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CHAPTER 2

Flawed Grading Practices and Policies

Grades convey powerful messages. Grades can encourage or discourage students and help them set goals or simply state that they failed. Educators hear many questions and opinions about grading practices and policies. Whatever differences of opinion educators encounter, Marge Scherer (2011) reminds us that:

There is no doubt that our society believes in grades. We look for four-star movies, five-star restaurants, top-10 colleges, and even Grade A eggs. Although we tend to think of these ratings as objective, we know that it’s important to read the full reviews—and look for cracks in the shells…. Most of us agree that if grades are going to be meaningful, they must be as accurate and fair as possible. The question before us is, How do we make that happen? (p. 7)

In an effort to create common understandings—and to find those “cracks in the shells”—before making changes, this chapter critiques several educational and grading practices: (1) sort-and-select practices, (2) seat time requirements, (3) formative and summative assessment weaknesses, and (4) skewed averages (Guskey, 2015). (The last topic is so complex that it is discussed in detail in chapter 3 on page 29.)

Sort-and-Select Practices

The policies and grading practices that most schools have followed for decades are based primarily on the sort-and-select practice (Lezotte, 2008). Typically, that process begins when students first enter school and are assigned to a grade level by age (or more specifically by birth date) and prior school experience, if any. From there, teachers assign students to instructional groups and then, at the end of each term, they make another sort-and-select decision—pass course for credit or fail course or fail grade level. But sort-and-select practices, on which traditional grading systems are based, do not provide sufficient flexibility given the great variety in student readiness, performance, and support.

If we expect to graduate students who qualify for college and careers, and who in turn get and keep good jobs, we must understand and support a huge paradigm shift. That is, schools must relinquish certain aspects of the old-fashioned sort-and-select practice, whose grading approach doesn’t account for differentiation and focuses on deficits. Here, as a way of explaining the needed changes, we describe the issues associated with the sort-and-select practice. Chapter 4 (page 43), which discusses standards-based grading, offers remedies.

Fairness Is Not Equivalent to Sameness

Fairness is not equivalent to sameness. Robert Lynn Canady (n.d.c) notes:

We have operated schools on the assumption that if students had to have extra support to achieve well (for example, extra time to complete a course, retake tests, or rewrite papers), then there had to be a penalty, such as averaging their low grades with their new and improved grades. This assumption is based on the belief that fairness is equated with sameness. In other words, if you want to be fair, you must treat every student the same. (p. 2)

Thus, if teachers make exceptions such as providing supplementary materials to meet an individual student’s needs or allowing that student extra time to complete an assignment, they may be accused of being unfair to other students. But, rather than being unfair, those teachers are adjusting instructional methods to meet individual students’ needs. Adapting content and methods to meet student needs is not new. Schools and teachers have adjusted classroom instruction through individualized education programs (IEPs) to meet special education students’ individual needs. Of course, IEPs are not necessary for most students; using IEPs is simply an example of how being fair to students does not mean that every student receives the very same treatment.

In all classrooms, individual talents, varied skill levels, social development, scholarly interests, and parental support influence the instruction students need (and that teachers provide). Among students in any one classroom, some may receive a great deal of help from their parents in providing regular study time and supplying resources that aid in their studies. But other students may not even have a place to study or parents at home to provide materials, set a homework schedule, and encourage them. Thus, when teachers extend deadlines, provide supplementary materials, or offer tutoring sessions, they are simply taking into account what students need. Grading inflexibility is an issue educators need to reassess.

Assessments Focus on Deficits

The common current assessment model of sorting and selecting focuses on what students lack instead of on their potential capabilities. Pervasive grading scales have a failing range between 0 to 59 (or even up to 75). That leaves students a range of about forty points to pass, let alone in which to excel (Canady, n.d.b). The scales are tilted toward failure. It’s easy to see that the range for failing is much larger than the range for passing. Standards-based grading doesn’t view failure like the sort-and-select practice does. This inequity works for the sort-and-select practice but does nothing to help prepare students for college or careers.

Students Often Fail Before Getting Further Instruction

Typically, students have to perform poorly before receiving additional learning time (Canady, n.d.c). Essentially, schools have institutionalized a take class, fail class, repeat class instructional model. The restrictive public school schedules follow a yearlong work cycle, generally consisting of between 160 and 180 school days (Canady & Rettig, 1995), and most high school classes run for single periods for all those days. Few alternative schedules are available. A failing grade often means that the student has to repeat the course instead of getting help during the first iteration. When a school’s goal was primarily to sort and select students for the next level of education, and school personnel were not concerned about the number of students who dropped out or left school undereducated, a scheduling plan without alternatives may have been acceptable.

But we can no longer justify having large numbers of students spending so much time failing when we can predict such outcomes early in the course. As a result of this sort-and-select practice, in large high schools it is not unusual to identify hundreds of students who have been in high school for two or more years without having earned even ten Carnegie Units (or hours of class time with an instructor) counting toward a diploma (Rath, Rock, & Laferriere, 2012). Since the mid-1990s, about half of middle and high schools have moved to various types of flexible scheduling, including block, but few have capitalized fully on the power of creative scheduling (Canady & Rettig, 1995; Rettig & Canady, 2000). Chapter 6 (page 71) of this book details some scheduling solutions.

Seat Time Requirements

Before various types of testing became state or federal mandates, schools and systems designated scheduled times in class as the constant factor. In many schools, students are expected to meet the scheduled seat time requirements—a specified number of hours in class and days in school (Great Schools Partnership, 2014). In this arrangement, a student cannot earn credit unless that student meets the established seat time requirements, regardless of the prior knowledge he or she brings to class. In the United States, the seat time variable required to earn a course credit varies from 108 to 140 clock hours (Carnegie Unit and Student Hour, n.d.). Seat time worship leads to punitive attendance policies, which harm some students more than others. (Chapter 3, page 29, talks more about the students who are at higher risk.) If schools do not allow students to make up work when absent, they will receive low grades. That ultimately leads to an average grade that is impossible to overcome, discouraging and defeating those who often then miss more school.

Seat time requirements partially explain why the factor of school attendance is highly associated with dropout rates. Indeed, attendance is a critical factor in identifying which students are unlikely to earn high school diplomas (Heppen & Therriault, 2008). Many states have established various policies to free schools from the traditional seat time requirements, which the Carnegie Unit system dictates, to address such issues (Great Schools Partnership, 2014). Such policies “allow districts or schools to provide credits based on students’ proving proficiency in a subject, rather than the time they physically spend in a traditional classroom setting” (Cavanagh, 2012). Removing seat time requirements can “make it easier for struggling students to catch up, exceptional students to race ahead, and students who face geographic and scheduling problems to take courses required for graduation” (Cavanagh, 2012). However, the issue is not yet entirely resolved, because some state policies, including those in Illinois and Massachusetts, prohibit or restrict alternative methods of awarding credit for actual student proficiency (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching [CFAT], 2014). And in nearly all states, rigid funding formulas work against implementing flexible policies for awarding credit because funding formulas are based on hours spent in class, not mastery of content (NGA, 2012).

When schools relax seat time requirements and move to standards-based grading systems, mastery of required material is emphasized, not just time spent learning the material. The issue becomes what the student can demonstrate in terms of subject mastery rather than whether he or she spent sufficient seat time in class. Therefore, if we consider learning as the constant factor and time as the variable, the equation is turned around.

Most states have already moved in this direction by permitting schools to offer flexible credits, primarily through state-approved testing options and online offerings. Such flexibility may not be granted to students, however, until they first have met the seat time requirements and failed the course at least once (CFAT, 2014). These requirements add to the problem of collecting large numbers of overage and under-credited students in high schools. Chapter 6 (page 71) outlines alternatives to seat time requirements via elementary, middle, high, and alternative school schedules that make time for students who need additional help. Now is the time to revise seat time requirements so schools can focus on flexible efforts to ensure students gain the necessary skills to be college or career ready.

Formative and Summative Assessment Weaknesses