Standards Based Grading

My first reason standardized tests are not a good idea is that they overpopulate the schools. Texas takes 15 and Indiana takes 5. The tests take away time from learning more about a subject. Our country as a whole takes way to many standardized tests. standardized tests are overpopulating schools and not letting kids learn more parts of the subjects.

In the world today standardized testing is mandatory in all schools whether they are public or private. If schools continue to make these test mandatory, students grades will show the reflection of what they are not learning. The school might also receive less state funding due to poor performance on these tests. Once No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was introduced US students slipped from 18th in the world in math in 2000 to 31st in 2009 (Standardized). Standardized testing is not beneficial overall because it does not cater to all students, they do not cover real-life topics, and they are detrimental to students.

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently,” Henry Ford stated. Students need to learn to fail in life to eventually succeed. Standards Based Grading (SBG) was created by Thomas R. Guskey. The point of SBG is to focus on the most recent work the student displayed. Frankly, that concept is unrealistic. The reality is traditional grading provides a more effective means of showing student progress and engagement. Not only is traditional grading understood universally, but the system motivates students to try their best on every assignment. Standards Based Grading may make the learning environment more relaxed for students, but is that always positive? To put it differently, civilians who have the perception that SBG is better are not understanding the reality that traditional grading is a more superior method.

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.

Have you ever accomplished something and to the extent that words couldn’t describe how happy you feel. Others would disagree with this idea. In some ways they are right to disagree. On the other hand, grading can have a positive effect on students. As said by Jerry Jessness, “In the short term, floating standards makes everybody a winner.

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.

However, that does not making the current grading scale the better option. I have been getting grades for over 12 years and understand how it works. I recognize that people may not agree with my point of view all the time. Parents, grandparents, and people from other countries will not understand our current grading system. As someone who has received several grades in her life, my point of view is valid because, I have experienced being graded and understand each component of

However, I do not agree that the credit system is a reliable solution to this. Farber has many good statements about learning, such as, “We’re grade junkies-- convinced that we’d never learn without the A’s and F’s to keep us going.” By saying this, he is saying that people think they need grades to get good grades and to complete their work. But if someone really cares about their grades and getting good grades makes them feel good, then schools have been successful. I believe that schools should teach the children to learn the materials and to learn to be self-disciplined. Also, I do agree that people are willing to learn something if they want to know, thus it would make teaching children easier. I also agree that forcing people to learn is not the solution-- they just forget and have to relearn everything over again. I believe that ultimately there is not a solution to the grading system. The credit system still requires someone to meet the requirements or to not meet them, which is technically still a grade. Passing and failing is grading someone, and there is no other solution to the grading system. I believe the credit system is a good idea, but it would never

I believe that standardized testing is becoming a problem that is scoring students within a couple of hours and basing their education levels off of one standardized test. But not only is it scoring students its evaluating teachers. I believe that there should be alternatives for standardized

It is important for me to say that though there are many issues with standardizing tests and in general with the education system due to its focus on test that I do see value in the system. Tests are for many students one of the most effective means in which to see progress and therefore are needed in our education system, they just make teaching effectively harder for many

There are two grading systems that teachers can use in the classroom. One grading practice that educator use is standard based grading. Standard based grading measures students’ proficiency on well-defined course objectives (Scriffiny 70). The other grading practice that educator use is current trend/ traditional point-based grades. Current trend will motivate everyone and allows teachers to focus on instructing students. I believe that grades should supports and develops student learning and it should help students take ownership and responsibility of their learning for life. Therefore, I would use standard-based grading in order to have clear meaning behind grades, allow students to take ownership and responsibility and to make adjust instruction.

Soon they are off to school. School comes along with lots of new experiences, some good, others bad. Among those things there are a few that are arguably unneeded. Grades are slowly making their way to the top of the list. The way we currently measure success in school is through a letter grading system. A is great, B not so much, C and D unacceptable, and F? Forget about it! (Ellis) This is the way we have been grading middle and elementary schools since the late nineteenth century after it had been tested throughout colleges and high schools beginning in the year 1756. A standardized grading option was needed to keep the growing number of schools on track with each other. (Lassahn) Just because this is the only way we have found to measure the growth of children for the past two hundred or so years. That by no means proves it is the best way. The stress and burden it puts on the children outweighs the purpose of grading.

Many secondary schools throughout the county are trying to figure out the most effective grading policy. Schools have tried many different grading policies and learning philosophies. Some schools use a mix of projects based and formal pen and paper assessments, while other schools are competency based. The most effective grading policy is a mixed project based grading system because it accountable, is applied consistently, and promote positive student study values.

According to Zepeda (2012), this type of change “is the least understood and the most difficult to achieve (pg. 26). This is especially true for educators such as those on my team, whose teaching techniques have been the same for many years. The implementation of standards-based grading uproots almost every aspect of classroom teaching. Grade-scales are different, assessments are greatly different and the idea of remediation is paramount to SBG.

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