of mastery, rather than the number of points earned. Then, they revamped their tests so that each section reflected a particular level of mastery. They also began allowing students to redo assessments. Finally, they changed the way they calculated final grades so that most of the grade related to mastery, instead of completion of work. As they implemented the new system, they made adjustments in response to students' reactions. For instance, when students stopped preparing for tests because they knew they could redo them, the teachers started requiring

Standards-based grading is a movement that is gaining ground in education which involves “measuring students’ proficiency on well-defined course objectives” (p. 70). The author is a high school math teacher who took three years to implement standards-based grading in the classroom. The article describes seven reasons for replacing a point based system with a standards based one. The seven reasons discussed were that grades should have meaning, challenging of the status quo, we can control grading policies, reduces meaningless paperwork, helps teachers adjust instruction, it teaches what quality looks like, and it’s a Launchpad to other reforms.

Teachers have always used grades to measure the amount a student has learned. This practice is becoming ineffective. Many students have a wide range of grades, which show that grades may not show what a student really knows. Therefore, the standard grading system should be replaced. Some reasons why grades should be replaced are bad grades can hinder a child’s performance, grades define who a student is in the classroom, and grades are not an effective way to see if students have learned the material. The current grading system should be upgraded and every school should incorporate the plus/minus system in their method of grading.

Over the past few years, the traditional grading system of A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s, and F’s have slowly faded away only to be replaced by the insufficient “Standards-Based Grading”. While some schools are adopting this unorthodox grading system, several others still continue to follow the traditional “A-F” grading system. Many believe that the standards-based grading system does not work well with all students and doesn’t accurately grade them. Standards-based grading is a fairly new system of grading where the student is evaluated on his or her ability to complete an assignment and master the concept, not by what they get right or wrong on each individual assignment. This has been very confusing to those who are unfamiliar with standards-based