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Preface

FINDING COMMON GROUND

Standards-based grading is one of the most controversial issues in 21st century education. The two sides in the debate can be contentious, even rancorous, challenging one another’s motives and concern for students. This book is not designed to tell the critics of standards-based grading that they are wrong. Rather, I attempt to seek common ground between the critics and advocates of standards-based grading to develop and promote the most effective grading practices.

So let’s step back from the brink and attempt a more rational dialogue with the critics of standards-based grading. I’m not one to back away from a vigorous debate on important issues, but this particular debate has gone off the rails from policy disagreements to destructive monologues. We can do better. Although standards-based grading is the logical accompaniment to any system that uses standards, there remains a wide gulf between the embrace of standards and the use of standards-based grading. The policy of standards-based grading is the reality in only a small fraction of districts. Although the practice is growing, the opposition is consistent and strong. What is missing in the debate between advocates and critics is a thoughtful dialogue about the strengths and weaknesses of standards-based grading.

To begin, let’s try to find some common ground. Before making the case for standards-based grading and explaining why it’s such a great idea, we should acknowledge the legitimate concerns that the critics—particularly parents—have about changes in grading practices that affect their children. For example, you might begin the conversation by asking the following five questions.

1. Can we all agree that grades should be fair? Two students with the same performance receive the same grade.

2. Can we all agree that grades should be accurate? The grade reflects the actual performance of the student.

3. Can we all agree that grades should be specific? Students and parents know exactly what is required for students to improve.

4. Can we all agree that grades should be timely? Students and parents receive information on student performance in sufficient time to make improvements.

5. Can we all agree that work ethic and personal responsibility are good ideas, even if we disagree about how to best achieve those goals? Some might believe that grading as a punishment system is effective, and others might believe that students respond best to constructive feedback.

Before turning another page of this book, engage in a brief conversation with a colleague who might be a skeptic about improvements in grading policy, and ask if you could find common ground on these five ideas. If so, you will have a much better opportunity to use this book as a vehicle for positive change in your school.

Skeptics and Cynics

I should distinguish between skeptics—resisters who demand evidence before accepting change—and cynics, for whom no amount of evidence is ever acceptable (Reeves, 2011b). In discussions of grading policies, skeptics often have sound reasons to doubt the claims of education reformers. The skeptics have seen one program after another accompanied by dubious research claims that show new ideas work miracles, only to find that the research was little more than a claim from a podium. Skeptics are the Galileos of education reform, demanding that evidence trump assertion, even when assertions are backed with authority. When it comes to grading policies, skeptics are asking the most reasonable of questions. Guskey (2002) suggests, “How’s my kid doing?”

Similarly, teachers who believe deeply in their responsibility to shape students into people of character and responsibility know well that the student who derives pleasure only from instant gratification is not their customer. Instead, it is the student who must learn to accept difficult feedback and appreciate the value of deferred gratification. If grading-reform advocates would begin with the premise that those who challenge their positions are skeptics—teachers who care about their profession and parents who care about their children—then they have a much better chance to engage in dialogue characterized by reason and respect rather than anger and defensiveness.

Not every opponent of grading reform is a skeptic, earnestly searching for evidence and reasonably challenging suggested changes to present practices. Some of them are cynics. The cynics and skeptics appear quite similar in their questioning of new practices, but the stark differences quickly emerge. Skeptics consider the evidence, while cynics ignore it. Skeptics listen to the other side, while cynics only seek to hear themselves and an echo chamber of like-minded people. While the skeptics demand research, the cynics find no evidence sufficient to change present practices. Skeptics look at the evidence in a nuanced manner, realizing that no research is perfect and no reform carries a 100 percent guarantee, while cynics leap on any flaw to reject an entire proposal of improved grading practices.

A New Conversation About Grading

It’s time for a new conversation about grading. If teachers, administrators, and researchers have learned anything from the controversies about grading, it is that evidence is not sufficient to sway public opinion on this emotional issue. Some of the most thoughtful scholars on this subject (Brookhart, 2003; Guskey, 2015; Hattie & Yates, 2014; Marzano, 2010; O’Connor, 2011; to name a few) provide a mountain of evidence, synthesized as follows.

• Feedback can be one of the most powerful influences on student achievement, provided it is fair, accurate, specific, and timely.

• Grading and test scores are the types of feedback that parents and policymakers most notice.

• Feedback that most influences student achievement is neither grades nor test scores but rather the minute-to-minute communication from teachers, peers, and students themselves.

• Toxic grading practices, such as the use of a 0 on a one hundred–point scale or the average to calculate final grades, have a demonstrably negative impact on the academic and behavioral performance of students.

• Effective grading practices—the subject of this book—provide a path to improved student results in engagement, attendance, behavior, and performance.

Taking these aspects into account, the second edition of Elements of Grading contains a significant amount of new content, including chapters on what the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) mean for grading practices and the impact of technology on grading systems. Thanks to the suggestions of many readers of the first edition, I have adopted the acronym FAST for the essential elements of grading—fair, accurate, specific, and timely.

If the benefits of effective grading practices and the negative consequences of toxic grading practices are so obvious, why is another book on the subject necessary? It’s necessary because evidence is not sufficient when emotions and personal histories govern debates. Educators, parents, students, and administrators must have a conversation about the grading conversation. Parents and teachers who are firmly attached to grading practices of the 20th century are not co-conspirators against the best interests of students. Their personal experiences with grading systems from their own school days and scorn for dozens of failed education initiatives influence their views, all of which claim to be based on research and evidence.

When we approach these parents and teachers with changes in grading policies that represent a dramatic shift in both teacher practices and measures for student success, they are less apt to say, “Thank you” and more likely to say, “Wait a minute. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen somebody suggest that we give students a break, and all it leads to is a breakdown in discipline and work ethic. All the talk about ‘fewer failures’ sounds suspiciously like ‘everybody gets a trophy.’ And from what I’ve seen, it’s not working for students in my school or anywhere else.” It is at this point that frustrated administrators demand buy-in, frustrated teachers take their dissent from the faculty meeting to the parking lot, and frustrated parents start marching to the next school board meeting. If we are to have a constructive conversation about grading practices, then a good start is to back off from the student points of view that dominate this debate and do something I have rarely seen: assume goodwill.

This book may not persuade the cynics, but my hope is that it engages the skeptics. If you are using this as part of a book study with faculty and parents, consider inviting participants to express their doubts and fears and share their personal experiences with reforms that failed. For the advocates of reform, my advice is to be less strident in claiming, “This will work!” and say instead, “Here is a hypothesis about the effects of improved grading policies—could we test that hypothesis, and see if it works with our students?”

As always, I welcome a continuing dialogue with readers, including those who disagree with the ideas presented in these pages.