The United States grading system for K-12 public schools are used as a measurement for student achievement levels, determining how much a student has learned based on a letter grade. Grades are typically measured a variety of ways, most commonly by way of: tests, participation, homework, quizzes, papers, presentations and group projects. Since grades reflect a variety of ways to measure a student, grades should be an accurate representation of what a student learns. This may seem the case; however, these components do not adequately measure a student’s capabilities.
I plan to argue that the current grading system fails to meet the criteria of a meaningful indicator of student achievement. In order to accurately measure a student’s achievement, a system should include a motivation for learning, a reliable way of assessing what a student has learned, and must take into account a student’s academic abilities. The current grading system falls short of meeting these criteria. While there are many reasons that the educational system uses the current grading system, I would have to argue that the grading system is not an accurate means of student achievement because it does not match to my criteria.
In order to accurately measure a student’s academic achievement, each student has to be reliably and fairly assessed. The grading system fails this because some students experience test anxiety, which negatively affects their performance, making them earn a bad grade. Grading therefore is likely to inaccurately reflect the abilities of students who experience test anxiety. Spencer J. Salend states that “Students with test anxiety experience high levels of stress, nervousness, and apprehension during testing and evaluative situations that s...
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... K-12 public schooling institution. We certainly do need methods to assess a student’s academic achievement; the grading system, however, fails to measure students’ work accurately and instead becomes the sole focus of learning. Students often believe that the grades they receive reflect what they have learned, but as shown this is not always the case.
Works Cited
Catalano, Tammy, Megan Gross, Jennifer Kurth, Stephanie Lovinger. “Grading Students with
Significant Disabilities in Inclusive Settings: Teacher Perspectives.” Journal of the International Association of Special Education 13.1 (2012): 41-57. ERIC. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Kohn, Alfie. “The Case against Grades.” Educational Leadership 69.3 Nov. 2011: 28-33. ERIC.
Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Salend, Spencer J. “Addressing Test Anxiety. Teaching Exceptional Children 44.2 Dec. 2011:
58-68. ERIC. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
The United States of America has placed low on the educational ladder throughout the years. The cause of such a low ranking is due to such heavy emphasis on standardized testing and not individual student achievement. Although the United States uses standardized testing as a crutch, it is not an effective measure of a student’s ability, a teacher’s competency, or a school’s proficiency.
In “What is a Grade” by Pat Belanoff, she explains the pros and cons of the grading system. In Pats ' essay she states “Perhaps the solution would to abandon grading altogether in writing class. I confess that this a solution that appeals to me greatly.” (151). Grades should not be present in the way we test students’ learning ability.
In today’s society we feel the need to be graded in order to learn. The topic of the grading system has sparked three essays, by three different authors, about the pros and cons of the grading system. First, Jerry Farber, professor at University of California at San Diego, wrote A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System (333). Next is Steven Vogel, professor at Denison University, who wrote Grades and Money (337). The last two authors in this compilation are Stephen Goode and Timothy W. Maier. They both are journalists for Insight on the News. While each of these authors have their own point of view on the grading system, all three essays talk about how being graded affects learning.
Current educational policy and practice asserts that increased standardized student testing is the key to improving student learning and is the most appropriate means for holding individual schools and teachers accountable for student learning. Instead, it has become a tool solely for summarizing what students have learned and for ranking students and schools. The problem is standardized tests cannot provide the information about student achievement that teachers and students need day-to-day. Classroom assessment can provide this kind of information.
Downing, J. E., & Peckham-Hardin, K. D. (2007). Inclusive Education: What Makes It a Good Education for Students with Moderate to Severe Disabilities?. Research and Practice for Persons With Severe Disabilities (RPSD), 32(1), 16-30.
Giving students a grade that they have not earned hinders the youth’s future educational success. A number of schools are no longer giving a grade of zero on assignments, tests, and exams completed by students. While other school districts continue to give students the grade that is adequate for the work they have done or have not completed. Giving students the grade that equals their work is designed to show students where they need to improve. Many school boards want to stop giving out zeros for work that hasn’t been turned in and give a grade that rages around the “D” area keeping children from falling behind in their classes. By allowing student to pass through the school system the educational board is raising their graduation and success
One solution offered by Alfie Kohn, a well-renowned speaker on human behavior, education, and parenting, suggests that teachers would give parents written evaluations of how their child is performing and having frequent conferences available to talk about their child’s performance. Kohn believes that the most effective teachers do not rely solely on standardized tests. Great teachers are able to observe their students and are able to see without the use of exams how well their students understand the concepts being taught. In 1999, Phi Delta Kappa and Gallup poll surveyed the community. Individuals were asked to choose which of four approaches they felt would be the most precise evaluation of a student’s educational development. Using exam scores from standardized testing received the lowest percentage of 27%. Evaluating work that the students have done over a period of time received the highest number of votes at 33%, while the remainder of the votes were divided between letter grades and written evaluations from teachers after observing each student (Pollard, J, 1999).
Inclusion 'mainstreams' physically, mentally, and multiply disabled children into regular classrooms. In the fifties and sixties, disabled children were not allowed in regular classrooms. In 1975 Congress passed the Education of all Handicapped Students Act, now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA mandates that all children, regardless of disability, had the right to free, appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. Different states have different variations of the law. Some allow special needs students to be in a regular education classroom all day and for every subject, and others allow special education students to be in a regular education classroom for some subjects and in a separate classroom for the rest. There are many different views on inclusive education. In this paper I will address some of the positive and negative views on inclusion and ways to prepare educators for inclusive education.
The public high schools began a grading system as a way of telling an individual how they were performing. There was no interest by the public in reporting the school’s progress at teaching. Teachers, in an effort to recognize outstanding performers, looked for a way of rewarding hard-working students for their efforts The grading structure changed from superior and excellent to A’s and B’s. This placed much of the burden of recognizing academic talent on the high schools.
Traditional grading system will be my focus of this essay. Grading as numbers or letters, a conventional way of assessing students’ achievement, is one part of education and has been lately in controversy in USA. The argument is that the conventional grading practice is not in support of the ultimate objectives of education. In fact, it is in conflict with the values of education. Thus in this essay, I will argue that traditional grading does not play the role it is supposed to play and it is time to have a new and better alternative to this.
Harris, Phillip, Bruce Smith, and Joan Harris. “Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively Measure Student Achievement.” At Issue. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2012. 18-23. Print.
To be truly inclusive teachers, we need to first know the student and identify the real reasons for any individual to be classified as having a learning disability.
“What makes a child gifted and talented may not always be good grades in school, but a different way of looking at the world and learning.” That’s what the senior United States Senator from Iowa Chuck Grassley once said. When students get a “F” on their exam, that does not necessary means they are stupid, or they do not know the material. It could only mean they have a different way of learning, or a different way of explaining the material which the teacher is not aware of. There are different ways of learning that students have, and there are different ways they apply their knowledge into real life. Therefore, grades are not the best way to judge the students’ standing in their classes, nor is it the best way to judge their learning process. In addition,
By nature, most students are brought up in an academic environment motivated to get A’s and B’s on their report cards. Those grades sometimes don’t thoroughly report how much a student has learned or gained knowledge in each topic. Some instructors throw in factors totally unrelated to learning, when the main objective of academic institutions is to learn. In order to clearly demonstrate how much a student has learned in the classroom, schools should change their current grading system and teach students how to learn.
Assessments were not aligned and incongruent with what was happening in the classroom. It was difficult to accurately measure student success (Polikoff, Porter, & Smithson, 2011). One of the greatest contributors to the difficulty of aligning assessments to standards is that the standards are so complex (LaMarca, 2001.) How can a single assessment demonstrate mastery of so much content? Also, some assessments items measure multiple standards. This can be difficult to analyze. Furthermore, some assessment contain content that is neither developmentally appropriate for the intended audience or it may content that is not mentioned in the standards (Polikoff, Porter, & Smithson, 2011). This can be discouraging and frustrating for both students and