Rant

To Grade or Not to Grade?

Posted 34 months ago|8 comments|350 views

TAGS

grading practices , test taking , assessment

Written by

SBailey
Elkton, KY

I just returned from a department meeting, and it has been confirmed that we are in the process of adopting a new policy. The school where I teach has decided that daily grades and homework grades are no longer important. We will only grade tests; and if a student fails, then he or she will be allowed to take the test over again as many times as he or she wishes. In other words, I can go to class and blow off all of the work. Take the test and pass the test, because I am really good at test-taking. All along, I haven't done a dang thing in class. I didn't do the homework, and I created a disturbance during class because I knew I could pass the test.

Yes, there's a little more to this process, but essentially, this is what we are planning to implement beginning this year.

Yippee! This is a dream scenario for a teacher. Oh, I'm so excited! Can't you just hear the sarcasm dripping off of my tongue?

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zoolady

34 months ago: Well, well, well.

Wait until these little kids get into the real world of performance appraisals and competitive employment! Wait until they follow the example of some recent college graduate who's SUING her university because she can't get a job! Wait until they learn that, in real life, "taking it over" isn't an option!

Who in the name of all ignorance came up with THAT idea? Is yours a public school? Did a board of education conceive this genius plan?

I'm sorry--let me buy you a glass of wine & we'll talk about the proliferation of ignorance.

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SBailey
Elkton, KY

34 months ago: I teach in a public school, and it's the district's idea. We've been jumping on every educational bandwagon that comes along. I've been at this school for about 6 years, and every 3 years we've started something new, regardless of the actual data or its proven effectiveness with students.

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zoolady

34 months ago: ARRRGH! One of the promises Obama has made is to put a renewed focus on science, arts and education and I'm excited to see what that might be. Because I give primate talks/tours to college-level anthropology students, I'm somewhat familiar with the results of our educational system here. It's terrifying. It's so bad that, when I get the occasional bright one, I have to fight the urge to focus on that one person, so I can feel at least some satisfaction.

Is it like that for you? Why do the students have so much trouble? Or DO they? Is 3 years even enough time to evaluate the success of a program?

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SBailey
Elkton, KY

34 months ago: I've been teaching for 8 years, and I have seen students' abilities, focus, and energy gradually decline. Finding that one bright student among many is more depressing than uplifting, because I know that there are so few of those students out there. I have been teaching long enough to have a lot of my seniors come back and drop out of college. Of course, it feels like I have failed them in some way, but I also have to remind myself that, as teachers, we are told exactly what to teach and how to teach it. If we don't do this, we will get fired or demoted. I went into education hoping to make a difference, and it is frustrating to find that, most of the time, educators can do little to help individual students.

My entire state is in an educational uproar right now, because we have abolished our current reform system. In the middle of the year the state decided to get rid of our standards and practices. The state promises that they will have new standards available to us by Christmas, but I know this won't happen. The good news for me is that I can actually have some freedom to teach what I want in my classroom while they are searching for the next step. I'm so excited, or I was until I discovered what the new trend for our school would be.

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zoolady

34 months ago: How in BLAZES do they plan on retaining teachers like yourself when they give you no support, freedom or resources? (Banging my head on the desk!) OF COURSE you haven't failed them! It's the system that's failing--flip-flopping and flailing about in search of a consistent plan! ("Failing, flopping and flailing." I like that phrase.)

The idea that daily and homework grades are unimportant should have parents in an uproar. How much cooperation do you have with parents? We've had situations here where boards quietly instituted policies without public input and it was only through the efforts of a very few concerned parents that it bacame public.

In one case, several "creation science" fans quietly ran for school board seats and began to revise science lesson plans. Far too many parents delegate all responsibility for their childrens' education but, luckily, this was discovered and overturned.

At least that community cared! And, obviously, YOU care, too! How about the rest of the teachers? How is this news being recieved among the faculty?

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Altruist
Eugene, OR

34 months ago: I have taught in ungraded alternative schools and in public schools, and having grades, and daily tests is much easier for the teacher. I think with NCLB there has been way to much emphasis on testing. Most of the tests are multiple guess and just test memorization. Testing for the higher cognitive orders requires grading essays and word problems, which is harder on the teacher. The goal should not to be teaching facts. They can get that on the internet. We need to teach them to think, and to teach themselves for lifelong learning. That's harder to test. Now there is virtual education on line with adaptive testing.

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zoolady

34 months ago: "Easier on the teacher" HAS to mean being aware of what's really being learned as time goes by, right? Without regular testing of some sort, how are you to know if you're achieving the goal "teach them to think and to teach themselves for lifelong learning?"

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Altruist
Eugene, OR

33 months ago: What I meant to say is that daily HOMEWORK makes it easier for the teacher to evaluate the student and also allows the student to "keep up" so they don't wait till the last day and cram. One of the things that I tried to do with math and science problems was to give partial credit if they showed their work even if they got the wrong answer. On complicated problems I wanted to see their thought processes. If they could figure out the correct logic to to solve the problem but just made a simple arithmetic error I gave them some credit. The students hated "word problems" but it made them think more.
One of the problems with a single test at the end of the year, especially if it is important for the school, like NCLB is teachers start teaching for the test.
One of the problems with grades is that it fosters too much competition and those at the bottom often give up. Forming teams of 3 or 4 with diverse skills and grading everyone in the team with the same grade, fosters cooperation instead of competition. They help each other and value different skills.

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