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Chapter 1

EFFECTIVE GRADING IN A STANDARDS-BASED WORLD

This is the paradox of standards-based education: education systems around the world widely accept standards in theory. The official embrace of standards-based education has grown dramatically, from only a dozen states adopting standards to all fifty states, along with many education systems around the world, including Norway, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Chile, and Canada, to name a few (International Society for Technology in Education, 2015). While the standards certainly vary, including academic, technology, and teacher qualification standards, the principle of standards-based reform is global in scope.

There are surely differences regarding which standards to adopt, with much contention about the use of Common Core State Standards. Nevertheless, the central controversy involves which standards to adopt, not whether or not standards should be adopted. Despite the illusion of consensus about the value of academic standards, the reality is that standards in practice—particularly in the ways that teachers evaluate students—have been stubbornly indifferent to change. Education systems embracing 21st century standards with breathless enthusiasm continue to implement grading practices firmly rooted in the 19th century.

This chapter explores what standards mean for grading practices and policies, considers the advantages and criticisms of standards, and offers some practical advice about using standards to influence improved grading practices.

What Standards-Based Education Really Means

There are two common ways to evaluate students. We can compare their performance to other students, or we can compare their performance to an objective standard. The first method, comparing students to one another, makes sense when one must allocate a scarce resource, such as admission to highly selective colleges. However, this method makes no sense when the stakes are really high, such as landing an airliner or performing brain surgery. In these examples, it is not enough to merely be better than one’s peers. Rather, it is essential that the pilot and the surgeon meet a standard—our second way to evaluate students. The claim that an airline doesn’t crash as frequently as other airlines or that a hospital has fewer deaths than the hospital across town provides scant reassurance to passengers and patients. What the public cares about is not who beat whom but rather the degree of proficiency pilots and surgeons possess.

The essentials of standards are the same for students as for pilots and surgeons. When we compare students to one another, we have the worst of all possible worlds. This system regards students who have mastered standards as inadequate if it has assessed another student in the class as better. Worse yet, it labels students who have failed to master a standard as excellent, as long as they are superior to their peers.

Is the comparison of student performance to pilots and surgeons overwrought? Not if you consider the impact of student failure on health and social well-being. As Alliance for Excellent Education (2010) research indicates, students who fail in school have dramatically higher medical care costs, lower incomes, and disproportionate use of the criminal justice system. Failures in the cockpit and surgical suite not only affect the people directly involved but all of society. Similarly, failures in the classroom affect all of us.

Standards are a delusion if students are not evaluated on their proficiency. Despite the public embrace of standards since the 1990s, standards-based student evaluation has been slow to develop. While researching this book, I interviewed some of the most prominent international leaders in education reform. Most claim that although there are occasional exceptions, very few examples exist in classrooms or schools in which an entire education system backs up its rhetoric of standards with the reality of standards-based student evaluation.

What Makes Standards-Based Grading Different

Imagine that you are teaching your teenage son to drive. You have selected a deserted parking lot on a Sunday morning where very little could go wrong. You relinquish the driver’s seat and make sure that your seat belts are so tight that they almost constrict your breathing. As your teen driver lurches forward, you notice that most of the parking lot lampposts bear the scars of car paint. It appears that you are not the first person who thought that the parking lot would be a good training ground for new drivers.

There are two possible questions that you can consider. The first is, “Will my kid make fewer dents in the lampposts (and the family car) than the last dozen teenage drivers who were here?” That sort of thinking sets the bar dangerously low. The second question is, “What does my teenager need to do in order to become a safe and proficient driver?” This is what Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins (2013) might call an essential question. Essential questions are those that not only require merely a binary response but also a deep inquiry into the thought processes behind the question.

What do teenage drivers and academic standards have in common? Consider the case of Princeton University. This is home to a lot of very smart people, including Nobel Prize–winning faculty members and a student body that includes some of the most talented and intelligent young people the world has to offer. These students already know how to earn great marks in school. The reason they came to Princeton was not to accumulate more As on their transcripts but to engage in life-changing intellectual challenges. But even very smart people can make critical mistakes. Persuaded that Princetonians were getting by too easily, the university decided to limit the number of A grades to 35 percent of a class (Ad Hoc Committee to Review Policies Regarding Assessment and Grading, 2014). The idea that 65 percent of Princeton students were incapable of earning an A is mind-boggling. Nevertheless, this example is at the heart of what makes standards-based grading different. Grading based on the bell curve assumes that some people meet standards, very few people exceed the standards, and half of people fail to meet the standards. Standards-based grading, by contrast, allows any student—indeed, the vast majority of students—to meet academic standards as long they demonstrate proficiency in those standards.

The mirror image of the Princeton example is the case of students who receive honor roll grades but are unable to meet basic literacy requirements (Reeves, 2006a). These students are quiet and never speak out of turn or challenge a teacher and receive good grades as a reward, while teachers punish their more boisterous peers for challenging and engaging behaviors.

The fundamental characteristic of standards-based grading is that students are evaluated based on an objective measure of performance—don’t hit the lamppost; don’t plagiarize your senior thesis; and provide work that is, after much trial and error, a significant intellectual achievement when compared to objective criteria. The alternative is a stark contrast—it’s OK to hit the lamppost, but don’t hit it as frequently as the last student driving in this parking lot. It’s OK to plagiarize, as long as you don’t do it as much as the last student who got caught. Finally, your intellectual contributions don’t need to be thoughtful and creative, as long as they are not as thickheaded as the last thousand papers the professor has endured. While critics of standards-based grading complain that it sets the bar too low because too many students can succeed, precisely the opposite is true. It is comparative grading, typically based on the normal distribution, or bell curve.

Finally, to be fair to Princeton, it is noteworthy that the document cited previously explains that the university changed its grading policy back to allowing faculty determination of proficiency, not the bell curve, to determine student grades.

What the Critics Say

Standards, along with standards-based grading, are not without their critics. There are critics from both ends of the political spectrum who, while disagreeing on nearly every other element of education policy, are united in their condemnation of standards and standards-based grading. Two of the leading critics of standards are Diane Ravitch of New York University (http://dianeravitch.com) and Yong Zhao of the University of Oregon (http://zhaolearning.com).

Professor Ravitch is particularly critical of the relationship between standards and the misuse of standardized testing—the connection between corporate test vendors and standards-based accountability. She rightly contends that school reform has never been achieved through threats and intimidation and has offered devastating critiques of those who magnify the deficiencies of schools. But it is important to separate the argument from the implications. There is broad agreement among researchers that standardized testing—particularly when used in a high-stakes environment to threaten students and teachers—has been a grossly ineffective and an unreliable tool. In fact, it is counterproductive (Guskey, 2015).

When teachers are threatened with termination on the basis of standardized test results, the result is not necessarily an improvement in teaching and learning but a migration of teachers from low-performing systems to high-performing systems. This phenomenon leaves low-performing schools with a dearth of the best teachers and provides students who most need excellent instruction with an annual merry-go-round of new and inexperienced teachers, along with veterans who were unable to get a job elsewhere.

This does not deny the fact that there are excellent and dedicated teachers laboring in low-performing schools, but the overwhelming evidence is that these are the exceptions (Haycock & Crawford, 2008). The faculties and administrations of low-performing schools are largely populated by a revolving door of professionals who, no matter how dedicated, know that the performance of their school could doom their careers, and they seek to leave as soon as possible.

In essence, Ravitch’s criticisms of standards are not so much an objection to the establishment of academic standards but rather their ill-advised use for standardized testing and the resulting enrichment of test vendors.

A different criticism of standards comes from Zhao (2014), who contends that all standards represent a totalitarian influence on education. He not only objects to the Common Core and other versions of academic standards but to all standards. The elevation of literacy, for example, denies students the opportunity to pursue their interest in physical education or creative arts. Susan Ohanian (1999) joins Zhao in this general opposition.

Standards critics also include political groups who oppose any set of external standards as an imposition on local control, a term that varies widely in its implication. For some critics, a careful reading of the Tenth Amendment requires that powers not enumerated in the Constitution be reserved to the states (National Constitution Center, 2015). For others, local control means that all education requirements are the exclusive province of the local school board. For others, the same term implies that teachers rule the classroom domain and that they are best equipped to determine the curriculum, assessment, academic standards, and grading policies and practices for their classrooms.

Critics make strange bedfellows. It would be foolhardy to ignore these critics, however disparate their reasoning might be. Too often, discourse, especially political discourse, is conducted in an echo chamber in which we only consider the views of those with whom we agree, while ignoring differing opinions. The successful implementation of effective grading policies requires thoughtful and respectful engagement with critics, including all ends of the political spectrum, teachers, parents, and policymakers.

How to Separate Policy From Politics

How can we bridge the gap between the advocates and critics of standards? The first and most important consideration is to find common ground. In every education debate, it might be a good start to stipulate that those who disagree with us are neither evil nor indifferent to student needs. We can respect people of sincere goodwill who favor government intervention to support educational opportunities for all students as well as those who favor limited government and oppose any federal or state intrusion into school matters, no matter how well intentioned.

In such a politically charged environment, where is the common ground? You might find it on a Friday night at your local high school football, basketball, or volleyball game. Parents, teachers, administrators, and board members of wildly different political persuasions can agree on a few things, aside from the fact that their team is the best on the field. Where do we find common ground in athletics (or interscholastic competitions in science, music, art, debate, poetry, and many other fields)? Can we compare the judgments in athletics to those in standards-based grading? How do they compare? Again, the judgments must be FAST.

First, we agree that judgments must be fair. By fair, we mean that the same behavior merits the same reward or penalty. For example, when one team engages in flagrant rule violations, whether it is unnecessary roughness on the football field or going overtime in a speech competition, fair judgment requires that all competitors who engage in the same violation receive the same penalty. The histrionics of World Cup players notwithstanding, it is not the pleading of the players that determines the officials’ judgment but rather an objective view of the players’ conduct. The research in this book demonstrates that effective grading practices, particularly those based on standards, are more likely to be fair. Even the fiercest critics of standards might agree that fairness is a noble objective, even if it comes from different political perspectives.

Second, we agree the judgments must be accurate. By accurate we mean that assessments of student performance are based solely on the performance itself and not the heredity, wealth, or status of the student. In this book, I argue that standards-based grading is much more likely to be accurate than comparative grading. But even for people who disagree with that proposition, I hope that we can all agree that accuracy is a good thing.

Third, we agree that judgments must be specific. Under the bright lights of a Friday night game, the officials do not announce “Bad play!” or “Rule violation!” Rather, they state with specificity what the infraction was, such as “Offsides!” or “Illegal formation!” The specific imperative is hardly limited to athletic competitions. In fields as diverse as science and the creative arts, specificity is at the heart of encouraging improved performance.

Fourth, and lastly, we can agree that judgments must be timely. The requirement for timely judgments is inextricably linked to the requirement for specificity. With ambiguous rules, judgments would take the entire weekend. With specific rules, however, we must make judgments so the game ends before midnight. The fundamental reason for timely judgments is not the convenience of the observers or participants but rather the educational imperative that students use feedback to improve performance. If I know that I was offsides on the last play, I am less likely to make the same mistake on the next play.

These attempts to find common ground are not naïve. In the landmark study of negotiation, Getting to Yes (Fisher & Ury, 2011), even the most disputatious opponents can begin the process of negotiating an end to their quarrels when they first find common ground. It is true that the most hard-core opponents of civil conversation will not agree on these four principles. “What is fairness?” they might inquire. “It’s all in the eye of the beholder!” The possibility that some people will not engage in civil conversation does not absolve the rest of us from attempting rational engagement. The alternative, as grading controversies since well before the 21st century have shown, is gridlock. The adults involved in fierce advocacy never win, but students certainly lose.

How Standards Impact Grading

It doesn’t matter whether you are participating in the Common Core State Standards; state, provincial, or national standards; or standards established by your own school or local education system. The central issue in transforming policy into practice is not the standards’ authorship or source but rather their application to student performance as the basis for evaluation.

The impact of standards on grading practices includes the following three hallmarks.

1. Student performance is compared to objective standards: It is possible for every student in the class to earn a top mark and similarly possible for no students to achieve top marks. There is no requirement for a certain number of As, and there is no requirement for a certain number of students to perform below that level. The only criterion that matters is performance. For example, officers administering student driving tests are not required to issue passing or failing marks to a certain percentage of students every day. Instead, they compare the performance of their student drivers to objective standards.

2. The rationale behind student evaluations is clear: The essential question is not “What grade did I get?” but rather “How do I get to the next level of performance?” For example, I overheard two fifth-grade students who, in only their second week of school, were talking about their forthcoming report cards—two months away. The school uses a four-point scale to describe performance.

One student commented, “I’m OK with getting a 3, but I wish that they would tell me what I need to do to move to a 4.” It’s a fair challenge. In a standards-based grading system, the answer is crystal clear. In writing, for example, a student might say, “I earned a 3 because I wrote really good paragraphs that have clear topic sentences and supporting details. But if I want to earn a 4, I need to use more powerful vocabulary and have a stronger closing paragraph.” In mathematics, the student might say, “I earned a 2 because I got most of the answers right, but I really didn’t explain how I got them. I need to ask for help to get to the next level. Even though I think I know some of the answers, I’m not sure why they are right. I need to practice explaining my work.” In brief, whatever the level of the student, the key to effective standards-based grading, in practice, is that students can articulate their present level of learning and explain in their own words what they need to do in order to advance to the next level.

3. School- and district-level administrators model clear expectations for teachers, and teachers model clear expectations for students: For example, if they expect teachers to provide specific and timely feedback to students, then administrators must do the same after every formal and informal classroom observation. There must be no mystery about what a walkthrough or other observation means. Administrators must be clear about their criteria, for example, “This week, I’m going to be observing classrooms with a focus on feedback. In particular, I’m going to focus on the number of students who receive feedback from the teacher and, most importantly, the number of students who use that feedback to make immediate improvements in their performance.”

We do not have to agree on standards in order to embrace effective grading practices. The key to applying effective grading practices is not which standards you use but how you apply the standards that you choose to give fair, accurate, specific, and timely feedback to students.

The next chapter explores what the CCSS mean for grading.