UtahBill

Our experience as parents are in Idaho and Arizona. Idaho schools are OK until 7th grade or so, then the farmer mentality takes over. (algebra? we are farmers, we don't need no algebra!)
AZ schools were a lot better, but even there we had some teachers who spent too much time whining about their personal lives or spending class time preparing for some other class.
One math teacher spent so much time complaining about how her ex-husband was such a jerk that my son walked out, went to the counselor's office, and got himself put into advanced math, where he got BETTER grades than he expected. Funny how that works, the teacher teaches the subject and the student does his part, and they learn.
Not sure if there were any questions on final exams about jerk ex-husbands in the first teacher's class. BTW, he was gone for 2 weeks before she figured out that he had gotten himself transferred out.
His physics teacher also taught some other subject, and would leave the kids on their own while spending physics class time preparing for the other subject. We got that issue fixed, but it took 3 calls to the school and getting another kid's father to also call in and complain.
When you get a bad teacher, or a bad administrator, you have to go in and make some noise. It is your child's education at stake.

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CaptainCourtesy

I agree. Behavior should be a separate grade. If a student aces all of his work, but acts out, that should not reflect his/her grade...but it should reflect a behavior grade and there should be consequences for that.

Disagree. In the real world, if you show up late, you can get docked pay, or fired.

Too many double negatives in this sentence. Not sure what they are saying. If they are stating that extra credit cannot raise grades, I can see both sides, but I have no problem with either.

Ridiculous. Cheating is not doing your work. A zero is appropriate.

I agree. This happened to me. I go an B in a class, but was absent 9 times in the marking period, over the limit by 1. My teacher dropped me to a C, preventing me from making the honor roll for the first and only time. I did the work and scored well enough on the tests. Allow one's lack of attendance to affect one's grades, naturally.

Partially agree. If, in a group of 4, 1 student does the bulk of the work, and the group gets a B, why should the student who did all the work not get an A? Most teachers I know of give two grades, one based on the group, one based on individual performance. This is fair.

This will be confusing to students, teachers, and parents alike. I cannot see how this would work.

Though I agree with this, theoretically, it won't work, and is, actually contradictory to the entire premise of these "rules". How can one have standards, if there are no basic standards?

So what will be used?

Disagree. And how much time will there be? Forever? We all have time lines. Learning them in school is a valuable lesson.

Agree completely. Homework is important to many students, but not all. For some, the tediousness of doing it is, actually, detrimental. Unless it is a paper or graded assignment, homework, though needing to be gone over in class, should not be graded. If a student does not do it, again, allow it to affect their grade, naturally.

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B. Dial

First, let me say that I'm a teacher and this is a reform that is starting to spread fairly quickly all over the country. That being said, this type of grading, in my opinion, is better than the A-F system that most of us grew up in. I was staunchly against this system for quite some time, but I finally gave way to the logic of its principles. I'll give a few reasons why I think this.

1. The old system gave a broad range on a broad topic. So, you get a C in language arts. You may be fan-freaking-tastic at reading and spelling, but maybe not so hot at grammar. Or maybe you got a B in math. You may have done very well on everything in the course, but struggled with the geometry section.

This system, because it is a standards or skills based system, is much more direct and transparent. Educators, parents, and teachers have the ability to see the skill level of each student for each individual skill right in front of them. If Johnny is getting a below basic rating in visual data analysis (reading graphs/charts) you know he needs to practice specifically on getting information from charts and graphs. Johnny may be fine in all other areas of math. But if the teacher incorporates visual data analysis in several chapters (which he/she should), it would significantly lower that student's overall grade in a letter-based system. Johnny getting a C in that class may be completely misleading. He might have all other math skills down pat, but the visual data analysis may be the one thing that is bringing his total math grade down. I would propose that that isn't the fairest situation for Johnny.


2. The skill-based system is a system that tells everyone what the student can or can't do or how well they do it. That is the purpose of grading. Teachers should not be assigning homework because they need to put grades in the gradebook. They should assign homework because their students need to learn or practice the material. Homework then, in my opinion, shouldn't be graded, because if it is practice, then it shouldn't count. A football team doesn't count practice in their record. Homework is given so the students learn a skill. And remember- the purpose of grades is to show whether or not the student is learning the skills. It's not fair to count the practice of that skill toward their overall record.

3. It's a great tool for teachers. If a teacher looks at his/her report cards and sees that a huge chunk of them are not performing well on certain skills, it's a good bet that the students aren't the problem. The problem is probably in the instruction. This is information that often times is not apparent with the A-F grading system. This information can't hugely impact instruction for the better. And research has shown that the #1 most important ingredient success is not home life, household income, race, gender, or any other sub-pop or demographic. The single most important ingredient to get high student achievement is teacher instruction. This grading system is a much more specific helpmate in improving teacher instruction.



Now, I know there are some that feel like homework should be graded for the sake of responsibility. I can understand the argument, but I think homework is not the right tool to teach responsibility. Take also into account that a lot of students don't see something abstract like "good grades" as a punishment or reward. Making an "F" doesn't bother a lot of kids. Showing them how much ground they need to make up in order to be on grade level in reading comprehension is something a little more concrete. A skill level though is not something you can take away because they didn't read their chapter of Ethan Frome the night before.

Responsibility should be taught by simply being prepared for class. Having your pencil and book. Responsibility and citizenship is helping the kid on crutches carry his book to the next class. Responsibility is making sure your area is clean before you leave the classroom and pushing others to have their area clean before they leave as well. It's paying attention in class. But if a student doesn't do these things, does this mean they can't read? Write? Do math? Of course not. And we do a disservice to the student, the parents, and the whole system when we use behavior and busy-work assignments for the basis of our grading system.

That's my opinion as an educator who has seen this reform start to take hold in the United States I'm obviously in the minority here, but it's a different viewpoint and a rationale I hadn't seen stated yet.

Layla_Z

I was there in the 90's also and things have gotten much worse since NCLB. Currently in this state more and more schools are not meeting their "average yearly progress." This sounds band until you find out the the percentage of students who must be in the top 2 categories(advanced and proficient) goes up every year. At the end of this year, 59% of students must be in those two categories. That means that 59% of the students must be above average. Any math geniuses out there see a problem with that. This includes all students - even those with severe disabilities. Additionally, the test that secondary students take has been changed. We've been working for years to improve scores on this test, but now there are new tests. The state has devised an elaborate formula so that we can determine AYP using the new test. Yes, somehow then can determine "progress" after taking the test one time.

I love teaching and working with kids, but this stuff makes me crazy.

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Layla_Z

Kids where I teach still get letter grades in upper elementary and high school.

Southern Belle

I was in 3rd-4th grade when they got rid of intellegence-based classes. I remember it changing out from under me as I was going into 4th grade. They mixed everyone up, taught as slowly as humanly possible, and ever since, my school system went to crap for the rest of my school life. I blamed the principal who did it. I didn't know everyone else did it too, but whoever's idea that was needed to be immediately fired.

talloulou

I appreciated your post and input. I'd really like to know your thoughts on the plan of not giving zeros for cheating and instead allowing a redo. And also what do you think about not having a penalty attached to late work.

The "standards based education" has been around for quite awhile. That isn't new to our school by any means. Even the 1-4 grading system has been around for awhile in our schools. I do see how assessing specific skills might be beneficial over just giving a kid a 2 in math.

So my main concern for now with this new grading system would be the redo for cheating and the no penalty for late work.

Also as a teacher could you give me your input on the 4 in the 1-4 grading system.

At our school we seem to have many teachers who avoid giving 4's and who think a 4 has no meaning in a standards based grading system and giving them out could cause more trouble than they're worth. These teachers view a 4 grade as saying essentially the child is in the wrong grade. They've already mastered the curriculum for this year in that area and thus by giving out a 4 you're essentially saying the child should be moved up to the next grade level standard expectations. Other teachers seem to still use the 4 to represent an A. So the fact that the teachers are using the numbers to mean different things confuses parents. So your thoughts on that might be helpful as well.

From my understanding the standards based system measures a child against set standards for their grade and the part of the year they are in. So an assessment done on a skill 1/2 way through the school year would be evaluated as such:

1- needs tons of help. Student is far from meeting standard. There's a real threat the student might not meet standards by year end.

2-student is progressing. needs extra help but with help is on their way to being on track.

3-student is on track. Student meets standard for this assessed skill at this time. Student is right where they should be.

4-student is way beyond standard. Assessed skill has been mastered and student already is where you would expect a year end student to be.

That's a rough explanation of how our school thinks the 1-4 system should ideally work. Now the problem is if you give out tons of 4's you are essentially saying that a student 1/2 way through 3rd grade has already mastered and moved beyond the standard 3rd grade curriculum. So giving out a 4 might get parents screaming to have their child moved up a grade.

Other teachers still equate the 4 with excellence and use it like they would an A. So they might give out 4's with no intention of implying student has nothing left to learn within the standard curriculum for that year.

So this, the inconsistent use of the system, has caused some problems at our school and I think one thing they are working on is getting all teachers using the system consistently.

That way a 1 grade would recognize a student in real danger of being held back. A 2 grade would recognize a student that might need extra help. A 3 grade would recognize a student is progressing exactly as they should be and learning skills at the necessary rate. While 4's have already mastered the assessed skills and a child who is getting all 4's in the beginning of the year on all skills that are in the "standard curriculum" for that year should be identified as someone who needs to be placed in a different class and/or grade.

Do you find teachers using the 1-4 grading system consistently or do you find teachers where you are tend to use it in different ways with some of them just replacing A,B,C etc with 4,3,2? Because this is apparently a big problem at our school. It's causing quite the ruckus.

rivrrat

Yeah... I don't get it. Doesn't "the child doesn't meet the standards" mean the same thing as... "The child is failing this class? (or this skill)"

Doesn't A - D = 1 - 4? Why the change? What's the point of it?

I can understand assessing skills more specifically. I see nothing wrong with that, but that's not what all the fuss is about.

What I don't understand is the change from letter grades to number grades, and the change from using the words 'pass/fail' to 'meets standards/doesn't meet standards'. Nor do I understand not punishing children for doing wrong (like cheating, not doing their work, etc, etc).

What I also don't understand is the "new way" they supposedly "teach" math these days. Myself, my sister (who is a teacher), my mother and my father and tried to help my niece with her math homework and not a single one of us could figure out how to reach the correct answer the way the teacher wanted the answer deduced. The answer to the math question was obvious to all of us, even my niece. But apparently just getting the answer wasn't good enough, it had to be deduced step by step the way the teacher wanted... which didn't make a lick of sense to the fairly intelligent 4 adults trying to help this 10yr old with a basic math problem. What's even more ironic is supposedly this new method was to be "easier". All it did was frustrate my niece to the point of tears.

But then again, I kinda sympathize with her due to my own math problems. I could - 95% of the time - get the correct answer to my math problems, but was most often unable to "show my work". Because I didn't DO any work, I just figured it out in my head. I guess I'm jusst bitter about teachers giving bad grades to students who get the answers right because they did it a different way than the teacher wanted it done.

Anywho... I don't know if this new "math method" has to do with this new system or not. All I know is my niece cries every time she has math homework, and my family is frustrated for hours trying to help her.

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UtahBill

Teachers SHOULD show all the methods that can be used to get the answer, then let the student use whatever method suits him or her....
My son didn't understand the instructions for multiplying multi-digit number, and got it backwards, but you still get the same answer. Instead of multiplying the top number by the bottom number, he went the opposite direction, and his teacher didn't understand how he was getting correct answers. Granted, this was 4th grade in small town, Idaho, but it makes perfect sense that A x B will yield the same result as B x A....
I took Algebra multiple times in public school, navy, and college, and one day it occurred to me that the infamous Train A leaving chicago meets train B from New YorK problem could be done on graph paper....
It is a simple rise over run problem, using hours per mile and graphing it....
I was never shown that, had to figure it out on my own, not that it matters, I still don't care about where trains meet...

B. Dial

I do believe their should be penalties for cheating and late work. I just don't think they should be tied to the grade.

These teachers don't know what they're doing. That's my assessment. The 1-4 grading system should be graded by a rubric. It has a defined set of criteria for what is a 1, 2, 3, or 4 based on student work. If a student completes all the requirements for a 3, they get a 3. If they show all the requirements for a 4, they get a four. If your teachers are simply looking at the work and subjectively giving out numbers 1-4, they're not using the system correctly.

An example for 3rd grade math is multiplication facts. A "1" might be gets less than 10 out of 50 correct on the test. A "2" might be gets between 11-30 on the test. A "3" might be gets between 31 and 45 on the test. A "4" might be gets at least 46 questions correct and finishes in eight minutes or less. That is a very defined set of criteria that does not allow for a lot of wiggle room from the teacher.

That's sort of it, but a rubric is far more specific than "on track" or "needs improvement." Again, I emphasize that if your kid's teachers aren't using rubrics, this system will fail.

Maybe, but remember, a student shouldn't just be getting a 3 in math. They should be getting a number for EACH skill or standard they are taught that year. For seventh grade math in Arkansas, there are well over 100 standards. It's that specificity that can help parents, teachers and students pinpoint exactly what it is the students need to work on. Just because a student has a dozen "4s" on his report card, doesn't mean he needs to be bumped a grade in math.

Again, it shouldn't because it should measure each skill with a very specific rubric that doesn't allow for inconsistency. Every teacher should use the same rubric as well.

I think I've answered all the questions above.

It's hard to know what exactly the situation was here, but we had the same problem when we switched over to Everyday Math in our elementary schools. A lot of it is work with manipulatives and hands on stuff. Lattice multiplication drives parents crazy. But a lot of the stuff, while more difficult at that stage is teaching skills or strategies that will be necessary for more difficult problems down the road.