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"This will be great for students and parents."

"We check their progress and this will help us show it to parents."

"This will help us in child study meetings to support struggling learners."

"This is what is fair for our primary students."

"We will be able to see areas that are mastered and areas that need work."

"This will definitely help during parent/teacher conferences."

"It will not inflate grades and parents will get a true picture."

"This is what we've done before."

"This is what's best for kids."

"This really supports our differentiated groups for instruction."

"This will help our 3rd grade teachers have a better picture of the progress of our 2nd graders."

"A stamp with 4-3-2-1 would help teachers as they mark progress on formative assessments."

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"We will need common language."

"Our parents will need information."

"I don't like change."

"How do we justify a 1,2,3, or 4?"

"Do we associate %s to the 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s?"

"How can students show their learning?"

"What will parents think if a child can't get a 4 on an assignment?"

"Will we have resources to share with parents?"

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Division Parent Meeting Feedback  2.22.17

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Division Parent Meeting Feedback  2.22.17

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"This would help explain which SOLs my child is studying."

"It would help me, help my child.  It is specific information for me."

"Parents would need help understanding the number scale."

"It would help parents see that SOLs are more than a test at the end of the school year."

"This looks like my job performance rating at work. "

"I wish my 11th graders could do this."

"It gives us much more information."

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October 2008 | Volume 66 | Number 2
Expecting Excellence Pages 70-74

Patricia L. Scriffiny

Each week brings some new idea that teachers are supposed to implement, while still preparing lessons, grading papers, and keeping their classrooms in some semblance of order. Amid all these challenges, a call to change grading policies can seem particularly unrealistic.

One grading practice that is gaining popularity is standards-based grading, which involves measuring students' proficiency on well-defined course objectives (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006). Although many districts adopt standards-based grading in addition to traditional grades, standards-based grading can and should replace traditional point-based grades.

My school, Montrose High School, is located in a small but rapidly growing rural community in southwestern Colorado. We serve a community that is primarily white but that has a significant Latino population. After spending the last three years implementing standards-based grading in my high school math classroom, I have discovered seven solid reasons for replacing point-based grades with a standards-based system.

Reason 1: Grades Should Have Meaning

Each letter grade that a student earns at the high school level is connected to a graduation credit, and many classes reflect only one step in a sequence of learning. So what does each grade indicate to students, parents, and teachers of later courses in the sequence? When I first considered this question, I realized I had no answers. When I was pressed to describe the qualitative difference between an A, B, C, D, or F, my answers were vague. So, I developed a much more focused idea of what I want my grades to mean:

An A means the student has completed proficient work on all course objectives and advanced work on some objectives.

A B means the student has completed proficient work on all course objectives.

A C means the student has completed proficient work on the most important objectives, although not on all objectives. The student can continue to the next course.

A D means the student has completed proficient work on at least one-half of the course objectives but is missing some important objectives and is at significant risk of failing the next course in the sequence. The student should repeat the course if it is a prerequisite for another course.

An F means the student has completed proficient work on fewer than one-half of the course objectives and cannot successfully complete the next course in sequence.

Reason 2: We Need to Challenge the Status Quo

Many notions I had at the beginning of my career about grading didn't stand up to real scrutiny. The thorny issue of homework is one example of how the status quo needed to change. I once thought it was essential to award points to students simply for completing homework. I didn't believe students would do homework unless it was graded. And yet, in my classroom, students who were clearly learning sometimes earned low grades because of missing work. Conversely, some students actually learned very little but were good at "playing school." Despite dismal test scores, these students earned decent grades by turning in homework and doing extra credit. They would often go on to struggle in later courses, while their parents watched and worried.

Over the past three years, I have radically changed how I formally assess homework-I don't. Of course, it is essential for students to do homework that is tied closely to learning objectives and for students to see those connections (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). Systematic and extensive feedback on assignments sends students the message that they can and should do homework as practice. A typical homework assignment for my students consists of a small collection of problems, each of which is linked to a learning objective. At first, I make those connections for my students, but eventually they make them on their own.

When I assign homework, I discuss with my students where and how it applies to their assessments. My goal is to get students to constantly ask themselves, "Do I know this? Can I do this?" To my surprise, my homework completion rates have remained steady over the past three years. Some students don't do all of the homework that I assign, but they know that they are accountable for mastering the standard connected to it. Of course, not every student who needs to practice always does so, but I am amazed and encouraged that students ask me for extra practice fairly regularly.

Reason 3: We Can Control Grading Practices

One of the biggest sources of frustration in schools today is the sense that we are at the mercy of factors we teachers cannot control. We cannot control student socioeconomic levels, school funding, our salaries, our teaching assignments, increasing class sizes, difficult parents, or a host of other important issues. However, we can control how we assess students.

When I approached my principal and district officials with the idea of using an experimental grading system, I received support and encouragement from all of them. In addition, a number of colleagues have been intrigued and want to make standards-based grading work in their classrooms.

If a teacher must use a point system to satisfy an administrative mandate or to use a particular grade book, that teacher can still use a standards-based system. The crucial idea is to use a system that is not based on the inappropriate use of averages. The system must not allow students to mask their level of understanding with their attendance, their level of effort, or other peripheral issues.

I have found that avoiding point values that might appear in a traditional percentage-based system is helpful because parents and students can get confused if they see numbers that look like what they've seen in the past but refer to a different scale. Teachers who have to assign points can avoid this confusion by using completely different numbers. A point value in the range of 1 to 10, for example, would not have the strong associations of a point value of 85, and thus would not be as easily misinterpreted.

Reason 4: Standards-Based Grading Reduces Meaningless Paperwork

Since I adopted standards-based grading, my load of meaningless paperwork has been drastically reduced, which provides time for more important considerations. Standards-based grading enables me to get the most from every piece of paper students turn in.

Writing feedback only on selected homework problems saves my time when marking papers while still giving me a sense of where students are in their learning. These homework assignments and other formative assessments help me judge the progress of the group as a whole before deciding how to proceed.

I don't assess student mastery of any objective until I am confident that a reasonable number of students will score proficiently, and that makes each assessment mean much more. Students who are still struggling after a significant portion of the class has demonstrated mastery can retest individually. The bottom line is that when I review any set of papers, I walk away knowing a great deal more about what my students know than I ever did before.

Reason 5: It Helps Teachers Adjust Instruction

Imagine two different grade books for the same set of students, as shown in Figure 1. Which one of the two better illustrates what students know and what they still need to learn?

The standards-based grade book gives a wealth of information to help the teacher adjust instruction. Note that two objectives (1 and 3) may require more class instruction. The notations for Objective 2, on the other hand, suggest that the class only needs practice and one student needs some reteaching.

Students can also see much more information about their learning. In the traditional grade book, Amanda would assume she is in great shape, but standards-based grading reveals that she has not mastered a crucial concept.

Gifted and talented students can be truly challenged in a standards-based classroom because if they show early mastery of fundamental skills and concepts, they can then concentrate on more challenging work that is at higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy or that seeks connections among objectives.

Students who struggle can continue to retest and use alternate assessments until they show proficiency, and they are not penalized for needing extended time. I guide students with special needs to modify their work and, if needed, develop different ways of demonstrating that they've met their proficiency goals. Their working styles can be easily accommodated in this system because modified assignments and assessments require no special adjustments in the grade book. The grade book simply shows where they are in meeting the standards, without reference to how they are demonstrating their learning or what modifications needed to be made.

Reason 6: It Teaches What Quality Looks Like

In the adult world, everything is a performance assessment. If adults on the job make poor decisions or cannot determine the quality of their own work, the results are generally undesirable. Quality matters, and the ability to measure the quality of one's own work is a learned skill.

So how can we teach this essential skill? One way to teach quality is to demand it. We must create an environment where standards can and must be met and where students are not permitted to submit substandard work without being asked to revise.

If we base our grades on standards rather than attendance, behavior, or extra credit (which often has nothing to do with course objectives), we can actually help students grapple with the idea of quality and walk away with a higher degree of self-sufficiency. We can and should report information about student performance in areas like attendance and effort, but we can report it separately from academic achievement (O'Connor, 2007; Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006).

Reason 7: It's a Launchpad to Other Reforms

When I began using standards-based grading, I quickly discovered that I needed to reexamine my curriculum. Each class needed a clear and concise set of standards with precise levels of mastery. This prompted a number of discussions with other teachers in my department, and each year we continue to adapt our objectives. No one can use standards-based grading without clear standards.

In addition to improving curriculum, I have found new ways to use formative assessments and intervention strategies. My work with special education students and English language learners in particular goes much more smoothly because all the modification needed is already built into what I do. I have also been able to work much more effectively with parents by giving them better information.

How do students respond to this style of grading? Of course, their reactions vary. It takes time, discussion, and reflection for students to understand their rights and responsibilities in such a system, and teachers must be patient as students and parents adjust. Many students have expressed increased satisfaction with having a larger degree of control over their grades, although some students do not like the revisions they are required to do. Some struggle to overcome test anxiety and need access to alternate assessments.

As for parents, many of them simply want opportunities for their children to succeed, so they are grateful for the revision and retesting. Each year, parents ask thoughtful questions, with some noting that this method of grading is more similar to evaluation in the workplace.

These seven reasons to change to standards-based grading are merely a starting point. High school teachers need to hold their own practices up to scrutiny and decide whether those practices are worth keeping. By doing so, we unleash a force for change that we can control, with our students and parents as partners.

References

Marzano, R., Pickering, D., & Pollock, J. (2001). Classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

O'Connor, K. (2007). A repair kit for grading: 15 fixes for broken grades. Portland, OR: Educational Testing Service.

Tomlinson, C., & McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating differentiated instruction and understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Patricia L. Scriffiny is a math teacher at Montrose High School in Montrose, Colorado; pscriffiny@mcsd.k12.co.us.

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Seven Reasons for Standards-Based Grading

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October 2008 | Volume 66 | Number 2 Expecting Excellence Pages 70-74 Patricia L. Scriffiny Each week brings some new idea that teachers are supposed to implement, while still preparing lessons, grading papers, and keeping their classrooms in some semblance of order. Amid all these challenges, a call to change grading policies can seem particularly unrealistic.

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Introduction to Standards-Based Assessment at Discovery Elementary School

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The leadership team at Discovery Elementary School walks families and invested stakeholders through our Standards-Based Assessment philosophy and practices. SBA is the set of processes we use to evaluate and report skill mastery that students gain through Standards-Based Instruction (SBI). We're committed to research-supported, child-centered Standards-Based practices at our school, because the evidence shows it's best for kids!

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"Finding Your Grading Compass" by Carol Ann Tomlinson ( 2011)

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"Finding Your Grading Compass" by Carol Ann Tomlinson ( 2011)

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November 2011 | Volume 69 | Number 3
Effective Grading Practices Pages 86-87

Carol Ann Tomlinson

I wanted to be students' mentor; it was a difficult role reversal when I abruptly became their judge.

I recall standing in the doorway to greet my students one morning during my third year of teaching after I had just completed report cards. As I made small talk with the kids entering our room, I had a profoundly troubling insight. I heard these words in my head: "You could fill out their report cards right now for the rest of the year with 90 percent accuracy." This realization that my grading practices were contributing to a self-fulfilling prophecy marked a transition in my uneasy relationship with grades.

Up to that point, I'd seen student assignments as a mechanism for generating grades, which I recorded faithfully in my grade book so that when parents came to school for conferences I could justify report card grades ("See-here are the 19 grades I averaged to arrive at Jason's C.") The more grades, the more secure I felt.

I'd like to think that even in those days I didn't see grades as rewards or punishments, but maybe I did. Maybe I said to myself, "If I don't grade homework, they won't do it."

I was worried about students who went home class after class, quarter after quarter with low grades. In a naïve way, I understood that such discouragement does little to motivate students to embrace the next task with trust or enthusiasm. I also worried about the kids who were supremely motivated to get A s but had little interest in learning. I wanted to be my students' mentor; it was a difficult role reversal when I abruptly became their judge.

What I've Come to Know

That epiphany caused me to be more reflective about grading. I can't recall in which order I drew the following conclusions. Some of them were a long time coming. In the end, they led my grading practices to reflect what I believed about teaching and learning-rather than to dictate how I taught.

Grading itself contributes little to learning. Grading is a small part of a much bigger, more important cycle of instruction, assessment, and adjustment-which does lead to learning.

My job is to teach for success. To do that, I have to abandon "gotcha" testing and grading.

The better I teach, the better students' grades will be.

I need to have a clear set of indicators of success on each assignment and for each unit of study. My students also need to be clear about those indicators-and contribute to creating them.

If I have students who consistently make low grades, there's something lacking in my teaching or in my relationship with those students.

If I have students who consistently make very high grades with no struggle or need for support, I'm underestimating their capacity-and wasting their time. An A that doesn't represent personal struggle and growth is a lie.

I need to grade fewer pieces of student work. Most student work should be practice-a time for making errors and figuring out what didn't work. Grading too often and too soon discourages that nonnegotiable element of learning.

Consistent, specific feedback on a student's competency in essential goals is a more potent teaching tool than a letter or number grade will ever be.

I need to provide my students with models of quality a bit beyond their current reach and then scaffold their progress in reaching that level. Students need to see what quality looks like.

No matter how hard I try to replace my judgment in grading with foolproof criteria for success, grading will always have some element of subjectivity in it. Being a professional means exercising professional judgment.

I should use rubrics and similar tools that define success as a guide rather than as a commitment. I cannot and should not promise students that if they cite four references rather than three or use varied transitions between paragraphs, an A is guaranteed.

I need to involve my students often in analyzing their own work and that of their peers according to specified criteria for success. Then I need to teach them how to plan to improve their performance.

I need to regularly-relentlessly-show students the connection between the quality of their habits of mind and their work, their progress toward performance goals, and their achievement of those goals-and beyond. In other words, I need to help them exercise their capacity to determine their own success.

Embracing these conclusions has made me a better teacher and made my students more thoughtful, engaged, and self-confident learners. These principles are a compass to guide and stretch me as a teacher. Think about them. Question them. In the end, what matters is not that teachers have identical approaches to grading, but that we all have approaches that stem from and reinforce what we know about teaching and learning.

Carol Ann Tomlinson is William Clay Parrish Jr. Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership, Foundation, and Policy at the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia in Charlottesville; cat3y@virginia.edu. She is the author, with Marcia B. Imbeau, of Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom (ASCD, 2010).

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Finding Your Grading Compass - Educational Leadership

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November 2011 | Volume 69 | Number 3 Effective Grading Practices Pages 86-87 Carol Ann Tomlinson I wanted to be students' mentor; it was a difficult role reversal when I abruptly became their judge. I recall standing in the doorway to greet my students one morning during my third year of teaching after I had just completed report cards.