Ineffective Grading Policies: An Argument Against Giving Zeros

1148 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Effective discipline in the classroom

Ineffective Grading Policies

An Argument Against Giving Zero’s

The basis of my argumentative paper will be to take an in-depth look at ineffective grading practices and the use of zeros as a form of punishment. Since this is something I have personally been faced with, I argue that giving students a zero for missed work, whether it be for missing due to illness or being suspended from school, is ineffective, unfair, and a detriment to students drive, determination, and self-esteem.

Grading practices have been a controversial issue for years among educators. Many educators want to know the true functions of grades (Reeves, 2001). Are they in place to communicate a student’s performance in certain areas, including behavior and participation, or should they represent a student’s proficiency in a given subject? (Hanover, 2011) I personally argue it is the latter. When grades are used as a form of punishment, in my opinion, it takes away the right of the student to get an education.

According to an article by Douglas B. Reeves, he suggests that schools should re-examine and change their grading practices and if they want to immediately reduce student failure rates. He states that schools do not need a new curriculum, a new principal, new teachers, or new technology to reduce failure rates. Instead, he has found they need a better grading system. Guskey and Bailey (2001) and Marzano (2001) have done decades of research with similar findings to those mentioned by Reeves. Unfortunately, neither the weight of scholarship nor common sense seem to influence grading policies in many schools and practices vary greatly among teachers in the same school-and worse, the practices best supported by research are rare...

... middle of paper ...

...blame themselves, and often feel helpless to make improvements (Guskey, 2004).

.

References

Guskey, T. R. (2004). “0 Alternatives”, Principal Leadership, pg. 49. Retrieved from

http://www.schoolschedulingassociates.com/canady/zero.pdf

Reeves, D. B. (2004). The Case Against Zero. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(4), 324–325.

Retrieved from http://www.leadandlearn.com/sites/default/files/articles/caseagainstzero.pdf

Reeves, D. B. (2006). “Leading to change: Preventing 1,000 failures.” Educational

Leadership, 64(3), 88–89. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov06/vol64/num03/Preventing-1,000-Failures.aspx

Reeves, D. (2008). “Effective Grading Practices.” Educational Leadership, 65(5), 85-

87. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational- leadership/feb08/vol65/num05/Effective-Grading-Practices.aspx

Show More
Related

  • The Case Against Grades' By Alfie Kohn

    340 Words  | 1 Pages

    In her article, “The Case Against GRADES”, Alfie Kohn discusses the grading system and its faults. She opens her argument with information from an older psychological study that proves the negative impact of the current grading system, and she reinforces this with the proof that “no” research has contradicted this statement. Also, she gives many key reasons including: “Motivation”, “Achievement”, “Quantification”, and “Curriculum”. Kohn supports these topics with other reasearch for why the system is failing the students. She asserts that, “… the absence of grading is a necessary condition for promoting deep thinking and a desire to engage in it.” As support, she offers other solutions and then debunks them by proving that they would not solve

    Read More

  • What Is A Grade By Pat Belanoff Summary

    1343 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • (Introduction Paper) The Impact of Formative Assessment and Feedback on Student Learning Using the Student Response System

    2141 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Michael Thomsen's Article: Should We As A Society Using A Standardized Grading System

    1990 Words  | 4 Pages

    The article written by Michael Thomsen addresses the issue: should we as a society continue using a standardized grading system. Thomsen includes many reasons supporting his ultimate conclusion that we should not continue with any system of standardized grades. However, the reasons he uses to support his conclusion are affected by significant ambiguity which weakens the overall argument.

    Read More

  • Carl Singleton's 'What Our Education System Needs Is More F'

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    Our education system is failing and in his essay “What Our Education System Needs Is More F’s” Carl Singleton writes that nothing else will right the ship or fix this issue except for his proposed solution which is to simply fail more students. As a matter of fact “by the dozens, hundreds, thousands, even millions” (Singleton 1) is how he describes the failing grades should be distributed. He claims that illegitimately passing students has existed for the past two decades and even implies that it stems further back than that with many teachers in the school system today “who never should have been certified in the first place.”(Singleton 1).

    Read More

  • From Degrading To Grading, By Alfie Kohn

    507 Words  | 2 Pages

    According the three leading effects of grading outlined in Kohn’s paper, the number one effect of grading is “grades tend to reduce students' interest in being taught.” I would agree with his argument grading and testing puts pressure on getting excellent grades and takes the focus off understanding and on “performing” acceptably. When I was younger, I was ferocious reading lately the only reading I accomplish is required for a class or studying a textbook. It was enjoyable since I loved reading; I was not required to read all the books I read due to my genuine love for reading and words. Because of that, I excelled in English.

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Standardized Testing

    1647 Words  | 4 Pages

    In other words, two teachers may give the same assignment two completely different grades based on their own grading style. This puts an incredible amount of stress on a student because they need to complete assignments that will satisfy their current teacher, whose expectations and grading style could be very similar or very different from the student’s previous teacher. Alfie Kohn believes that the influence grades have on a student’s life doesn’t help this situation, and may even make it worse by providing students with a false sense of security about their knowledge. In her article “From Degrading to De-grading”, she states that scores on tests can be largely based on how the test was written and what skills were tested (Kohn 240). Therefore, it is up to teachers to identify what topics students must master in order to be proficient and score well on standardized tests. But when the class is not structured with a consideration for the material used on such tests, students enter the test blind to the skills that they will be expected to know and use. Anyone can memorize a list of facts off a study guide and score well on a multiple choice test the next day, but skills such as analyzing literature and interpreting a handful of graphs containing data from a scientific experiment are skills that require time and hours of instruction to master.

    Read More

  • What Really Going on With the Grading System

    1242 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Differentiated Classroom

    2494 Words  | 5 Pages

    Seeing this, the ability of grades to influence and create positive and negative roles to students remains to be the responsibility of the educator. Given that grades help manifest a standard for students to adhere to, teachers must try to create an environment where they can facilitate and motivate students to do better (Tomlinson, 2001). By using grades as an instrument for development, it can create a positive perception for students to improve and seek connections with instruction and course content.

    Read More

  • Creativity in the Classroom by Ernest Boyer

    1751 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the issues, which Boyer points out , is that teachers and students have different expectations from college education. She says that the teachers are mainly concerned about students’ comprehension of the material, their attendance and attention while students’ hopes are to get good grades and to be well prepared for exams. It seems that the system of grading pushes students to not care too much about what is being taught from an understanding perspective, but only promotes more concern about grades instead. Some students don't really pay attention unless the instructor mentions an exam or something that will be graded. Furthermore, be...

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Pass-Fail Grading System

    736 Words  | 2 Pages

    Certain educators across America are abolishing the traditional letter grade system, in favor of a fresh grading system where there are simply two choices, pass or fail. Therefore, students are either really good, or not good enough; there’s no more being average. Replacing the letter-grade method of evaluating student performance with a pass-fail grading system is not a great idea for a variety of reasons. First, it leaves students stressed out, when an exam is made pass or fail it causes students to crumble from anticipation and worry. Secondly, the teacher’s job is made easier, and grading can be handled quickly instead of thoroughly. Finally, it makes America’s colleges a lot harder to earn scholarships to. These reasons exemplify why the pass-fail grading system shouldn’t be implemented in America.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On The Grading System

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Grading System Reform

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    Teachers have always used grades to measure the amount a student has learned. This practice is becoming ineffective. Many students have a wide range of grades, which show that grades may not show what a student really knows. Therefore, the standard grading system should be replaced. Some reasons why grades should be replaced are bad grades can hinder a child’s performance, grades define who a student is in the classroom, and grades are not an effective way to see if students have learned the material. The current grading system should be upgraded and every school should incorporate the plus/minus system in their method of grading.

    Read More

  • No Zero Policy Should Be Abolished

    808 Words  | 2 Pages

    Flunking the No-Zero Policy With failure rates and low test scores plaguing high schools across the country, educators are searching for new reforms that lead all students to success. One such reform is the no-zero policy, whose mandate prohibits teachers from giving a student a zero for late or incomplete work. In theory, this policy more accurately assesses a student's learning, rather than their behaviour. However, when applied to real students and teachers, the policy receives a failing grade.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Problems In Education

    1017 Words  | 3 Pages

    Students are unique individuals, and each one learns differently. As Patterson remarks, “When grading students, in the name of

    Read More

More about Ineffective Grading Policies: An Argument Against Giving Zeros

Open Document