Grading systems

What is the point of a grade? What is it meant to show? We've been discussing this issue in the "university class" I'm required to take, though I must admit that this debate has been valuable and really added to my perspective.

In particular, what does "80" mean?

Does it mean that the student got 80% on tests?
Does it mean that, through some preassigned weighting, the grade came out to an 80?
Does it mean that the student knows nothing, but tries really hard and so gets an 80?
Does it mean that the student knows everything, but didn't do homework?

The problem is, in my opinion, especially acute for an elementary school student. How do you issue them a numeric grade? When I was in school, our system was E/S/N (Excellent, Satisfactory, Needs Improvement), separated by subject and by effort/achievement. I am required to give one numeric grade per subject. There's no distinction between "tried really hard but not quite there" and "knows it all and put in no effort," they both may come out to a 72.

Now, there's the question of whether grades are necessary at all, and for what. I'm a definite believer that college grades are a good thing, as long as they correspond to a predefined set of standards. I tend to believe that high school grades are a necessary evil as a way of providing some distinction between those who performed well and those who did not, although they of course must be taken with a heavy spoonful of salt. But elementary school? What does that tell anyone? (Of course, what does a standardized test tell anyone either?...)

I've given a lot of failing grades this year, and I've underemphasized effort, not because I've wanted to, but because I've had no direction on how to give grades and it just ended up being easier to give grades based on how students did on their assignments. (This wasn't any sort of planned idea; that's just how it turned out.)

As a result, I've been trying to rework the way I grade students. The formula that I've derived so far (for next year) is weighted, as follows:

• 50% Objectives
• Simply put, does the kid understand? Demonstrated more than once, in more than one way. 1 for yes, 0 for no; average it out.
• The main difficulty here is breaking down the objectives into what I am actually going to use for a grade, and in providing the opportunity for remediation and makeup (I've had a huge problem with that this year).
• There is the possibility of differenting the objectives for different students, thereby making the system more fair.
  
• 25% Effort
• Do I see the kid participating in class?
• Does he/she do his homework?
• 25% Raw Achievement
• How does the kid do on daily work, tests and quizzes?

The other caveat is that this year, I haven't issued a grade lower than a 50 on any assignment. I am giving thought to issuing grades all the way from 0 up next year; the only requirement is that students can't receive lower than a 50 for the grading period as a whole.

I try not to use grades as a stick to beat kids over the head with (it loses its potency anyway if you do it too frequently, plus I have some that just don't care regardless). That tends to be a downer and release negative energy. But I am required to put some sort of number on a report card, and it should accurately as possible reflect ... something.

Testing results

Word is that the kids tried their best.

Hopefully that will be enough for 2/3 of them to pass.

The last two weeks heading up to the testing were crazy, as I tried to reinforce strategies, they pulled out most of my kids for math, and I tried to get whatever knowledge I could into the heads of those who were left.

The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills is administered by another teacher--in our school, by the 5th grade teacher. Therefore, during the two days my students took reading and math (April 17-18), I was teaching fifth grade... don't try it. It could be hazardous to your health. I'm just glad I didn't get assigned middle school and I admire those who are handling it (I guess I could handle it if I were put there originally, but I'm well used to fourth graders by now). The testing day for fifth grade, April 19, was actually worse, though, as I had a lot of kids act up after they were done testing and I'd have to send them outside. I think I had four kids alone outside by the end with more waiting.

We got Stanford results back during the same timeframe. I had 1/2 of my kids not pass either reading or math, with 9 (out of 22) not passing reading and I think 3 or 4 not passing math. The total was 11 not passing (one or the other), 11 passing, with a couple of kids overlapping reading and math. However, they had basically no prep for Stanford, which came right after TAKS Writing, so hopefully that is not a good reflection of what their scores coming back will look like.

Almost there!

Well... students took their final benchmarks last week.

My math class has been split into three. That's fine for me, since I get the "high" third, the ones who are doing OK by grade level standards. They're the easy ones to teach. The rest of them go to our pull-out teachers, who normally do reading, but who are doing their best to try to get them caught up. Meanwhile, I've met with my TFA program director to figure out a plan to get kids up to speed as fast as possible. I taught the plan (it includes an acronym for their test strategies).

Issue: they still have comprehension problems. Even if they're reading it out loud in a group, they miss some big things. Result: their reading scores were about the same on the new benchmark, though math climbed a bit. That would mean about half pass, half don't. I'm under no illusions that all of them are going to pass, though I am still hoping maybe 2/3 will pull it out in both math and reading. I'm feeling a little better about next year, though, because I really think I do know how to improve a lot.

We had Friday off and today was professional development. We met in "vertical teams," i.e. the PK-5th teacher in the same sequence. The third-grade teacher before me, who reportedly doesn't teach much English, finally admitted as much (since I don't know it anyway). I don't understand how that works, since she has all the time after the reading test in March to focus just on English. Sigh. Anyway, my vertical team is a joke, since the goal seems to be to leave as quickly as possible and not to actually cooperate in any meaningful way. They always tell me "we are here if you need us" but they're definitely not committed to collaboration as a concept. So far I don't feel like I can change that, much as I might want to.

Last bit of good news: I'm getting a smartboard! (although we call them "teamboards"). I'm excited to see what I'll be able to do with it!