Standards-Based Grading: Spotted In the Wild!
I was sent this link by commenter Frank N., thanks so much! It is an article from OrgeonLive.com about a few Portland area schools, and their mandated application of standards-based grading. The article has some really great stuff, and I’d recommend reading the whole thing, but here are some excerpts (check out the comments, if you’ve got the stomach for comments):
Known as “proficiency-based education,” the approach is generating controversy because students receive little to no credit for homework, attendance, classwork or extra credit — only for demonstrating knowledge of key material.
My reaction is: what else should kids be getting credit for? This excerpt takes a whole pile of heat in the article’s comments section by those who think kids need their faces shoved upon a grind stone, and held “accountable,” and made to meet deadlines. I feel like they have this newspaper-presses view of the world, and if you can’t meet a deadline you’ll be fired and living in a refridgerator box by the river.
Meeting deadlines and expectations is obviously important, there aren’t enough refrigerator boxes to go around. So make it one of your standards. It seems to me that this heavy-handed mandated standards-based grading in Oregon is suffering the same problems that any edu-fad suffers: When you make teachers do things they don’t want to try, or don’t see the motivation for, they suck at it. Then you get pissed parents, and everyone wants to blow everything up, give it all a new name, and do it all over again.
Implementing Standards-Based Grading is hard. You have to really think about how it will better serve your students. It DOES NOT always take the form of test re-takes. The article posits:
If they don’t prove proficient the first time, they can redo tests or projects until they get them right.
Really?! That’s what they’ve distilled out of the volumes of research and articles on SBG?! There’s much more to it than this. Can you guess the response from the teacher’s unions? Can you guess the response from parents who only care about grades?
Some teachers resent the extra work required to re-teach and re-test outside class. Many students prefer the traditional paths to good grades and balk at having to retake tests until they demonstrate knowledge of every skill.
As a teacher, I’d resent it too, if I didn’t want to do it! And students!?!?! Students not wanting to do extra work to get their slice of grading cake?! Surely you jest! (I’m livid right now, pacing, and nervously shaking) The aforementioned wronged students even made a facebook group about how much they hate it. There’s evidence for reversion for you. Kids spend less energy than it takes to swig a Mt. Dew to create a hate group about something that makes them have to do work – on facebook! Kids make notoriously good decisions online, so we should take this as grave contrarian evidence (is there a sarcasm HTML tag?)
And it finally comes out:
…agreed to return to using traditional letter grades on middle school progress reports instead of marking “proficient,” “highly proficient” and “not yet proficient.”
They made the cardinal sin of education reform. They removed A through F. We can debate the merits of a 5 tiered reporting system some other time, but how on Earth did they expect non-professional educators (parents) to accept a 3-level reporting system? Really, Oregon, you removed two levels of information reporting? Smooth. Let’s just start reporting our grades in French, and maybe the parents will love that too.
The article continues on to discuss various anecdotes, which is generally a shady way to support an argument. There’s the kid that loves it, the Mom with one kid for which SBG works and for the other which it doesn’t (he doesn’t want to re-take tests…)
What sense can we make of all of this hubbub, Basil?
- Standards-Based Grading is NOT simply allowing re-takes (CORNALLYHULKSMASHOREGON !!^%$#)
- Standards-Based Grading is a better way of interpreting the assessments/assignments you already use
- Don’t force change on teachers who don’t want it, you’ll always precipitate splinter hate groups of parents and teachers that will undermine the whole thing. People will only change their behavior in order to gain something. Prove that your kids are more responsible and better educated throught the implementation of SBG in your room first.
Feel free to comment, lots.
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10 thoughts on “Standards-Based Grading: Spotted In the Wild!”
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@ Shawn: Project-based learning has caused quite a bit of controversy, as can be expected. I don’t think it’s working all that great for math classes (I just can’t justify spending three weeks on area, no matter how good the project is. Fortunately, I’m at the middle school and we’re not full blown project based yet) In other areas, it’s working great. Teachers do less “sage on the stage” teaching – which forces kids to actually think about problems and learn how to figure some things out on their own. Heaven forbid!
Proficiency-based grading has revolutionized my classroom. And it’s easier, not harder, than the traditional method.
Proficiency-based grading is all the buzz right now in Oregon. I teach math at Saint Helens High School – just down the road from Scappoose High School, one of the schools mentioned in the article. We’ve heard rumors of what proficiency grading is, but what I am now learning is that it has so many forms; each school/department/class adopts a different and tweaks things in ways they seem fit.
I am in my MAT program and we recently had a discussion on proficiency-based grading. I walked away thinking, “man, that would be a ton of work to implement – and it would add a lot of retesting/grading.”
When I started reading your posts on standards-based grading (thanks to Dan Meyer for pointing me your way), I actually got excited about this type of education! I realize that proficiency can be shown without retesting students once a week. I can’t wait to implement some of your systems.
Many of my students come in for extra help, but usually it is to make sure the can complete one of the HW problems, that will ultimately be part of their grade. I would much rather have them coming in for help because they want to understand a concept.
Keep up the great work!
Neil:
Thank you so much for the comment. I agree with you entirely; I first thought that it would be impossible without putting in double my time (which would be 30 hours days…) Streamlining the process and incorporating it into my daily instructional strategies has really opened up my classroom. I’d love to hear about what you try, how it works, and what doesn’t.
Well done and thanks for the link (and the rage!) We’re going through a bit of this pain now in my district, and I’m simultaneously excited by the possibilities and worried about the implementation. Many teachers were making their own philosophical path towards great systems of formative assessment/SBG, but now many teachers are encountering a top-down “prescribed” system implemented via an online gradebook and I worry about the outcome. We’ll keep working at it. Dylan Wiliam has sage words of advice to say about why teachers need to come to assessment philosophy on their own rather than having it imposed upon them . . .
I thought it was pretty good article as far as these goes. This NY Times one missed the point entirely and made it seem like 4 = A, 3 = B, etc. It was nothing more than a name change. At least this one understood that SBG is based around criteria for proficiency.
At some point though one of these articles needs to realize it’s NOT ABOUT THE SYSTEM. All the system does is make a lot of good teaching practices easier or mandatory. The article should be something like, “Teachers have decided to communicate achievement in a more clear way, stop grading on curves, agree on what constitutes mastery, emphasize learning instead of compliance…..oh and they’re doing this standards-based grading thing to help them.”
What I liked about this article/comments is it was a good preview for every protest you’ll get. It’s a lesson in communication. Frankly I’ve really dropped the ball on parent communication.I haven’t received any blowback from that but that’s more because we as a school have never been good partners with our community. This is definitely one of the areas I need to work on.
Love your comments – can’t agree more. There are always going to be teachers who will resent being told to do anything that’s different from what they’ve been doing the past 20 years, no matter how good it is. Kids will also hate any sort of change at first. Our high school recently switched to project based learning and the kids there also created a facebook group about how much they hate it. Big surprise.
Mrs. A:
How has a building-wide implementation of project-based grading gone? That sounds intense.
The Portland schools article illustrates standards-based grading implemented on a building-wide level. Obviously, there was plenty of push back from the teachers and parents. I wonder how this contrasts with other school districts/buildings that have successfully piloted and maintained standards-based reporting? I’ve read a little bit about the Aurora, CO school district (http://www.aps.k12.co.us/family/grading/). As you mentioned, Shawn, any attempt at systemic change has the potential to cause an incredible amount of headaches if the right folks aren’t informed and on board from the onset.