Ask The Grade Doctor

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If a test is worth 110 points and tests are worth 50 percent of your grade how much is
this test worth

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I had a 78 and on my exam which counts 15% i got a 58 and on a project
which counts 15% i got a 68. Whats my grade now?

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if there's 6 questions and you miss 2 what is the percintage

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Instead of assigning "zero" for missing work, could you please give some ideas for alternate
consequences that have been effective with high school students. Thank you.

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If I have an 89 in the class and I get an F on a quiz thats worth 50% of my grade, about what
will I have and how hard would it be to get back up to at least a B?

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If I take a test and it has 25 questions on it and I want an 80% on it , how many can I
miss?

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My son got one wrong out of 11 questions on his math test. He received a grade of 72 is that correct. There does not appear to be any weighted grade on the test per question.

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I am geting 75 in Spanish I got a 68 on my quarter test which is worth 40%of my final
grade for the quarter what is my final grade

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What percentage would you get if you missed 1 question out of a 6 question math quiz?

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If there are 61 questions on a test. The multiple choice are 2 points each and the fill ins
are 1 point. If I get 12 multiple choice wrong and 3 fill ins what is my grade?

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If I have a 50% and a 90% on two different tests what is my percentage?

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Do you have any idea about the Zero-Based Grading System?

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if there was a test with 15 questions and you got a 60% how many did you miss?

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Dear Mr. O'Connor,

I teach grades 9 & 12 language arts at Northpoint Expeditionary Learning Academy in
Prescott, Arizona. Last November, I attended an EL Institute on Grading & Reporting, and
since then I've decided to reform my grades. Northpoint already does a number of the
"fixes" you talk about in your book. But, a sticking point has been not giving zeroes for an
academic grade when work is not turned in. For some reason, this gets the staff's emotions
going. They also fear that there is no accountability, and they fear there is not a good way
to report missing work without the zero there. We use JumpRope, so I am able to report a
zero for a Habits of Work grade and an M for missing as an academic grade. Parents are
able to see those grades. We also have a Friday School program (our normal school week
runs Mon - Thurs) for students with low Habits of Work grades, providing accountability
without punishing students by artificially lowering their grades. Still, many on staff are
resisting. Our director is allowing every teacher to do what he wants, so I and one other
teacher are forging ahead, piloting a program without giving zeroes for missing work. I am
wondering if you have any suggestions for this predicament. How would you handle this
situation and try to bring other staff members (some of whom have had similar PD as I
have) on board? Much thanks for any help you can provide.

Sincerely,

Jeff Dyer

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if i got 1 question wrong out of 11 and it was 3 days late and every day it was late 1 point was subtracted what would my grade be??

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Question

If i have a 96% in my class right now, i just took my final and recieved
a 50%, and my final is worth 20 points what will my end grade be?

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I got a 50% on my science midterm how will this affect the 78 i got first semester?

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If my mark is 78 percent before the exam and I get a 95 percent on the exam and it is worth 15 percent of the mark , what would my final mark be?

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Mr. O'Conner,
One more question regarding the private school mid-year grade change. Administrators tell us if they include our child in class ranking with the 5pt scale applied (in-house) to college courses taken this year(senior) it will be unfair to the kids sitting at 2,3 and 5 with the 5pt applied to their ap course(junior). Our child would move from 4th to sharing 1st. Our child has been alone in 1st since freshman year. In what way would this be unfair to 2,3 and 5? Again, to us it seems the mid-year change gave advantage.
Thank you.

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http://dennisssblegh.com|dennis

hello
Lovely site

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i have an 80 in my class and i got a 0 on my research paper thats worth 25% hat will my grade go down to

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I have an 87% in the class. If I get 80% on the final, which is worth 15% of my mark, what will my final mark be?

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if i have a 83 average and i get a 52 on my exam that is worth 30% of my grade what will my average be

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I got 8 points on a paper out of a possible 12,
what would be my grade based on a normal grade
scale

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I'm involved a pilot of a standards-based report card and am not sure
what to do with students whose learning needs are out of grade level;
e.g., 7th grade student who is learning 4th grade reading/language arts
or another 7th grade student who is learning high school science.

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My school changed to a more standard based grading and are following Tom Guskey's philosophy. Our GPAs are lower now and I am worried about college admission. They keep telling us that colleges will look at the student's GPA in comparison to other students in his class and not other students? How is that possible? My GPA is now 06 lower than what it was before and we have fewer things being graded. Fewer assessments since homework and quizzes are not considered part of the achievement grade. Help make sense of this!!!!!!!!!!!

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What is the percentage of missing work if there were 17 assignments given and 6 were missing.

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Will a late affect the assignments overall grade? If I get a 90 percent then will the late bring it
down or is there a certain amount of percent you can have if the assignment is marked late?

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I got 94% on my report card and got 70% on my exam and my exam is worth 20% of my final grade how far did it drop.

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I have a 25% on my report card then I get a 100% A what will my grade on my report
card become?

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I'm getting a 77% in one of my classes right now but I got a 20/40(50%)
on my last assignment that weights 5.1. What's my mark now?

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The private school our kids attend changed the grading system mid-year last year to improve the grades of kids struggling with AP courses by adopting a 5.0 scale. This year the class ranking has changed due to this mid-year change. The school plans to drop the 5.0. Our child moved out of first rank as she was not in the AP course due to her schedule. She planned to take the course this year but they dropped the class. She has taken 3 college courses this year concurrent with high school and carried a 4.0, however the school will not figure in-house a 5.0 scale for these courses. This move out of the ranking takes away scholarship dollars. Can private schools do as they please in these matters? Is there any recourse for families? It seems odd, unfair? to change grading policy mid-year.

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I forgot to turn in a paper, therefore I probably got a 0. What would that do to my grade? Before, I had a 98 in the class.

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I got 11 right out of 20 questions.

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I go to Brown Mackie College and I want to know If there are 50 questions on a test and you only got 32 questions right what would be the score for that test? The other question is if you have 50 questions
and you only got 40 right what would be the grade for that?

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If I have an 80 average in a class, and I fail a summative worth 7.5% of the final mark, what is my new average?

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If I have an 84 in class and then get a 100 on a quiz how much will it bring up my
grade?

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What do I have to get on the final if I have an 88% in the class and the final is worth 10%.

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I have a 99 in guitar class. I missed 2 assignments and got 2 zeroes. What is my grade
now?

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if i have a 90% in math and i got a 76% on a math quiz how will that effect my grade?

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If I am getting 92 percent in science and my final exam is worth 20% of
my mark and I got 70% on it what is my final mark? Can you show me your
calculations?

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I have an 85 in my ASL class, how much will it drop if i get a zero on a
test grade and a daily grade?

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i have a 87 in the class the final is worth 15% of my grade. what grade do i need to get on the test to get and A in the class

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I currently have a 68% in math, the exam is worth 30%, what do I need to
get on the exam to have my mark above 50? above 65?

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I have a 99 percent(A+) in math and there's a 35 question final tomorrow. That final is worth 100 points. The final is also 20 percent of my entire grade, so how low can my grade drop to if get a C on that 100 point final?

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if i have a 90 and i get 100 on my exam worth 15% of my grade, what will my final mark be ?

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Question

If there are a total of 15 questions on a test, and you need an 80% to
pass, can you tell me how many you can miss? What is the percentage if
you miss 1, 2, or 3 questions etc. And how do I calculate that?

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Question

Hi i have 80% in my math class and i want to know if i can get an A by
getting 95% or higher on the final that is worth 15% of my grade.

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I have a 96 percent in spanish, and there's a test worth 50 points. If i get a c on that test, how low will my grade drop?

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What is the score if you miss 2 questions out of 9questions?

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I currently have an 87.1 in my film class. we took a final today & I got
an 84 on it, which accounts for 10% of our grade. is my grade the same?

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If I have a 90% in math and I take the final exam which is worth 30% of my final mark
and on the exam I get a 60% what would my final mark be for math class?

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If a test is worth 50% of my grade which is at 91% now and i make a 50 on my test
what would my grade be

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If I had a test of 30 question an I missed 11 what's the number grade ?

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My child had a 90% in Social Studies. She took an exam at the end of the
semester and got a 73%. Her grade is now a 76%. Can you tell how much
that one test was worth?

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if there is 12 questions on a test at 3 points apiece and i miss 2 questions what is my grade

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I have a 90% in science. If i get 25 bonus points what will my grade be?

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if I have a 70 in math, what do i need to get on the exam which is worth 30 percent of my total grade to reach 80 percent overall

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I missed 3 questions out of 35 what would be my score?

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I have a 70% in Science 10 and my final is worth 30% of my mark. What do I need for a mark on my final to keep me above 60%.

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Question

If i have seven question quiz and Its worth five
points and i scored three points how many Did i
miss?

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i have a 85 in science and the final exam is comming up if i get a F on this test and it is 20 percent of my grade what will it make it go down to

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If the test has 79 questions, what would the grade be if I missed 9 questions

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i got a 85 on a test... what will be my grade if the test is worth 15 % of my grade??

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I got a 88% on a test ...what will be my grade if the test worth 5% of my grade?

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I currently have a 93% in one of my classes. If I happen to recieve a 0%
on an assignment that is worth 15% of the course, what will my new grade
be?

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Question

If I'm getting a 96 overall in math and I get a zero on a task worth
10%, how much will my grade drop?

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if i get 10 questions wrong out of 23 whats my percentage

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My average right now is 93%, on my exam that is 10% of our final grade I got 50% what is my final grade now

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I have a low c in my math class if I missed
two summutives that were 70 and another
one 78 points what would my final grade
be

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Greetings! Our English Department has been using your achievement model grading system - modified - we use 80 percent achievement and 20 percent effort. we have been inconsistent with make-up work policy though - what are your thoughts on make-up work (more importanty - time frame issues.

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If i have a 87.3 in my Spanish class then i get 50 points what would be
my new grade.

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if i had 61 questions and i got 9 wrong what is my grade?

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If i miss 5 questions on a 15 question test whats my grade

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if there are 22 questions and 7 are wrong what is the grade percentage? if there are 22 questionsand 4 are wrong whats the grade percentage?

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if there is 22 questions and i get 6 incorrect whats my score ?

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i didnt do an assigment that was worth ten percent, my grade is currently 69, what will this do to my grade?

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if I miss 3 questions on a 20 question quiz what is my grade?

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my son made alpha honor roll in this semester he made 7 A'S and 1 B can he make alpha honor roll with 1B?

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If there are 40 questions and I get 35 right what is my grade?

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what is my grade on a 75 questions test and i have 60 correct answers 15 incorrect answers

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In test of 25 questions helen missed 6. What percent did she have right?

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We are looking for some guidance about what to do with a student who is caught cheating in
a standards based reporting system. Giving a 0 or an F does not fit into our current practices.
Thank you so much.

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If my current math mark is 44%, my final exam is work 20% of my grade, what do I need
to get on my final exam to pass my math course?

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If I avereaged an 85 in math and got a 75 on a final exam worth 20 percent of my
overall grade, what will my final grade be?

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If I scored 15 out 27 right what's my grade?

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My grade for math is 87.19. My assignment is worth 25% of my grade. I got a 100 on
my assignment. How many points do i get?

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i missed 9 out of 40 questions
what is my grade?

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If I get at least an 80 on a semester exam (for middle school,) how mnay points will my grade go up? What about for a 70 on the exam?

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If i missed five questions on a test of 16 questions, what would my grade be?

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My son is in 5th grade. He has a worksheet with 10 problems on it. The teacher marked one wrong and gave him an 88, is this correct?

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Hi Ken, Our province has just developed a 4 point rubric of achievement levels to be used in assessing student work. Currently, for those schools using outcome-based assessment, teachers have to convert rubric scores for achievement to a final letter grade based on the number of outcomes met during the reporting period. (From quality 1-4, to quantity-A=all, B=most,C=some and D=few) Many have come to realize that these indicators do not mix well! So now our province is discussing changing the A-D descriptors to be more qualitative and are looking for some consensus on qualitative descriptors. I know many provinces across Canada are using 1-4 as reporting codes and I am thinking our qualitative descriptors for 1-4(which refer to level of understanding and skill application) should also be our report card achievement descriptors as well. Why have two different symbols that basically refer to the same thing. I get that the descriptors need to be specific to content, in student friendly language and co-constructed or at least student reviewed, when using rubrics to promote student learning and give descriptive feedback, but can the more general rubric also be used as evaluative and for reporting overall student achievement on report cards? (we also include anecdotal comments with students strengths, challenges and suggestions for improvement). What are your thoughts? If we should be looking for good qualitative descriptors for our A-D reporting codes, can you suggest some good resources? Thanks in advance!

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There is 60 questions on my math test I got 3wrong out of all of them, what is my grade
?

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what is the percentage if I got 83 out of 90 questions

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what is the grade of 59 wrong out of 190 questions

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i got 605 out of 700 for formatives which is 65 percent of my grade i
got 26 out of 26 which is 10 percent of my grade and i got 91 out of 100
which is 25 percent of my grade. What is my final grade?

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Question

Is it illegal (in NYS) for a teacher to deduct points from EVERY student's test if she is only accusing SOME of the students for talking. A test is a test based on academics, not behavior.

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I am part of a committee that has been working on outcomes-based reporting for K-6 students(sbp) and helping teachers use PowerTeacher correctly. Many teachers and administrators do not have a full understanding of how to report using the outcomes in the grade book. How do we get the teaches to focus on the achievement of the outcomes, not on the marks on a test? These questions were asked by some administrators and I'm not sure I understand what they are asking. Our committee would appreciate an asnwer to these questions, please. I did look over every single question and I didn't find one that answered these questions completely. Thank you for your time and consideration of this request.

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There is 40 questions and i miss 22 what grade is it?

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if someone got 4 out of 5 questions right on a math quiz what will the grade be in percent

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Dear doc, if I have an 83% right now in history, and I don't do a project that is worth
80 points, how much will my grade drop? Thanks :)
-Sierra

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Question

dear doc,
right now in math i have a 82.3 and i just took a test and got a 62.5 on a formative. what
would my grade be now and how could i improve it because the quarter ends january 20
thank you,
natalie

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If it was given in the teacher's syllabus that five points will be taken off every day for worked turned in late and later the teacher choses to ignore it and gives zeros, can we talk to the admisnistators?

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if u had 20 qustions on a 9 weeks test and u missed 5 what would u make?

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Question

how do you find 15% of a grade when the grade percent in the
class is 76.11%? how do you deduct a percent from a percent?

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Dear doc, i have a 87.3 in my math class ( middle school only) and i got 26 out of 50..
Yeah reLly bad its only first semester and it counts as ten percent of my grade. What
letter grade and percent would i end up with?! Woupd i drop to like A d?!?! Please
answer i have been searching for hours on how to solve the problem but i cant find
anything! Please please help
From a concerned middle schooler searching for help

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Question

Dear Ken,
I teach at a Private school with 200 students in grades 6-8. I implemented SBG last
year and was hoping to get our new hire on board this year (I believed we had an
understanding when we hired her). So far this year, I have gotten nowhere with her.
My principal says he wants to implement SBG school-wide but is very loose in his
leadership. I am so frustrated with the way she is assessing, things like grading
student's performance on math games, meaningless sounding homework assignments
and one or two quizzes for the entire year, that I am ready to quit. My principal
absolutely loves her so I am at a loss. Any ideas?

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Question

I am doing research on standards based grading systems used in US
schools. Do you know what percentage of secondary schools in the US use
SBG? I imagine that 90% or so of school districts still use tradtional,
percentage based "academic" grades. Am I close?

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Question

I have a 69 percent in math. I got four 5 out of 5's on homework assignments. What
will my grade be?

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Your answers are absurd!!! They are indirect and evasive. Standard Based Grading is ridiculous! Students absolutely should be rewarded for being responsible and getting homework done. In a real job you can not not call clients but still keep your sales rate up. What a joke. In today's world parents already do too much for our kids so they end up with no responsibility, now the schools are too. Enough to make you want to home school!!

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Question

If i miss 7 questions out of 90, what do i make?

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My high school is currently using the standard 8-point (92.5-100= A) scale. I am writing a paper proposing a 10-point scale instead. What is your opinion on a 10-point grade scale being the standard for high schools across the country?

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Question

If I took a test that have 92 question, but the teacher says it's worth 100 points how
many can I get wrong to get a c

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Question

if you miss 5 questions out of 22 what would my grade be?

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If there's 6 questions and I get 2 wrong what would my grade be?
The highest grade possible is 100. My teacher gave me a 50. If I'm not wrong, you would have
to get 3 wrong to get a 50? I only missed 2.

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Our middle school is introducing standards based grading for the first time. We are using a
four level rubric in all class: beginning, developing, proficient, exceeding the standard.
Parents, students and teachers are all concerned about when during the school year we
should expect proficiency. Can the entire class be beginning-developing at the first
reporting period?

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hello. in my school we have an 80% summitive and 20% formative grading scale. so tests and quizes are 80% and homework is 20% can i get a quote on w or two on why this should be changed, or how it sets kids up for failure?

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i have a 92 in math then i got a 10/14 on a hw assignment what will my grade be

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The urban high school where I teach is trying to transform to the standards based grading system. One of the things we are asked to do is to not give zeros. I am comfortable with that when it means that I can mark an assignment "incomplete" and require the student to come in and show me what his level of mastery is. What I am uncomfortable with is that we have a policy of never giving a grade lower than 50%, including when a student scores lower than 50%. What is your opinion of automatically assigning a score of 50% vs using 'incomplete' at the high school level?

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Mr. O'Connor,
I am a member of the grading and assessment committee in our district and we have been debating whether to use points or percentages when putting student grades into progress book. We are not weighting grades and are only counting summative assessments in the final grade. Some teachers in our system are using percentages and others are using points. I prefer to enter all summative grades out of 100 points which is a percentage. My problem with points is that an assignment is weighted purely through the point value of the assignment. So a 20 point assignment is essentially worth twice as much as an 10 point assignment. If it is a summative assessment, in my mind, it should be given the same value and the only way to do that is by entering all summative assessments out of 100 points. What is your opinion of this. Am I correct?

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Dr. O'Connor
With standards based grading in place,should particpation in Phys Ed be assessed? or should it be reported as "behavior"? with cognitive and skills being assessed and reported? Thank you

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Hi Ken,
Remember me? The pain on your Pearson Chat session.

I notice on your WHAT'S NEW tab you have the following description for Calculating standards from assignment window. Below the photo is the description:

Calculate Assignment Scores from Linked Standards
With PowerTeacher 2.3, when a standard or group of standards are linked to an assignment, the teacher can now have the assignment score auto-calculate based on each individual student's performance on the underlying standards.
Which is the opposite of calculating to standards. BUT it IS what we at Pattonville are looking for. Maybe together we could get Pearson to tell us how to do this.
Again, as always, appreciation all you do for education and student achievement. Beth :-)

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Question

I am leading a series of weekly study sessions on transforming the grading system for our district’s instructional leaders. We have been using readings and video clips from several experts. Yesterday was our fourth session. Based on previous discussions, the group appeared to have agreed that grades should reflect what students know and nothing else. However, after watching a You Tube video opposing assigning grades to homework, one administrator remarked that the expert was a “nut.” In the ensuing discussion it came out that the majority of the group believed (1) that homework promoted becoming responsible and was a necessary life preparation skill, (2) that if students put in the effort to do work, they should receive a grade for it, and they expected to receive one, and (3) that without a grade, they would not do the homework which was seen as a necessary part of practice. Can you suggest a method or questions I could use to create cognitive dissonance and get these folks to examine their engrained beliefs about grading and consider why they might need to abandon some of them?

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Question

My son is in 4th grade, and is a VERY good student. Recently he forgot about 2 assignments that were worth 100 points each. He was reminded of them by his teacher, yet forgot to have us sign that he did the homework,which is why he couldnt turn it in. After 3 days he was given a 0/100. I found this out by checking his grades online. My son was in the wrong, and I recognize this- but did he deserve a 0/100? he did do the assignment, yet turned it in 3 days late. He failed the assignment, I will back the teacher and the policy. But why give him a ZERO for doing the work? I would think a 50/100 would suffice the situation, or a 0/100 if it's not done at all.

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Question

How do you weight grades on a 4 pt scale? We want to make assessments worth 80& of the grade

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Question

When I give my students the opportunity to rewrite a test, is it recommended to use the best
grade between the two, the most current grade, or to take the average between the two.

Thanks!

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Question

Hello Ken,

Some teachers at our school are currently working with tiered assessments for standards-based grading. In other words, teachers are dividing assessments into three levels from 2.0-4.0 per the recommendation of Dr. Marzano in his book over Formative Assessment & Standards-Based Grading. The question has arisen, what if a student bombs or leaves blank 2.0 content area on the test but masters the 3.0 content area on the test. Do we give students the 3.0 score? How do you respond to a teacher who doesn't want to give the student a score of 3.0 because they didn't successfully complete the 2.0 section of the assessment? I estimate this only happens on limited occassions but still wanted to ask for clarity.

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Question

Ken - we do not give percentages on our elementary report cards and our teachers are
not marking their assignments with marks but against the outcomes of our curriculum.
We have a parent asking for percentages to be given her at the interview tomorrow.
What would you say to the parent?

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Question

Why doesn't my child have percentages on her report card? What does this new report card
tell me?

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Question

Hello Ken, this question/topic recently came up in math discussions at our school:

Given the expectation that students in higher level math classes need to leave answers a given way (we ask them to leave all answers as simplified radicals or simplified improper fractions if they are not integer answers), how do we hold them accountable for this with standards based grading if there is not a grade-level standard that states answers must be given a certain way?

"In other words, we ask algebra students to leave answers as simplified improper fractions, rather than mixed numbers (leaving an answer as 9/2 instead of 4 ½)." While the answers are the same, success in higher math classes depends on their ability to work with improper fractions. How do we hold them accountable for giving the answer in the correct format using standards based grading?

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Question

How well does this concept apply to physical education classes? I am disappointed by the conception that in PE "if you show up, then you pass" and I fear our students don't have clear targets for their physical growth. Do you know of anyone who is doing this? Do you know of any standards for PE? Any help would be great. Thanks!

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Question

Ken,
I am principal at a high school that is in year 1 of a three-year plan to move to competency grading. Homework now is not part of a student's grade so we are seeing a drop in some student's course grades. I am telling my teachers this is a natural part of the growth process since for several years, homework has been part of a student's grade and thus can artificially inflate what the student actually knows. Please let me know if what I am telling them is accurate. Do you have any statistics relating to a dip in GPA until the students finally get the fact that their scores will now be based on what they can demonstrate on a summative assessment, and not necessarily how compliant they were in doing homework? I really appreciate your insight. I don't want my teachers to get discouraged.

Janet

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Question

Hi Ken,
In Alberta, in any gien subject area, we have Specific Objectives(SOs) (50-100 of them) that fall under General Objectives(GOs)(4 to 5 of them). When reporting to parents should I select the most important of the SOs OR filter/average the SOs into their respective GOs and report on the GOs?

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Question

Is allowing students to retake missed science laboratory activities/assignments advised - even if the department policy is to give the students a zero?

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Hi Ken I took a test and all of the questions are of equal weight. There are 39
questions and I think I missed 10 or 6 is my score a C ?

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Should I grade on a curve...High school?

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Can a school change its grading policy mid-year without telling the students at the beginning of the year that there will be a change?

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Hi there,

Do you know if there are any officiale "rules"/guidelines for retaking regular test (like math/science etc)in schools in Ontario. What happens if half the class received C's and D's and there are even a few failed tests, who if any should redo the test and how should a new test be graded?

retest or not

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We are implementing Standards Based Grading in our building. What resources can you point us to or information can you give us on grading in Physical Education? Our belief is to grade our students on their effort, rather than their proficiency in skills, at this level. We want them to enjoy physical fitness and learn what it is about. Do you have any guidance for us?
Thanks!

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Question

I took a math test with 24 questions and i miss 3. What do I make???

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We are interested in separating academic grades from non-academic grades and are looking for some samples. Do know of some schools that have this as part of their grade card that we could use as a model?

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Hello Ken,

The four middle level buildings in our district (grades 6-9) recently collaborated on grading fix #2, don't reduce marks on "work" submitted late; provide support for the learner. The following four questions is a sample of some of the curiosity generated by the over 200 participants in attendance. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.

1. What should we do about students who are satisfied with a lower grade even when they have potential for higher scores?

2. How do we prevent students from falling behind with new concepts because they are still working on "late" work?

3. Can Ken O'Connor direct us to a research article that clearly shows parents prefer grade information in which academics and non-academics are separated?

4. How do I address the issue of homework tonight that is due tomorrow in order for tomorrow's lesson to make sense (example: pre-lab activities for a lab tomorrow)?

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What does it mean when my child is pulling scores of 110 in AP classes in a public school rated a 5 out of ten stars. Will the AP courses be more rigorous in a school rated a ten out of ten?

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IF THERE ARE 24 POSSIBLE AND I MISS 6 WHAT IS MY GRADE

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A tiny private girls' high school I do some work for this year adopted a "work ethics" grade rather than the old method of cutting academic grades for behavior problems. Now they have a question... one student if "failing" on the work ethics grade (cutting classes and other behavior violations). The principal is not sure what the "consequences" should be for failing work ethics...?

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what percent of a final grade of a student should have a rubric

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What is your reaction to Wormeli's article, Redos and Retakes Done Right"?

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Across the subject areas, many of us as secondary teachers are learning a great deal about connecting evaluative best practice with our teaching, whatever the subject area, and are making real progress with the connections between teaching and assessment for learning. Where this sometimes seems to break down, however, has to do with summative instruments. In other words, despite all of the new stuff people are embedding in terms of assessment of, and and for, when they get to final summative unit tests, exams, etc., we seem to sometimes return to a '1954 - style' instrument that does not reflect our Differentiated Instruction - influenced approach in every aspect of the teaching process before that point. Here's my question: is it appropriate to design summative instruments with 'tiered choice options' (e.g. "Choose two questions from the Level One section, two questions from the Level Two section..." etc.), or is that 'cheating'? I see no reason why what we're learning about effective assessment has to 'stop' at the summative stage, and return to older, less flexible instrument that do not reflect current best practice. Any help you can give would be appreciated.

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Question

On a report "card", should half points be included in the scoring scale?
4.0,3.5,3.0, etc.

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Question

Ken,

Wondering if you could define, in a sentence or two, just what is proficiency-based or standards-based education? I'm part of a team of teachers at my high school in Oregon who are piloting standards-based instruction this year. (We represent a variety of disciplines, and we read your "15 Fixes" text as part of our summer preparation.) We're approaching parent-teacher conferences and are trying to create a "frequently asked questions" handout about standards-based instruction. Trouble is, finding a succinct definition is not easy. Can you offer any suggestions?

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Question

How should a middle school be balancing the assignments that are weighted in a given course? For example, if 20% of a course grade only has one assignment and it is 2 points only and a child gets 1/2 or 50%...that has a huge impact on the overall grade. It also has a big impact if the student gets 0/2 or 2/2.

What is a good guideline of how often grades within a section of a course should be given over a semester? For example in the quizzes and test section...how many and how often should they be given? Is it more "fair" and accurate to given them spaced out over the semester vs. a bunch here and a few here?

How much should a final exam be weighted in a middle school course?

What is an appropriate guideline for a balance with group and individual projects in middle school?

Should self-assessments be graded and included? What about assessments done by peers for group projects?

How about giving out points for doing things like turning in a signed syllabus or other things that are not actually related to the course content?



What about the practice of "throwing out" one or two lowest grades?

Thanks!

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How fair is it when a 5th grade teacher gives a test of 6 questions and if you miss one you get a "C" there is no "B" and you have to get them all right to get an "A"

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This year our school has moved to a grading system where 50% of the grade is Achievement (exit slips, projects, lab reports, formative assessments, quizzes, unit tests, and in-class/homework standards-based assignments) and 50% of the grade is Involvement (homework, notebook, binder, folder, formative assessments, class work, class participation/effort, current events, and Compass lab). The issue which arose this past grading period is that teachers are using points value for assignments, but are not keeping the points equal for achievement/involvement, so ultimately one category may have substantially higher weighted value than the other category. For example 14 assignments, 964 point value for Achievement; 6 assignments, 190 point value for Involvement. So, if a student turns in an assignment late and receives a zero the overall effect on the grade is substantial. What are your thoughts on this grading methodology?

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Question

I was really interested in moving my grading towards a 4 point scale instead of the 100 point scale. How do I describe a 4 versus a 3 to a students with respect to an outcome. What should I put on a course outline to parents so that they know how to interpret the 1, 2, 3 or 4?

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How do I, politely, suggest this material, or even bring up the subject of GRADING FOR LEARNING at a Christian School that has a policy to give ZEROS for late work?
Problem: being labeled the 'problem' mom.
Problem: would like to work at the school someday because my children are in it!

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Question

14 question on a test I missed 4 what is my grade

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Question

i took a college test with 25 questions, 4 questions were incorrect/ or missed what would my grade be on that test

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We are currently working to establish a grading policy in our district and have noted drastic differences among teachers and subjects in the number of grades assigned per grading period. What would you consider to be the minimal number of grades to assign per nine weeks? Also, what would you recommend as an optimal number of grades per each nine weeks to provide a true perspective of learning for students?

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Question

Recently my school board adopted a newly created grading policy in for all elementary students--A, B, C, and I (Incomplete). I am a first grade teacher in Wisconsin. Please recommend an elementary school using letter grades in all subjects to report student progress. I have been searching and have yet to find one.

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Question

With standards based grading at the high school level, what is your opinion re: allowing things to be retaken? What about for AP classes? Should other types of things be used to assess learning beyond tests/quizzes?
Thank you.

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Question

I am a Special Education teacher at a rural Michigan high school in the midst of my 11th year. As a staff we have referenced your book many times and are trying to "fix" our grading practices by using your suggestions. Our current issue is the idea of no zeroes on homework/practice. We are being told that when a student does not turn an assignment in we are to record that in our online gradebook as "nhi" (not handed in). This equates to 50% which is a failing grade, but not a 0. While I struggle with this idea of no zeroes, I am willing to accept it and work with it. My issue is that the online grading program we currently use does not allow us to print detailed progress reports without showing the percentage for each assignment. Our administration is telling us not to print these progress reports because we don't want to confuse parents by letting them know we are giving 50% credit for missing assignments. I think that not telling them is deceitful and goes against the whole idea of students and parents knowing and understanding how the students are being graded. What would you suggest we do?

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Question

My colleague and I are designing an assessment on our Ancient Egypt unit. You may recall they we have opted to use 3 designations of achievement: distinguished, proficient and not proficient. We are debating whether or not we need to provide opportunities to achieve "distinguished" for every section (fill-in, matching and essay) of the assessment. Should there be separate questions that would be considered an extension of learning and therefore "distinguished," or should every section have a built in opportunity for extending the response?

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Question

My daughter attended a local private high school not generally considered in the top tier but where up to 10 girls each year graduate to colleges such as UVA and Yale as lacrosse players. While there from 6th-10th grade she earned grades consistently in the low B high C range. She worked very hard. The homework load was intense. She could not take any honors or AP courses because entrance was predicated on receiving an A in the previous course. Interestingly, she usually received one C each report card and it would float around from class to class. She asked to transfer to public high school in her junior year. She said she would never get anywhere at that school. We agreed and she did exceedingly well in all AP and honors courses. She took six full academic courses and earned 4s on the AP History and AP Language Comp exam and her SAT scores were dramatically better than her PSAT scores when she took the test in March of her junior year. She even took pre cal 2 over the summer and now is doing fine in AP Calculus AB. Our 2 sons graduated from the same high school and had similar experiences except that they did not go to public school. They each refused to take the SAT more than once as they had lost all hope of gaining admission to schools this private school touted. My oldest had scored well enough on the ERB to qualify to take the SAT in 8th grade. His scores barely improved between then and his senior year. It was almost like their place at the school had been set the year they entered, 6th grade, and never was it to change. Do you think that is possible? My middle son earned a 4.0 his first year at the University of South Carolina and my oldest went to GWU as a legacy and did fine his first year too. I thought private school was supposed to help one's college chances but I think if you are below the 50% mark in the class your chances are worse than good students taking APs in public high school. In short grade seem to be at the bottom of all of this. Someone has to take up the bottom at a private school. I really think our private school had some sort of grading scheme that favors students who have been at the school since early grade school and the children of very wealthy families. I wish there had been some way to know this in advance.

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Question

I am a middle school math teacher, and my daughter is a ninth grader in the same district. She is currently taking Honors English 2 and recently received a "50" for not getting her progress report signed until the third day. For the record, she has never turned in anything late before this. She is an A student, an athlete, and has earned recognition at the district and state levels for her academic achievements. She was very upset by the impact this grade had on her average in the class even though it was only by 1 point. By our calculation she will now end up with a 92% for the quarter. (93%=A in our district)
I contacted the teacher who said it was a late "assignment." I met with the principal who said that he didn't normally support these types of grades, but that the grade would remain on her record. I contacted the school district superintendent who said that he had no major problem with this grading practice as long as it wasn't counted in a significant way. (A to B not significant...really?) I have been teaching for twenty years, and I am dumbfounded by this experience. What is your opinion?

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Question

Greetings,

Do you have any research or input with regards to the impact of having an honor roll at the elementary level on student learning?
We are in the process of piloting a new report card that separates achievement on standards from behaviors. We are trying to arrive at how to address traditional honor roll based on grades. Your input and any research about this would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

Kathy Goddard

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Question

Our school division has recently begun the process of moving to outcomes based
reporting. We have a new report card and are using powerschool to report grades to
parents. Administration requires us to enter grades in all subjects in a K-4 school
every two weeks beginning September 15. Teachers feeling are that this is too soon to
begin reporting meaningful assessment and that every two weeks in non core subjects
is difficult to keep up with. When you only have an art or health lesson once per week,
some projects can take a month. What are your thoughts on this?

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Question

Our daughter took an AP class. At the end of the semester she received a 79.9% = C+. 80% is a B-. The teacher refuses to round up despite our daughter demonstrating she mastered the content by passing the AP exam! We know a student who received an A in the class but did not pass the AP exam? Thanks to the teacher's grading, our daughter and we as parents are discouraged on taking any future AP courses for any of our children. The AP class took time away from other classes and lowered her gpa. We were told not to worry about it as it is weighted and colleges don't look closely at 9th grade? The principal met with us to appease us but nothing changes. Are we being unreasonable asking what she can do for 1 point or .1% and should we continue to pursue? We are open to other suggestions as well. Thanks.

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Question

Should summative assessments be weighted higher than formative
assignments/assessments?

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Hello: Ken My school had you visit several years ago. I was wondering your thoughts about online gradebooks where parents are able to see their students' averages in each class

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Dear Grade Doctor,

My daughter is a junior in high school and is taking chemistry. After attending one of your conferences, the Chemistry team at my hometown decided to use the following grading scale:
homework 0%
quiz 2%
tests 98%
Can you please educate me on the research they heard at your conferences that they said supports this decision?

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Question

Dear Mr. O'Conner,
After consulting with you in the summer of 2010, our fifth to eighth grade team devoted the 2010-2011 year to reworking our grading policy and developing a standards based report card which we are piloting this year.
We are a private school in the Caribbean. While most parents are supportive of the idea, a number have posed two questions that relate to their children making transitions to the mainland

1) What is the percentage of private schools in the US using standards based grading/report cards compared to public schools?

2) How do competitive universities look upon standards based report cards as opposed to traditional report cards? In other words would coming from a high school that uses standards based report cards that do not use single symbols for grades impact their acceptance to competitive universities.
Thank you,

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Question

When creating a rubric should it always go from the highest point value to the lowest? Or can it start with the lowest and go to the highest?
Thanks.

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My grade is an 83 I need a 90 what can I do?

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How do you convence teachers that missing assignments is a behavior and not a reflection of knowledge of content. We are transitioning into SBG in our building and district and teachers still want to use grades for leverage purposes. Any suggestions and where do you draw the line with missing assignments?

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Question

I am developing a grading rubric with four categories. The most total points a student can receive are 10. How do I designate points to each category?

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Question

Our school has graduated to becoming a standards based school. We are now starting to
use Power School Grade Book with standards. Placing summative assessments on the
grade book is clear to me. What I am fuzzy about is being asked to place formative and
possibly diagnostic assessments on the grade book. Diagnostic assessments are for
guidance not for grades. Formative assessments also guide differentiation and next steps
and are often in the format of logs, running records, anecdotal observations, etc. Please
advise me as to how I should proceed. I greatly appreciate your advice and expertise.

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Question

If i got an 80 on a formative and sumative grading scale and i got 4
100's what will that bring my grade to???Oh yea and the 80 is formative.

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How should LSS teachers grade student work in their classes?

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I am looking for research and information that will support the notion that teachers should accept late work. What rationale can I offer beyond, "The IRS takes late work" (relevance to the real world)?

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One of our state standards in science includes the ability to do calculations. How would one use standards based grading (4-3-2-1)to grade word problems that show a students' ability to do calculations. Is it when all questions are right equals a 4 or should there be some sort of a rubric that includes showing your work, elaboration, etc?
I feel that any standards bases grade that gets inputted to the grade book should have a rubric attached and everything else is not graded.

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Question

I took a 90 question test, I missed 7 questions. what wood my score be. and how many points is each question worth (1 point 2points etc) Thank You Billy Watters

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Question

A discussion about group work came up in a meeting I had today. Is it okay to give students individual marks on a group assignment and what is the best way of going about that? Having students decide their grades based on a formula does not seem like a good option, and we shouldn't give them a group mark. How do we assess their learning through the group without simply having them write a reflection on what they learned? I was wondering if you have any specific resources about group work and assessment that you can steer me towards?

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The Grading Committee at my school is looking at writing a retake/revision policy and are
looking for good models out there. We have the policies from Minnetonka (MN), Potsdam (NY)
and a few others. Are there others schools with clear retake policies that you could
recommend looking at?

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my daughter is in the 10th grade in ga she took two classes in math in which she got Ds in both which in turn they said she had to go to summer school to make up the classes. we are relocating back to newyork where the grades she recieved here is passing .will she still have to retake those classes even though the grading system is different

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I was a student who had severe test anxiety. I would do wonderful projects that applied what I learned at a deeper level rather than fill in a bubble sheets for tests. I'm worried about how many of our "right brained" students will do in a district that counts 90% of their grade based on test scores alone.

I have concerns about this because although many creative, out of the box thinkers are extrememly intelligent, they just do not test well.
I worry that many schools will not meet the needs of multiple intelligences by just giving test after test with re-take packets before re-doing yet another test. And what about differentiation? Where do students with special needs fit into the realm of test after test?

I wonder: Are we preparing our students for future jobs where their intuitive skills and creative problem solving skills will benefit their employer or will our students not know how to "think outside of the box" and problem solve on their own? Are we in fact, "killing the creativity" in students as Sir Ken Robinson suggests?

Are we creating robotic thinking students who memorize well and regurgitate information for a test? How about the students who just aren't good at memorization? We live in a "Google" age. There are many dates in history that we can simply look up in a matter of seconds. Why do we insist on testing intricate dates and theories?

After teaching for 22 years, I believe these are valid questions that need to be examined. What are your thoughts on the above comments?

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What if a teacher uses only the most recent grade as a student's grade? Even if that grade is an outlier? For example, a student gets all 4's and is proficient, but has a bad test and gets a 2. If that is the last test of the term, this teacher will give the student a 2. Is this how the system is supposed to work?

Thank You

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Question

Ken
we have teachers who are giving students unit tests and then not wanting to let the students have them. they do go over the tests but students are not allowed to take, copy, have the test. is this good assessment practice?

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Dear Ken,

I wonder if you have any materials that would help facilitate the work of a committee to design/re-deisgn report cards. What are the key questions? What processes have been effective in facilitating these discussions? What materials could the committee use to help move the work? Other considerations? Many thanks for any wisdom you can share!

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Dear Ken,

My daughter is a third grader and took a science test during the first week of April. She told me that she earned a 60%, which is a D. I am a high school teacher and a proponent of standards-based grading and have "How to Grade for Learning". I emailed her teacher two days ago, after reviewing my daughter's grades on the school's website. I explained my point of view, which is delicate for me as a teacher-parent, and asked her teacher if she could retake the test. My rationale was that I want my daughter to master the content AND to improve her mark, which accounts for 60% of her overall grade in Science. Her teacher's response was not a "yes" or "no", but that the test was five weeks ago and that she asked my daughter if she studied for the test and my daughter said "no." I told the teacher in my email that we studied together for that test. To top it all off, the questions that my daugher missed were matching, so if you miss one, you actually miss two. The teacher's advice was to start studying for the next test, which is one week from tomorrow and that they will go over the answers to the Chapter Review that the students did in class last week. She added that they will be playing review games for the rest of the week. I am fuming!! My daughter is an "A" student (for whatever that is really worth) and it appears that at best, she'll earn a "C" in Science. How else do you suggest that I communicate the importance of my request to help persuade the teacher to see the importance of allowing students to retake a test for mastery? Have I missed something here? By the way, this is a private school. I am seriously considering escalating my concern to the principal. Maybe I should send a proposal for them to hire me as a consultant to share your research. God help me in my own classroom to practice what I preach. HELP!!!

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Question

Hello Ken,
I am currently sitting on a committee trying to rewrite our schools report cards. We are currently trying to decide how many different qualifiers to use. We currently have a developing, meets and unable to assess. We are trying to decide if we should have one or two qualifiers above meets. We have had some very different and intense conversations and would like your opinion on if there should be two different qualifiers for above standards and if so should we also have two for below? Thanks for your support.

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Dear Ken,

I recently attended a 'mixer' at the local college that was designed to provide area high-school teachers some insight into their program as it relates to our subject area.

It didn't take long for our partners in education to get around to the most important message of the day; namely, the college applies late-mark penalties and zeros. Furthermore, students are not free to write tests when ever they want to. All of these 'behaviourial' issues have lulled Ontario high-school students where such dealings with late and missed assessments was, until recently, a sad reality into a false sense of security. The college folk also added that the practice of separating behaviour from academic performance has produced a student with poor work habits and as a direct result one who does not do particularly well at this post-secondary level.

So what does the college want? They want students who can turn things in on time and take challenges more so than math ability. In light of this, my question is: when will you undertake controlled scientific efforts to ascertain the value of your assessment suggestions? I suspect--no, I know--that your null hypothesis would not hold up to scrutiny. Just ask students, parents, teachers, administrators, employers and other stakeholders both here and abroad.

Sincerely,

Roger Curtis

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Dear Ken,

According to Daniel Pink, if the task is a 'simple, straight-forward task', 'carrot and stick tasks', 'non-algorithmic' and 'if you do this you will get that' tasks, rewards such as marks are great incentives. Would this not then speak in favour of having late-mark penalties? For those kids who can only deal with these sort of challenges and respond favourably to 'more is better', NOT having such a 'reward' or logical consequence, as I see it, goes against Pinks assertions.

If you are counting on 'intrinsic motivation' you'll be sorrily disappointed. Again, the work I referred you to in my presentation describes how even the most self-motivated people are less so motivated when it comes to hard subjects such as math.

Roger Curtis

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Hello Ken - Thank you for taking the time to read this email. I am a teacher in Grand Rapids, Michigan and will be listening to you speak at Forest Hills auditorium April 25th.
Recently, our administrator dictated to our staff that we are going to follow the 15 fixes next year at our school. Some staff members received 4-5 days of training. Others, like myself, only received a 3 hour long in-service (and a free copy of your book :). Though I agree with pretty much most of your fixes, I do have some questions.
1. Do you have a model of lesson plans/ tests/ projects to look at for ideas on how to implement a test-only grading system? ( I teach middle school Social Studies)
2. How do you incorporate learning styles into your tests so that all students strengths are recognized in the grading process?
3. Do you have any examples of tests that are differentiated?
4. I use the tests that came with our textbook. WE are now to re-write these tests, making one set that focuses only on the state GLCEs and another for re-takes. I believe that we will also need to write a 3rd test so that special education students have a test that accommodates their unique needs. Do you have any test frameworks or guidelines to follow to make a reliable and valid test? Most teachers are going to have to write their own ... and I, for one, do not want to spend so much time writing tests that my marriage falls apart and my children forget who I am ;)

I realize these are big questions and I appreciate any and all answers you can provide. Again, thank you for your time!!!
3.

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Question

Dear Ken,

Our jurisdiction has made a commitment to develop an outcomes based grading and reporting system over the course of the next 3-4 years using Powerschool. We are currently in the process of building the Grade One report card and we are looking for advice on what you would recommend for an equal difference scale that corresponds to a 4 point numeric rubric e.g. 4,3,2,1 with 4 representing a student who is proficient, and 1 representing a student with limited understanding. We are building into our gradebook set an 'NE' for 'not enough' evidence to replace what would have formerly been a 'zero' in most traditional classrooms. I can support the 5 point scale which mitigates the impact of the zero, but we have some that are so opposed to '0' that they are reluctant to include it in the rubric replacing it with an NE instead. My question then is how do we differentiate between a students who is genuinely limited in their achievement and one who has not submitted sufficient evidence to be able to make a determination of their achievement of the outcomes. My understanding is that in order for the powerschool gradebook to generate the scores from our alpha rubric that we have tied to the 4 point scale it has to be pushed through some cut scores that are in the bcakground,so teachers and parents never see them. That leaves me with two questions. Why are the percentage cut scores necessary if we are using a 4-5 point rubric and if they are necessary in order for the algorithm to generate the alpha score what should they look like?

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Question

Dear Ken,
We have been using your book as a basis for changing our grading and assessment policies in our district. One area we currently discussed was getting rid of extra credit or bonus (understanding how it does, indeed, inflate the grade). Several teachers had been doing something different, however.
1) instead of a "bonus question" on a summative, they would pose a higher-level, challenging question. For students who got the question correct they would receive a different point value for that assessment (52/52) Those who got it wrong would not be penalized but receive a different score (50/50).
2) Another teacher allows students to do additional work- like a challenging math problem or science experiment. This might be worth 5 points. Since it would not be required, it would go in the grade book as 5/5 points and those not completing it would be exempt.

So while not student would have a point value higher than the assigned points (or a percentage higher than 100), they would have different total points.

I would like to know your thoughts on this. Would you still view this as bonus or extra credit? Do you have any suggestions as to how we address this? Thank you.

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Hi Ken, I linked to your site from Damian Cooper's site. I'm a high
school spec ed teacher.

I think I've caught the assessment bug...in that I'm finding I want to
read and learn more and more about differentiated assessment
practices.

Can you recommend and good websites, books, resources, for someone who
wants to delve further and further into this topic?

Thanks,

Jeff Hall
Brampton, ON

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Dear Ken,

"There is a literacy issue at the (school board) administration level." This comment prefaced her message regarding the current state of assessment and evaluation in the province. As we speak, the Minister has ordered every board to submit its A & E document yet again for scrutiny.

In a personal discussion with this writer, the Minister responded to my message of disgruntlement that many teachers feel in our board owing to the cumbersome and non-spirit-compliant pyramid of intervention that has the net effect of frustrating the role of the teacher when it comes to determining the best course of action for students who hand in material late or not at all with a promise that "teachers will decide what teachers do."

My question is, given the Minister's continued abatement of the policies you have advocated can you supply me with empirical evidence that supports your point of view? And I do not mean mere 'references' to fellow employees (Stiggens), philosophy, or why formative assessment is good and other pontifications; rather, peer-reviewed, scientific journal sources that has compared what you advocate and its alternatives. In the meantime, Ontario's 'new direction' striks me as a fine example of the facts speaking for themselves.

Sincerely,

Roger Curtis

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Dear Ken,
I currently teach at a school where the students are obligated to write mid-year exams for all of the subjects that they take in January. The exams cover all of the topics from September to January and are worth anywhere from 10 - 20% of the student's overall mark. From what I know about ALF, midyear exams do not show what the student knows at the end of the course so the exam really should take place at the end of the year and may take the form of a final summative exam. Many of the teachers at my school would like to change the midyear exams to final exams, but I don't see this change being embraced anytime soon. I would like to show my administrators what an AFL guru says on the subject, in hopes to change the current practice for next year. Any information that you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

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We are working in Power Teacher and trying to get a handle on quality Gradebooks. We have people all over the place and many trying to move with the new philosophy of assessment but using traditional Gradebook setups and it’s not working. I have sent out your site and encouraged people to get ideas from you. One of the main issues is we have those who believe there must be a mark every 6 weeks in the Gradebook that shows up to parents in parent portal. The teachers who are more advanced in their assessment philosophy, feel that is not really necessary if all the formative and summative is showing up in parent portal. Parents and students, who communicate regularly with the teacher, especially if they have questions about marks, can see the patterns and have a good idea as to where a student is in his/her learning. Is this unreasonable? Or is it reasonable to expect all teachers to put a percentage every 6 weeks? I believe the only students and parents this is a problem for are those who are all over the map and have inconsistent performance and those parents who are concerned about every .5 of a percent in marks. Those parents and students need to be communicated with on a very regular basis to be sure they are in the know. How should a gradebook be set up? Do you have any samples you could share with us?

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Hi Ken,

I have been struggling with the idea of not allowing students to work collaboratively on
projects (for example). I know in authentic assessment we are not to give "group" marks,
but the students usually get so much from collaboration. Could the students get a "group
mark" for the actual project, but a collaborative mark based on their ability to work
together? Collaborative learning is a learning outcome in the course. The students would
have to provide reflection for this, as I would not always be supervising their work.

Thank you.

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Hi Ken,
My district is moving in the direction of SB grading (thanks in part to your presentation this fall!). We are looking closely at a 0-14 point grading scale. 14 = A+, 13 = A, 12 = A-, 11 = B+ and so on until 2 = E+ (59%-40%), 1 = E (39%-20%) and 0 = E (19%-0%). While our grading committee feels this looks good on paper we haven't found any infomation if it in fact works in practice. What are your thoughts on this grading scale?
Thanks for your time!

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I had a question regarding your 15 fixes. Let's take P.E. for an example. Some students, for a variety of reasons, naturally have a propensity to do better in some areas. This is evident to some degree in core courses, but in P.E. it really comes out. If we use a fixed standard for performance in those areas which is clear (e.g. the president's fitness standards, consistent with your fix number 8), how would you recommend adjusting for students who improve a drastic amount but do not meet the standard for advanced, in a world where we still are forced to assign letter grades? Should we even consider growth as a measure for grading, or should we just focus on the summative assessments of fitness testing? Thanks...

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Ken,
I am a high school teacher and began implementing standards-based grading in my Spanish classroom during last school year. My students who are involved in athletics routinely must have a "grade check" for their coaches weekly. Coaches want what is essentially a current summative "letter grade". What suggestions do you have as to how to report a "grade" at these intervals using standards-based grading? Thank you.

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I got an F on my last math test witch gave me a 65%D in his class how many points would i need to get my grade up to a 80%B ?

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My colleague and I have been using Standards Based Grading for a
number of years in our high school Spanish classes. We use the program
Easy Grade Pro which has a component that you can use specifically to
assess using Standards.

In our district traditionally each quarter must be weighed equally and
the semester exam may not exceed 20% of a student's grade. So
typically on the traditional side of the Easy Grade Pro gradebook,
teachers combine quarters 1 and 2 and then the semester exam to
calculate the students final grade (and their grades may be weighted
by category within each quarter grade as well).

In the past we have sort of "fudged" the gradebook to work with the
district system. We cut off scores at the quarter and recorded them
for grade reports. Then we transferred all of our 1st quarter grades
into the 2nd quarter section of the gradebook and then basically
ignored the original quarter 1 so that our grades were not going to be
averaged at the end, it was an ongoing grade based on the standards
with no real averaging involved. When students took the semester
exams, their summative reading grade was entered as a reading grade,
summative speaking grade was entered as a speaking grade, etc.

Grades were transparent in this way so students would always know what
their individual grades were in the categories of speaking, listening,
reading, writing and culture so that they could easily identify their
strengths and weaknesses on an on-going basis. They would also always
know exactly what their overall semester grade was at any given point
in time.

This year we were told that while we could use Standards Based
Grading, that we HAD to average quarter 1 with quarter 2 grades and by
no circumstance could we include 1st quarter grades into the 2 quarter
portion of the gradebook. We tried to explain that you can't average
standards and they really aren't starting over with an A at the
quarter, as many teachers/administrators believe. That 1st quarter
grade is really still there - it just isn't transparent at the moment
but will come back in at the end since it still exists!

When our principal asked the higher ups in the district the principal
was told that they'd never heard of not averaging grades and that it
was not part of Standards Based Grading and we were completely wrong
to grade by semester (we even think the entire year as an on-going
grade but for conformity-sake start over at the semester since they
get recorded as a separate grade from the 2nd semester grade anyway).
We disagree with the "higher ups" having read your book, Wormeli's as
well as articles/books by Marzano and feel that the problem is that
the district is just not well versed in how Standards Based Grading
really works and why averaging defeats the purpose of grading based on
standards. Are we completely off base? And if we are not - how can we
explain this to the "higher ups" so that they will understand our
position? Thanks!

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The school district I work in is moving toward standards-based reporting at the middle
school level next year. We have most teachers on board, but I have a few who are asking
for data about student achievement specifically related to standards-based grading. I
realize the tool in which you report out is just that, a tool and standards-based grading is
also about the other things you discuss in your books (i.e., retake policies, formative
assessment/feedback, etc.). Do you have any research or places to find research that
show student achievement rises as a result of standards-based reporting?

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This may be outside your area of expertise, but one of our local high school principals has adopted the following grading policy. If a teacher has not made actual contact with a parent 3 times, then he/she CANNOT fail the student. In essence, if parent answers phone and talks to teacher - kid fails. If parent ignores teacher contact - kid passes automatically. Is this legal?

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I am a K-6 Principal from Phx. AZ. Recently our district adopted the "fix" of not averaging homework with the subject area grade(s). We report progress regarding homework completion under the Study Skills section of the Report Card. In addition, we use a standards-based number to assess progress towards mastering the state standards.It is a site-based decision regarding the use of the zeros fix. Schools can use a 50 % cut-off or a 4-point scale. My staff reached consensus on a 50% cut-off. I am concerned that some of my intermediate teachers might not be implementing this with integrity.. My question is: the number of students earning the Principal's List (all A's) and Honor Roll (all A's and B's) has markedly decreased since we started implementing these fixes. In your opinion, what is/are the reason(s) for this decline?

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I am a mature student in nursing school. On my final exam, they were 90 questions but the teacher graded it out of 100 which caused me to end up with a 56.4% and failing.If she had graded it out of 90, I would have ended with a 58.63% and would have gotten an offer to rewrite the exam. Could you tell me why the instructor graded the exam out of 100%. I made an appt to meet with her ASAP do you think I am doing the right thing. Ps the final exam was 35% of my mark. I am looking for your reply. Thank you.

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Hello Ken!

Thank you so much for your work! I just finished "Repair Kit . . ."
and am starting "How to grade . . " I am a secondary mathematics
department chair and would like to move my own classes to a standards
bases system of grading and hopefully develop some interest and move others toward the same. I am fine creating skill based learning
targets, but I struggle when I'd like to create problem solving or
critical thinking the targets. It would be very helpful to see an
entire curriculum of High School learning targets for mathematics.
Could you please point me in the write direction for examples or more
instruction on creating mathematics learning targets?

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Are you aware of any schools in Indiana that have gone to outcomes-standards based report cards?

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It's clear that your system will result in grades that more accurately reflect student knowledge, but do you have any evidence that grading in this manner will actually increase student achievement?

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Ken, We are currently working through our Instructional Council the idea of standards based grading. A few easy questions:
1. Can you share with me a specific middle school who is using the standards based report card?
2. I agree with your approach, but I am realistic that this is a major cultural shift in thinking for American Education both for parents and teachers. What is the best way to unveil this shift: gradually, a few grade levels at a time or all at once?
3. Thomas Guskey talks about adding points to your grade for doing homework, but not penalizing for not doing your homework. For example, you do all your homework, add five points, most of the work 4 points, etc. Are you familiar with this and what are your thoughts?

Thanks for being a pioneer a la Marzano in effecting true change in education.

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My school has been very involved in implementing all of your fixes; however, I'm at a loss.

I teach Choir to grades 4-8 and have been told that I must grade the children. I have 300 students and see most of them only once a week for 45 minutes. Due to the amount of holidays at my school, this only amounts to eight times a reporting session. I have explained that I can't grade the students if I don't have enough contact time with the them. Listening to the children individually isn't a possibility.

The students love to sing and sing well. The choirs produce and the school is happy with the results. I don't want to give them product-based evaluation because the course is singing.

In the past, I have only ever had to give anecdotal comments on the report card.

Any advice?

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Hello, Ken.

Can you point me to an example of any junior and senior high schools currently using an outcomes-based report card?

Evan Dearden, Assistant Superintendent, Alberta

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Hi Ken

Our school board is working on revising procedures around assessment and evaluation and
I am interested in your thoughts around exams and exemptions.

Thank you!

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Can you please explain how an over-achieving student who "masters" all levels would be so inclined to do "more" or "better" in a specific class or task? For instance, when I received a 98%, I searched for a way to get 100% Do you feel the standards based system is better directed towards those who do not do well under the conventional percentage scoring? For some reason, I seem to recall those in my high school who constantly scored in the 95% or better all did well on AP tests and continued on to be very successful in college. I personally believe a standards based approach wasn't what would have motivated us because we had already exceeded the standards for our age in high school--that's why we were in AP classes. Have collgeges in the US gone to this paradigm? Has there been any retro-conversion to see where these students who get the 95% and above would fall in the stadards based paradigm? Thank you for your time.

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Hello Grade Doctor!

I am a parent of a child in a school district using your grading and reporting system.

I wonder if you could provide for us parents some insight to what your program is and what the learning advantages are for our children?

The district is putting something together, but it is not prepared for us to yet...and there seems to be a lot of questions and concerns that may be dispelled with some information.

Thank you so much! Cheryl

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We are in the process of discussing and changing our district philosophy on grading.
During one to our discussions about offering "second chances" on summative assessments
it was the question was asked "Is the any research on the effect over time of offering
second chances? This question was prefaced by the comment that in college students
wouldn't be offered a second chance. Is there any research? How would you answer this
question? Thanks very much.

Fred Rimmel

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Dear Grade Doctor,

My name is Mark Vagle and I teach a classroom assessment course at the University of Georgia. As part of a small group class discussion, we pose 5 questions for you.

1) How does (or should) one grade creativity?

2) In your opinion, is there an accurate way to account for participation in a single grade? (i.e., the grade that is on the report card)

3) For test essay questions, what percentage do you think should be devoted to content and what percentage devoted to grammar?

4) Have you found that students do quality work without grades being attached to the assignment?

5) Do you think homework should be used more for summative or formative purposes? If it's formative, would you suggest it be graded?

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Ken,
In making the transition to separate grades from behaviour, what schools or districts are
reporting these separately and what, if any, feedback to they have from post-secondary
institutions? I've heard higher education is looking at character in addition to achievement
but don't have any examples.

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Hi Ken,
Our school division is in the process of 'chewing' on a Grading and Reporting policy for the year with plans to begin implementation next fall. One of the areas that schools are struggling with is final exams and the 'doing away with' of recommends. what advice would you have to offer in this area and is there any research that could support us in this area?

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What percentage of a student's grade do you recommend be based on
summative assessments?

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Ken,

I am disappointed that my earlier questions have been removed from your website or, at the very least, seem impossible to find. Could it be that you have found the evidence I have presented is to difficult to refute? I would still love to read your reactions to the the data I sent to you in the form of an electronic presentation.

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There is a group of us working on your 15 fixes in our school; we participated in your Webinar recently. I
think it's going well but we're having some difficulty with the number crunching aspect and need more guidance
there.

If we're using a 6 point scale in our English classes, how to we justify a percentage at the end? We did get
together and came up with a 6+ = 98%, a 6 = 90%, a 5+ = 83%, 5 = 78% etc... If not using a 6 point scale, is
it appropriate to look at the percentage earned on the summative assessments when determining the final mark?

In English, I find that mode is more feasible, while in teaching Social Studies, median seems the way to go
due to large number of content based outcomes. Is it better to use median or mode when determining marks?

Also, one source of confusion is our do we set our "bins". In English we've separated assessments according
to standards: writing, reading, and oral language. Each bin counts for a different percentage of the course:
60-30-10. Is this appropriate?

We appreciate any assistance you can provide.

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Pleasen try to explain me why is important "Don’t include group scores in grades; use only individual
achievement evidence"

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Dr. O'Connor,
Please outline the "fixes" that should be applied to honestly, accurately, and gracefully grade and report progress for students who qualify for special education, Gifted Education, and/or English Language Learner services. Also, those who are in alternative learning centers/high schools. Thank you!

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Hi Ken,
If only summative assessment is counting on the final grade I am wondering what your
thoughts are about how the first assessment and the retake should be graded. 1. Should
they be averaged together? 2. Should only the last assessment count? or 3. Should the
student only be allowed to score a certain % (lets say 80%)?
My son is in middle school and his teachers have told him he can only retake a test IF he
scores below 80%. Then he may only achieve an 80% no matter what he actually gets. This
seems contrary to showing the student's actual achievement.
Thanks in advance for your insight.
Michele

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Hi Ken,
I have been asked to find articles/books/internet sites that would explain why marks for participation should not be given. I have your book "15 Fixes" and the cached webinars from last fall, here in Alberta, but I am wondering if you could provide me with more resources. I know they are there, but I just can't seem to find them when I need them.

Thank you for your help.

MJ

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Please provide me with information and samples of current, best practice grade reports for
7-12 physical education. Thank you very much!

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Hi Ken,

Thanks so much for your work in the area of assessment. I am a coordinator of schools and learning in Prairie Spirit School Division in Saskatchewan. Interesting buzz on the radio these days around school divisions removing zeros and allowing kids to get away with plagiarism...you are being quoted (see below). ALso - articles in recent Globe and Mail around Ontario returning to allowing zeros - can you comment on a. whether that is actually the direction Ontario is moving? b. your thoughts/comments around that?

Similar approach overturned in Ont.
Officials in Ontario took a similar approach to student evaluations in 1999, but there has been a reversal this year. Many schoolteachers came to see the approach as unfair.

In effect, it penalizes students who do their own work on time and accurately, said Ken Coran, president and CEO of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation.

"So you've got some students who are adhering to timelines and they're meeting those and in fact they were penalized for the others that weren't doing their work on time," Coran said.

Helen Horsman, an assistant deputy minister of Saskatchewan's Education Ministry, said she couldn't say how many of the province's 27 other school divisions are taking the same approach towards plagiarism and tardiness.

"We don't know that kind of detail," she said.

Ken O'Connor, an expert in educational assessment, said he found it odd the province would unveil a standardized high school curriculum for 2010, yet not have a standardized way of evaluating students.

"If you don't know that an 83 per cent or an A means roughly the same thing in Regina and Saskatoon and Moose Jaw, then it really is, it seems to me, a pointless exercise," O'Connor said.



Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2010/09/26/sask-report-cards-no-docking-marks.html#ixzz10lmfgRlV

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Love your books Ken! I worked in Hawaii and was lucky enough to have been there when we transitioned to standards based grading and the GLOS. The impact it had was amazing and I am a firm believer in such practice now! I now work in Idaho and am helping my administrator with a grading policy for students who are special needs. What do you recommend in grading such students, especially those working on a modified set of standards, i.e. officially a 3rd grader but working on 2nd grade standards. What should the report card reflect to be fair and legal?

Thank you in advance for your time.

Andrea

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Starting to implementing standards based grading...teachers are concerned about too many "data points/standards to measure" and the sacrifice of assessment taking up teaching time. Any advice on how to present this in a new light, articles that specifically address the imporance of using assessments to determine student progress toward standards.

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Dear Ken,

If you haven't seen it, here's an article from the August 25th edition of the Toronto Star. My question follows the content.

Province gets tough on students’ late assignments

August 25, 2010
Amy Dempsey

Staff Reporter

Students across Ontario will face tougher penalties for missing deadlines when they return to school this fall.

New guidelines from the Ontario Ministry of Education will allow teachers to hand out zeros to students who don’t submit assignments on time — a policy previously discouraged in many school boards.

“It doesn’t mean that teachers are going to give zeros all the time,” said Ken Coran, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation. “It means this is now one strategy that can be used to try and improve the students’ behaviour, work habits and achievement.”

Coran said the new guidelines will correct inconsistencies in the way students are evaluated across the province.

“Some school boards were saying you can’t give a mark of zero, you can’t deduct marks for late assignments. And seemingly others were (giving zeros).”

Until now, handing in a late assignment would have had an impact on the work habit component of a student’s report card, but not necessarily on the student’s academic grade. A 1999 directive from the Ministry of Education said teachers should separate students’ work from their behaviour.

Oksana Holadyk, who teaches summer school at Bishop Ryan Catholic Secondary School in Hamilton, said she agrees with the new policy.

“As a teacher, if I do not penalize a student who hands in their work late then I am assuming a role as enabler for bad habits in school,” she said. “These bad habits will certainly not stop when the student enters the working world.”

But Jad, 15, a student at Notre Dame Catholic Secondary School in Ajax, said it’s already tough enough to get good grades.

“Some teachers are different than other teachers,” he said. “But usually if you hand in a late assignment it’s a zero.”

Ray, a grade 11 student at Rick Hansen Secondary School in Mississauga, agreed and said he thinks teachers should go easier on students.

“I think it’s a bit harsh for students. Maybe that’s okay in university, but not high school.”

My question is: Given the reversal of Ministry policy regarding assessment and evaluation, can this not be seen as failure of your recommendations regarding late policies, zeros, academic theft and the like?

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Good day Ken. I'm the co-author of the book, What's Wrong With Our Schools, that several readers of your website have recommended you read. I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that our book was published by a libertarian think tank. The publisher is actually Rowman & Littlefield Education and they publish books on education from a wide variety of perspectives. I'm currently a high school teacher while my co-authors are education professors at the University of Manitoba. If your local Chapters store doesn't currently have the book in stock, you can ask them to order it in or order online through Chapters or Amazon. Plus, you have the option of ordering directly from our publisher at www.rowmaneducation.com

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Hello Ken,
Our school district is taking the first steps toward implementing the ideas presented in your book -the 15 fixes. A very small group of us completed a book study and are now prepared to share and teach these ideas to the rest of the staff. I was hoping you could offer some good advice as to how to respond to those who are resistant to change. Just from sharing what we have been reading, I have heard comments such as
1. "We are an excellent rated school, why do we need to fix anything?"
2. "How will I get some of my students to complete their homework if they know there will be no grades or no penalties for late work?"
3. "So will everyone be getting A's if we continually allow them to redo their work?'

I know the staff members will present me with some difficult questions, especially those reluctant to change. I could use a few motivational and supportive ideas to share with my coworkers. Finally, on one of your comments, you posted North Canton, Ohio as one school in Ohio that follows your guidelines. Are you aware of any others in Ohio that I could contact? Thank you for your time.

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I recently read your titled " How To Grade for Learning". I think there are some valid
points but you seem so committed to your cause I think you might be loosing touch
with reality. Might I suggest to you reading "What's Wrong With Our Schools". I found
this book more carefully though out in terms of implications for new fad educational
fixes. The authors offer real commonsense approaches to important education matters.
Were / Are you also a strong advacate of Whole Language over the traditional
Phonics approach.?

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My question to you is this. How can you continue to support the idea of not giving zeros, late penalty mark exclusion, failing to provide extra credit opportunities that count for grades, ignoring the real-world consequences of plagiarism, and more in light of recent trends in Canadian productivity, the acknowledged failure of No Child Left Behind, University upheaval with respect to grading in Canada and policies that do not resemble your recommendations employed around the world? As evidence and for your consideration I have accumulated much evidence in the form of an electronic presentation which I will email separately.

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When Dallas (Oregon) School District recently redesigned our assessment policies and practices, we were heavily infoluenced by your writing and your presentation at the Solution Tree Assessment Summit in Atlanta (2008). Now we are grappling with a problem that threatens to derail us:

Many parents and students have questioned our decision to allow "retakes" of assessments, especially as we've placed no limit on the number of times a student can retake an assessment (until the semester ends). Do you have any suggestions about how we should handle the retake issue?

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How can I apply in a class the fix 6 by ken O'Connor "don't include groups scores in grades; use only individual achievement evidence"

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As assistant superintendent in a Mississippi school district of about 4,000 students, I have been directed by the superintendent and school board to research the negatives and positives of moving from a 7 point grading scale that highly resembles a bell curve to a 10 point grading scale (90-100 = A; 80-89 = B; 70-79 = C; 65-69 = D). After speaking to the registrar office of several junior colleges and universities, I have been advised by the registrars that a 10 point scale is best for our students - especially when it comes to competing for scholarships. To date 110 out of 152 school districts in Mississippi have moved to a 10 point scale. What is your take on moving to a 10 point scale? Are you against it or for it, or is it as simple as that?

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Several from my school heard you speak at the 2003 EARCOS conference in Bangkok, and you radically changed our thinking. After all these years our school is finally ready to implement a new assessment and grading philosophy. For our teacher training next school year, we have been considering two of your books-- How to Grade for Learning and 15 Fixes for Broken grades. We are doing training for teachers in grades 6-12, and we use a small group book study format supplemented by an all-school in-service day. Which book would you recommend for the book study, and what resources would you recommend for the in-service day? Note: We can't afford to buy both books for all the staff.

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Hi Ken,
Could you explain to me why it is not good practice to average a student's grade even though you are not using zeros? What about putting more weight on certain assignments and tests?

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Hi Ken,
I am looking for resources on rubric for assessing to outcomes/standards. IN particular, I am looking for some quality research or examples that illustrate what "mastery" would look like. Htere is a lot of debate amongst some colleagues that mastery of an outcome should hit the highest levels of bloom's taxonomy. Any clarification/support you could offer, would be appreciated.

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How much of a final trimester grade or yearly grade should be from summative assignments and what percentage should come from formative? What is best practice for formative vs. summative? What does the current research state? Can you lead me to some of these articles/books? Thanks in advance.

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Good Mr. O'Connor, We are reading your book as a school and are hoping that you can provide us some clarification on what your definition of "effort" is in regards to developing a common grading practice. Thank you in advance, Susan Britton

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Mr. O Connor:

As a middle school PE teacher, I am trying to sort through how to get going on Stand. Based Grading. I like deaing with the standards and not the behaviors, dressing out, etc....If it is my departments philosophy to have our units last only 2 weeks before moving on to another unit, how am I to gather enough information to assess all 37 kids? Since my domain is physical performance, should I not take longer? What about the child who just has no skill, no matter how much I work with him? thank you so much for your vision on grading & assessment.

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After reading your book on the "15 Fixes", we've decided to rewrite our school plagiarism policy. The one we currently have is far too wordy and quite ineffective. Would you have any samples of effective policies? What do you think should be included in such a policy?

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It appears that elementary schools are taking the first step in our county to "fix the broken grade" syndrome and that middle schools and high schools are "fighting" the changes. However, it also appears that there is still a lot of subjectivity in assessing and interpreting the standards at many levels. For example, our county is changing the meaning of the standards every nine weeks via a rubric for the standards based report card. This makes reporting confusing to parents because one nine weeks students may earn a "3" for meeting expectations (based on the particular quarter's rubric) and the next nine weeks students could drop to a "2" which means "in progress" based on the newer/more difficult expectations for the same standard based next quarter's rubric. In order for the child to pass to the next grade they have to have a certain number of "3's" in the Language Arts and Math areas. It is very possible that if teachers have been grading via the rubric certain children have gotten "3's", but will not be able to "meet the expectations" the last nine weeks and end up with "twos" and possibly not earn enough "threes" for promotion. Do you have any suggestions/comments? Is it OK to assess using the standards and standards based report card with the last quarter rubric and assess with the "end in mind"? Also do you know of any states that have used standards based report cards in the past and have gone back to traditional report cards? Can you suggest a good example of a standards based report card format for middle school and high school that are being used in the United States? (PS.I am using your Repair kit book and How to Grade for Learning as texts in an assessment class I teach at the university level for teachers working on their Masters and specialist degrees. Both are thought provoking and encourage teachers to self reflect on their grading practices!)Thanks for setting up this web site and offering this opportunity to get some questions answered!

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Ken - How do I reach mastery learning at the 8th grade with 160 students? I focus only on summative assessments for mastery because it is overwhelming to do formatives to qualify for summatives. In the last 6 months, I have had 5 lunch periods without students needing to "redo work for mastery." I tried to reduce days, but cannot meet the needs in 2 or 3 days per week. I am working hard on formatives to prepare them for the summatives, but I am still having about 8-10 percent struggling below a 3. To me, if students need more time or practice, then mastery needs to be within the school schedule (a class period) day (not at lunch or after school) or it is viewed as punishment. Many of the teachers are hesitant to try standards-based grading because of the mastery component. Please advise.

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Our school division is currently looking at changing our report cards. Currently we report a percentage. Because our curriculum is outcomes based, I would like to see us move toward an outcomes based report card. My idea would be to get rid of percentages. There are people at the high school level that argue that we need the percents to report to universities for entrance and scholarships. Is this an accurate statement? What would a university do if they received an outcomes based report card without a percentage grade?

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Ref: Making the Grades
Hello,
I was wondering if you could clarify some points for me in regards to your article, Making the Grade.
1. "Eliminating the use of penalties for behaviors such as submitting required assessment evidence after due dates, absence, and academic dishonesty." Would you mind elaborating? Here is my thinking - cheating is against the law and there are penalties for breaking a law. How do such policies prepare anyone for life? If students aren't going to consider due dates, why should they consider being on time to school, going to school, etc.?
2. You are against giving a student a grade of zero for work not done. Do you apply this policy to homework as well? What is the alternative to a zero, assuming the student is still held accountable?
3. You stress the importance of commenting, "each standard could have space to record comments on student strengths, areas for improvement, or observations." If I grade using a detailed rubric and supplement that rubric with comments, is that not the same as what you suggest? I ask because another part of your article states, "well written generic descriptors become the basis for the scoring tools..." Should a rubric not be detailed? I always considered a detailed rubric as an excellent learning tool because it 1) breaks down the assignment and 2) directly shows the student his / her strengths and weaknesses.
4. You state that "quizzes, most homework, and most daily work have no place in grades." Why, then, should a student do homework? Why come to school? What is so challenging about having a student do homework? I agree with some points of your article, such as homework should be used as a supplement, done without parent aid, and done for a purpose. Why the strong opinion to ban such a tool?
I do not mean to be overly blunt in this email, I am just very interested in the logic behind what you write. Most importantly, is it possible for you to give me the name of a school district that follows your guidelines. I am most interested in contacting teachers to get their feedback on your system.
Thank you,
Susan Chiulli

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My children's school division has recently started using a reporting rubic instead of traditional letter or percentage grading. Although I am not opposed to this system necessarily, I am finding it difficult to determine where my children stand with their learning. I understand that this new assessment based system is probably less troubling for the children but I wonder how effective it is for their futures. Do you know of any universities/colleges that accept this system when applying to post secondary education? How do we know as parents where our children are falling behind in their learning if basically there can be a 30 – 40 % (if you equate it to the old percentage based marks) difference within the four options given to assess a child’s performance? I guess I am just trying to understand how this system helps them in the long run. An example another parent gave me was as follows:

If I have to have surgery and I have a choice between two doctors; Doctor 1 has graduated from Yale Sum Cum Laude with outstanding grades and doctor 2 has several letters saying what a great guy he is or how well he performs appendectomies, which would I choose to operate on the tumour on my spine?

I had a hard time arguing against this above scenario and I am looking for more information so as not to be uneducated about how this new system can help and/or hinder my children’s education? If you could provide feedback regarding this area of assessment based grading In would really appreciate it.



Thank you in advance,

Nicole

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I am currently working with school administration and Math department teachers at one high school who have a unique assessment practice. When students given back a marked test or quiz, they must schedule a 1:1 with the teacher to go over their corrections. If they do not show-up for the meeting, they receive a zero for the test or quiz.
This is a practice that I can not find written of in any research, or practiced in any other high school in the province. It has a significant and detrimental impact upon students and grades their behaviour, not achievement.

Have you come across this practice at any other school in Canada?

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Potsdam Central School in Potsdam New York is implementing their interpretation of your effective grading model with minimal positive results. Has Potsdam Central consulted personally with you on their new homework and grading policy? If not, would you be willing to critique their policy and point out areas where they might have gone astray?

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We are using your book as we go through the process of piloting a standards based report card. I am confused about how this all applies to the elementary school student. The growth for younger children isn't a huge amount. Parents want to see a percentage. How do you explain the subjectiveness of the grading system?

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My school is looking as revamping our grading policies and we are using your book as a guide. I teach Kinesiology (physical education)at the high school level, and have been trying to come up with a rubric that uses your grading philosophy. When I think I have something good I'm told to add more to it. I would like to know if you have any Physical education rubrics I could look at or could you take a look at the latest one that my department has designed? Thank you for your time.

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Hello,
I am an assistant professor at The University of Georgia and am currently (as in literally, right now) teaching a classroom assessment course. We have read and discussed your chapter in Ahead of the Curve and have two questions for you.
Question #1
How does/can a standards-based grading system work in middle and high schools, particularly given the large number of students each teacher assesses?
Question #2
How do you help parents understand how to make sense of what a standards-based grading system communicates when they are accustomed to a traditional A-F grading system?

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Your example Figure 5-3, page 109 "A Repair Kit for Grading" indicates that Bob is "basically the student who doesn't need a teacher,.... " (Statment) Question is; After Gwen "learns", and Roger and Pam are graded up to achieve equality of condition, what need is there for a teacher?

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Having been to your sessions in the past, I am just wondering if you can answer a question that was never answered. When a teacher has 200 students, and is expected to provide regular summative and formative feedback, how is this possible without having deadlines? Without giving a "0" The government requires us to give "grades" by eventually by a certain date. If left to June, our deadlines, which must be met can not. I find today we are getting so bogged down by research (which can be questioned) that is not practicle in the "real world". Our profession has changed so much in the last 5 years alone, so I don't believe anyone who has not taught FULL TIME in a real classroom in the last 5 years has any appreciation for the inpracticality of certain ideals vs realism. How do we deal with the ideal vs the real, in a world that gives deadlines and expects people to be accountable for their actions at least at some point?

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Having studied your book 15 Fixes for Broken grades, and having worked through parts of the professional development program, CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING, our team of middle school teachers (grades 5-8) are interested in rethinking our report cards so that they more clearly communicate information about student achievement as well as about important behaviors. Can you recommend appropriate Middle School report card formats.

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Mr. O'Connor,
Will you please help me find samples of high school standards-based report cards? I would appreciate it if you would help me find school districts who have adopted a new reporting format at the high school level. Thank you!

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We have spent the past yoear on the book study for 15 Fixes with our school based administrators. This fall we are concenttrating on the principles of grading in our schools. It has been the practice for our schools to administer comprehensive final exams that "cover" all the course content from the beginning of the term to the end of the term. As we examine grading and assessment and the old practice of comprehensive fial exams, can you give some guidance as to how the summative assessment could loo? Does it have to be on the entire course or on the outcome that was currently learned?

As well, some schools still use the pracice of recommendations from final exams. Any suggestions as to how to explain this is not a good assessment practice?

Any guidance or thoughts would be appreciated.

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Ken, there are a number of computer programs in the field claiming to be standards-based, but upon closer inspection don't measure up.

Do you have any recommendations for teachers looking to separate summative from formative assessment scores, do median averaging, and do conversions to the four-point scale?

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I am writing with a question about your 15 Fixes for Broken Grades. My school has recently adopted the theories of Assessment for Learning and we have done a book study in learning teams on the 15 fixes. It is now the end of the school year and we have reached an issue that we cannot seem to solve on our own. We do not give zeros for missed essential assignments, we give I's (incomplete) instead. We have six school days left of this school year and we have a few students who are carrying I's from previous marking periods. We as teachers have repeatedly asked the students to fulfill these I's but to no avail. Many of us have set this Wednesday or Friday as our cutoff point for the missing work. This gives us time, as teachers, to grade what needs to be graded and clear off our "To Do" lists before final exams.
I spoke to my Assistant School Leader (ASL) who is in charge of grading and curriculum to ask if I could give 50% for the missing assignments as of tomorrow (my cut off date). My rationalization is that a zero would artificially deflate the student's grade in an extreme way. The 50% would show that the student failed the assignment (as it was not done), but does not kill their chance of passing for the marking period. My ASL argued back that if the student did not do the work at all, they should receive a zero showing that they did not learn that target at all. If they are re-assessed on the material through the final exam, the teacher could then go back through the incomplete assignments and alter the scores based on the outcome of the matching sections on the final exam.
What are your thoughts on our situation? Your input is greatly appreciated.

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Ken, in my job I support high schools in all their school improvement efforts. I know the topic of grading and reporting practices rocks a high school teacher's world. What might you suggest as a FIRST approach to even just opening up this topic to high school teachers and administration?

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