Time For Letting Go of Letter Grades #cisva

Exactly one year ago today I wrote a blog on letter grades.  In it, I expressed mild dissatisfaction with the current report card we employ in our school system, which is a hybrid of reporting student progress based on individual learning outcomes on a performance scale and the old fashioned letter grade.   Over the course of the year my thinking has continued to evolve and I believe I am on the verge of doing something about it.

To my parents and to me, letter grades were an important stamp of approval (or disapproval) that I was doing well (or not) in school.  It was as though I worked and worked and waited to find out whether or not I was good enough at the end of the term.  That’s not how education is viewed anymore.  These days we expect (rightly) that student should be getting continuous feedback and constantly improving.  Whether students are doing well or not in the view of the teacher is less important than whether or not students are setting goals, striving for their goals, learning from their mistakes, and improving themselves on a daily basis.  I am not saying letter grades are necessarily incompatible with this new view, but they carry with them the weight  of meaning of times gone by when approval and self-worth were determined exteriorly.

Another major problem with letter grades is that they can mask the truth of student progress and limit real improvement.  Consider a student who got a “B” in Math.  During that term, they had three units; fractions, long division, and word problems.  There final grade in each section was 96%, 99%, and 50%.  Their average comes to 82%, so their grade for the term was a “B”.  How is that letter grade helpful?  By stamping an entire grade with a letter, you are glossing over the students strengths and weaknesses, thus limiting the opportunity for feedback to inspire reflection and growth. Finally there is the problem of grade inflation.  As a teacher I always found it challenging to simultaneously maintain positive learning environment and give accurate, standardized letter grades.  Though a student may “deserve” a C- for the performance they have demonstrated, there are times when it is not in their best interests to see a C- on their report card.  As a result, letter grades are “massaged” to meet the needs of the student to get the most out of them.  This creates grade inflation and diminishes the real value of the report card.

Where do we go from here?  The staff at CCS has been talking about reporting for the past several Wednesday meetings and have some good ideas moving forward.  If you have any suggestions please leave a comment. Thanks for reading!

Weighing in on Letter Grades

A lot has been written lately regarding the use of letter grades in reporting.  On one hand you have those who say letter grades are necessary and good.  They hold students accountable and give parents a clear indication of how their kids “stack up” in relation to their grade level.  On the other hand you have opponents of letter grades who think that by assigning a letter to a student you are limiting students, telling them what they are rather than what they can be, and cutting off the learning process at the knees.

My opinion is that, like most things in education, letter grades can be used for good or ill.  It is really about that you are using them for and expect to get from them.  If getting an “A” is the most important thing, then you are really missing the point.  I am pleased when my kids get “A”s not because of the “A”, but because of all the hard work and learning they have been doing.  The “A” is a way the teacher communicates that to me.  Using a checkmark grid or anecdotal comments to communicate my child’s progress is equally or even more satisfying to me as a parent, but more difficult for a teacher to do well.  If forced to make a choice I would say that, when done well, reporting without letter grades is better for ongoing student learning.

The problem we face in the Catholic Independent Schools of the Archdiocese of Vancouver is that we are stuck in both worlds.  On one hand we give letter grades based on the expectations for the grade level, but on the other hand we also use the performance standards scale to measure student progress on a checkmark and grid template.  Well, which is it?  When we try to do both I fear the checkmarks are little more than letter grades in disguise.  I think students, parents, and teachers often struggle with a crisis of meaning with our current format for reporting.

More important than what goes on the report card is a change in understanding of reporting.  Reporting should not be something that happens three times a year.  Reporting is a process that needs to go on continuously throughout the school year.  Every email from the teacher, feedback from the parent, homework session with your child, and conversation with the principal can serve as a part of that process.  What matters is that communication is frequent and meaningful.  If we can do that I think we can go a long way towards making the debate over letter grade a lot less important.