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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).
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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
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. School seems to be more about learning the material for a brief moment just to get a good grade rather then to actually learn and think about the information being presented.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
Secondly, "No-Fail" grading system does not demonstrate the real students' level, because with this system, there is no differentiation between students. Students should be evaluated truly according to their assignments and exams in a specific subject. That means some students should not get an evaluation that they do not deserve. If that happened, admis...
In the regular grading scale, grades do vary widely because of these four factors: a teacher's conception of achievement, a teacher's sense of equity and rigor a student's effort. The student's knowledge is based on the graded assignments that the student has completed. Getting rid of these standardized testings removes the insecurities that student's have due to low score and many more factors. Abolishing this test can lead to recognition of our grading differences and create a common conception of achievement on our own based on what we need to work on
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).
For the past three months myself and others have worked hard to complete and turn in the work you’ve assigned to us. Of course not all students take the material and the work seriously, but a majority of our class does. We use strategies that you’ve taught to us, and have shown you improvement from the beginning till now. You may say what we get is what we get, but I believe that our grade should also reflect on the
Students can not be expected to succeed when the grading system is set up for them to fail. Putnam City school district recently moved to a 50% based grading system in an attempt to make it accessible for all students to succeed. This change sparked a great deal of controversy with teachers, students and parents expressing very strong views as to the benefits and liabilities of this new system. The 50% grading system is a fair and simple way to grade, as it is mathematically accurate by giving every grade level the same point spread, it is easy to interpret, and allows more students to be successful.
As a student you are evaluated everyday, but have you ever desired to be the one doing the grading? This is a thought provoking idea. Teachers grade students on almost everything these days; including participation and behavior. So wouldn’t it be nice to return the favor? Although it may sound like a great idea, it could also be a very bad one. If students were able to grade their teachers it could provide proper and thorough evaluation; help teachers to improve on what they may be lacking, and help parents understand what is going on in the classroom; but at the same time it could prove to be harmful to the student and a good teacher’s career if not implemented correctly. This is why it’s important to recognize the possible positive impacts, the negative impacts, and the current programs that are in place, and their impacts.
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.
When speaking about having test scores as an indication of a school’s competency, everything will be based on the school. The school will have to have something to base it on themselves in order to have the results. This is where it becomes unacceptable. The fact that the whole process puts the school in a jam will make the school fall to the employees for the work. This process leads to teacher evaluations. No one likes to be put under pressure in the classroom. To be put under pressure causes more stress than needed on the teachers behalf. How is a teacher supposed to make students perform proficiently on tests? There are many different cases that can cause a good student to have bad test results. Students may have a lack of determination. Determination is a big factor in attaining success and lack of determination can cause one to fail. Determination is something that cannot be taught nor forced on a student by their teacher. It is something they want to have in order to do good in scho...
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.