Still More on Grading

I don’t know why I keep harping on grading practices in our nation’s schools. Even though there has been little change over the past 50 years in the way we assess learning inside traditional K-12 campuses, I guess I am hopeful that some day our public schools will arrive at better grading practices, or a new system of learning will be created to improve how we assess our young learners.

Recently, The 74 online published an article titled “Why is a Grading System Touted as More Accurate, Equitable So Hard to Implement?” The article begins,

“Before Thomas Guskey became a leading academic expert on grading and assessment, he was a middle school math teacher.”

“One day he was chatting with an 8^th grade student, who he described as a ‘superstar,’ and asked if she had studied for that day’s exam. He was shocked to hear she hadn’t.”

“’Well Mr. Guskey,’ he remembers her saying, a quizzical look on her face, ‘I worked it out. I only need a 50.2 to get an A [in the class]. I don’t need to study for a 50.2.’”

“This was a moment of realization for him. ‘This 8^th grader had worked it out to the tenth decimal place what she needed to do to get an A in my class’ he said. ‘And she was surprised I didn’t get it. And I thought, ‘Wow. What have I done?’”

“For this student – and so many others – school was not about learning. It was about getting a good grade. And with flawed traditional grading systems, those two outcomes didn’t always coincide.”

“Every time Guskey tells this story to other teachers, he said they shake their heads and share similar anecdotes of their own. Other experts in the field echo these sentiments, noting that schools have spent far too long grading students based on whether or not they turned in a pile of work or showed up to class on time, rather than focusing on if a student has learned academic content. This can ultimately lead to final grades that inaccurately reflect and communicate what kids actually know.”

“Today, as schools combat post-pandemic learning gaps, its’ become even clearer that traditional grades are not precise communicators of learning. In some cases, this leads parents to believe their kids are performing at grade level, when in reality they’re falling behind.”

“As educators push for more clarity and transparency, a number of schools and districts are turning to what’s known as standards-based grading, a system and communication tool that separates academic mastery from behavioral factors. When done correctly, it should more accurately reflect what students know and correct for both inflating – and deflating – grades.”

“But a misunderstanding of standards-based grading’s true principles, a lack of proper training for educators and a rush to quickly adopt a complex new system often leads to messy implementation, various experts told The 74. And, they warn, districts looking for support are turning to grading consultants, a number of whom aren’t qualified in the field.”

“’So many districts are getting into this and they’re failing miserably,’ said Guskey, the grading and assessment expert and professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky College of Education. ‘Schools are jumping into this without a clear notion of what they’re doing and what the prerequisites are to being standards based,’ he continued. ‘And then when problems arise, they have no recourse except to abandon [it] completely.’”

“As schools look for an effective fix to learning gaps, ‘standards-based grading’ is one that seems like it can be a quickly adopted effort. But it could backfire and does backfire very easily,’ said Laura Link, associate professor of teaching and leadership at the University of North Dakota.”

“In a 2022 paper she and Guskey wrote, ‘although many schools today are initiating SBG reforms, there’s little consensus on what ‘standards-based grading’ actually means. As a result, SBG implementation is widely inconsistent.’ This creates uncertainty, confusion, frustration – and resistance, which can ultimately lead to it being tossed aside, the authors said.”

…

“Regardless of what model teachers practice, they typically grade using three different criteria: what academic skills students have learned and are able to do, such as solving for ‘x’ in an algebraic equation; what behaviors they bring that enable learning, such as attendance and turning in work on time; and how much they’ve grown and improved.”

“In traditional models, teachers combine these three, muddling them together and assigning a single mark for an assignment – often a letter grade or a percentage. At the end of a semester, these assignment scores get averaged into a final grade that goes onto a transcript or report card. Proponents of standards-based grading argue that this presents an unclear and inaccurate picture to parents, students and colleges.”

“’It makes the grade impossible to interpret,’ according to Guskey. For example, a ‘C’ on a paper could mean the student really only understood the material at a ‘C’ level or it could mean they turned in an excellent paper but two weeks late. Further adding to the confusion: what goes into a grade is inconsistent from teacher to teacher and school to school.”

At our personalized learning lab school, our learning coaches broke down each learning goal into a set of learning objectives. The learning coach, along with the young learner, discussed each objective to determine whether that expectation had been achieved or not. If all the objectives had been achieved, then the learning goal was achieved. If there were still objectives that needed work, then those activities were built into the next iteration of the young person’s learning plan.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t think the traditional school system can ever get to a point where grading practices become consistently fair. There’s just too much variation, and frankly, too much apathy on the part of current adult learning leaders to establish a grading system that is fair to all.

Learning is better assessed when it becomes the basis for a conversation and negotiation about learning goals and those objectives attached to those goals.

Til tomorrow. SVB