The idea of eliminating the "D" is not new...Poland Regional High School in Maine opened with a version of this policy 10 years ago. The article captures part of the idea - disincentivizing work that isn't quite good enough to be called mediocre - but misses the larger idea that the elimination of the "D" at Poland and in other schools affiliated with the Coalition of Essential Schools was linked to: standards-based grading and assessment. What Mt. Olive has done may go part of the way - we'd need to know more about what it took to get a 63 vs. a 70.
We know from experience that raising standards works. We also know that many numerical grading systems are impenetrable, arbitrary, biased, or, more often than not, "grade" things that have nothing to do with what the student knows. In a true standards-based assessment system, the onus is on the teacher to find out what the student knows as well as on the student to prove it. A standard can usually be described, i.e: the student can divide whole numbers into other whole numbers correctly, with results in fractions or decimals. A 63 on a test may or may not show whether the standard has been met...it could mean "didn't write answers in complete sentences." It could mean "didn't show work." It could mean answered 6 out 10 questions correctly and got a 3 point bonus or remembering that today was the teacher's birthday.
(All of the above are examples of "partially meeting" the standard. I can attest from personal experience that a "D" can mean many other things, like: "skipped German class every day from Thanksgiving to Christmas because the teacher ridiculed every wrong answer, but had already put down deposit on trip to Germany, father was on school board, and having to answer why student was not missed for 20 or so days would be tricky.")
It is not surprising, though, that people get VERY emotional when number or letter-based grading is challenged, especially if you're and "A" student, as one of the students in this article was described. With apologies to my sister Margaret, the National Merit Scholar, much of getting an "A" was sometimes about obedience and compliance...showing up every day, on time, never speaking out of turn, and accumulating what some people call "citizenship" points (we'll leave the question of the relationship between compliance and citizenship for another time.) Some of it was about diligence and perseverance...doing every but of homework, formatting it properly, etc. Lots of it had to do with figuring out a particular teacher's system, and then playing along. And some if it (varied with each teacher and class)had to do with mastering standards. I frustrated my parents much more than Margaret by getting A's and D's, with no apparent pattern based on subject matter. I'll save the list of factors that contributed to me not being gung-ho to get A's in everything, which I clearly could have...in fact, made it through community college, university, and grad school with averages between 3.9 and 4.0. The larger point is that we should be clear about what we are grading, what we reward and punish, etc. Punctuality is valuable, and to me under-rated. Obedience is trickier...does that mean, "Does not challenge hypocrisy and unfairness?" or does it mean, "blurts out demeaning remarks in class."
The best systems I've seen (colleagues at Casco Bay High School in Portland and throughout the network of Expeditionary Learning Schools are in the forefront of such work) are those that assess students on both academic standards and "habits of work and learning" and can almost always be fairly and accurately described on the front and back of a course outline, syllabus, or rubric. Usually each standard can be simply described in terms of what it looks like to Meet it, to be Proficient in it, and to Exceed it. In Maine Enterprise Schools, such clear standards will be personalized for each student, and parents and students will be able to click on their homepage and find out what progress is being made. The will not see "D" in German. They might see:
John is proficient in German vocabulary - translates most written texts accurately and is able to give English translation of German words.
John meets standards in German grammar and syntax. His written work is comprehensible, but the reader is slowed down by frequent usage, tense and word order errors.
John DOES NOT MEET habits of work and learning standards. He attended fewer than 60 percent of classes and turned in fewer than 60 percent of homework.
Of course, such a system would, if used properly, prevent the bartering I did with Herr Hoffman that kept me on the German trip and him from being called in front of the school committee.
The promise of standards-based grading and assessment is simple: if students know what they are being asked to learn, and if teachers can both teach it and assess it in ways that determine if the student has learned it, then we're all better off. If that's part of what Mt. Olive has done, then I'm all for it. But if, like "three strikes" policies that create criminals rather than address underlying issues, this is more public relations than a change in culture, then I'm not. Hard to tell from this article.
No comments:
Post a Comment