Why Change Elementary Grading Practices?

Why Change to Grading Based Upon District-Adopted Standards?

Standards and curriculum for math, science, language arts and social studies have been in place for a number of years. Beginning in 2007-8, all elementary subjects (including art, music, PE, keyboarding, instrumental music) will have standards and assessments. Elementary teachers started to question whether our traditional way of grading students really was a fair and accurate way to evaluate students’ mastery of standards. Achievement on standards will be reported as:

Advanced (4): Student exceeds grade-level expectations. (Mastery)

Proficient (3): Student meets grade-level expectations. (Mastery)

Progressing (2): Student does not meet grade-level expectations, but is showing progress. (Non-mastery)

Beginning (1): Student does not meet grade-level expectations. (Non-mastery of material)

What’s wrong with the way we’ve always done it? It was good enough for us!

Grades that we’ve used in the past aren’t wrong, they just are not a complete picture of a student’s performance. Standards grading involves distinguishing between practice and final performance. We don’t believe that students who take longer to learn something should be penalized in their final grade. If they learned what was required, their marks should show that. Similarly, if they did not learn what they needed to for a standard, that needs to be reported as well. By grading at a standard level, a more complete picture of each student can be seen. It’s important for students, parents, and teachers to know exactly what students have learned and what they haven’t learned so that success can be celebrated and areas in need of improvement can be worked on.

What happens if a student doesn’t pass a standard assessment?

As an elementary teaching staff, we are still trying to answer this question. Obviously, our goal is for every student to learn everything that they need to learn to be prepared for the next grade. We know that students who have skills missing often continue to struggle. Giving students and parents immediate assessment results will help parents identify potential problems before they become major problems. The opportunity for reteaching and reassessing exists, but this needs to be a shared responsibility with the parent and student, as school time is limited. Visiting with the teacher about the school’s after-school study hall for additional practice time or other solutions should be considered.

So what happens to work habits and social skills, since they’re not standards?

In a standards system, there is a recognition that work habits and social skills are critically important to the immediate and long-term success of the student. These necessary attributes are reported in a separate section of the report and are marked based upon how often the behavior occurs (always/usually, sometimes, rarely/never). These ratings are based upon how the student is functioning at the time the report was completed.