Grades of Wrath: Why Schools Should Switch to a Pass/Fail Grading System

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.

In the article, “From Degrading to De-Grading”, by Alfie Kohn he discusses the harmful effects grades have on students. Kohn argues that there are better ways to assess students’ progress other than letter or numerical grades. Grades are a great concept but they tend to be more hurtful than helpful. Cheating can become a problem, students won’t take challenges, and they develop unhealthy competition between one another. There have been many studies conducted over the years that support Kohn’s argument.

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.

For the duration of my high school years I have had my fair share of bad grades, just as any student has. An “F” on a vocabulary test, “D” on a math quiz, or even getting a “C” on my midterm exams is all failures to me. I will be the first to admit that I have never been the top- ranked 4.0 student, but getting a

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.

In “A Proposal to Abolish Grading” Paul Goodman suggests grading students is only setting them up for failure. He states, “a student will retain nothing of what he has “passed” in.” Goodman believes that students shouldn’t be tested for a grade, “but for his own advantage” so the student isn 't just “trying to get by” he will actually be encouraged to learn the material. Grades and testing have been around for over a century. Every American has had some kind of schooling in their life. As a student, I’ve always entered a new class with the mindset that I need to pass that class, hardly ever have I thought, “I need to learn as much as I can in this class.” So why should the system that educators believe works and have used for so long change? The American education system values grades and test scores more than students value learning.

In “How Grading Reform Changed Our School” by Jeffrey A. Erickson, the Assistant Principal of Minnetonka High School in Minnesota, Erickson assessed how and what things are taken into account when distributing grades. Erickson claimed that the accuracy and truthfulness of grades are misrepresented with many common components that seem to be used for general grading standards.

School is slave labor. Rather than enjoying or learning from their classes, students are forced to do useless work that will often be forgotten immediately. Grades are meant to show much a student understands a class, but instead are used as a scale of how well a student can regurgitate answers onto a test. Students only work for good grades because of the threat of being punished for failure, and the promise of reward for passing. The punishments in this case are detention or trouble from teachers, and the rewards are making the honor roll or getting bragging rights. The real reward for learning should be having new knowledge, but this is not taken into consideration. Jerry Farber, a professor at U.S.D, made the strong claim that grades are useless and harmful in his essay, “A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System.” I wholeheartedly agree with Farber’s objection to our current grading system.

Students who fail should not be passed to the next grade because they are not earning it. If students are able to pass through school with unacceptable grades, they are being shown that their grades do not matter. Grades should be something that is

There are myriad unforeseen consequences when schools use the traditional grading system. For the past century, traditional grading practices and policies that have contributed to much of the failure of student achievement. The use of the traditional grading system has slowly led to the major issue of grade inflation. Most often students’ grade tend to be inflated with the help of non-academic factors such as homework, participation and student effort. High school teachers tend include effort as part of the grade, giving high grades to students who work in class despite whether they

In the United States, striving for perfection and a great education for the students becomes a necessity. With all the other pressures found in society, high expectations of a standard education among students prevail, specifically hindering the chances of getting accepted into the dream college. Nowadays, most colleges use the grades from multiple standardized tests, such as the SAT’s or ACT’s, as a way to evaluate an individual's knowledge against other students. Although usually mandatory, standardized tests overwhelm students with distressing outcomes, rather than beneficial effects, creating a standard system of unreliable measurements of a student’s performance and unfair discrimination against the non English speaking or students with

How Could a pass or fail be determined? It will have to deal with numbers and percentages from Grades that the students receive as a grade. How would the students know what's a pass and what's a fail. How can students set goals for the next time to do better? It would be much easier to determine a students grade by a letter. Competition is a good thing for students, they perform better wanting to get a better grade than others as long as the students is competing in a good way and not cheating. There will all ways be a student better than others. People would want to know a doctor had the highest grade in medical school. or that lawyer had the highest gpa in law school. people wouldn't know that if the doctors only had a pass or fail grading system. Letter grades should not be replaced with pass/fail system ,they are not specific enough to determine a students performance in his or her class. People would have no way in differentiating students with all A's and a "C" student, it would also be easier to correct a letter grade if there's an error.

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.

In sports, analysts examine a players skills and abilities through the use of personal records and game statistics. Similarly, grades reflect a student's strength and weakness in the classroom. In Paul Goodman’s excerpt entitled “A Proposal to Abolish Grading,” he argues that Ivy League Universities should abolish grades. His reasons are that students focus on passing a test more than they do on expanding their education. Eliminating grading standards will allow students to learn new material without being stressed. Goodman's main focus is on prestigious schools, but it is an issue that concerns every school. For it begs the question if grades are necessary to measure a student's inclination to learn. Goodman believes that today’s students