Why
aren't Standards Based Report Cards all Standard?
Earlier
this year we sent home revised report cards that were based on our new
standards (MA2011 which incorporated Common Core Standards). There will be a
few more revisions next year as we remove traditional letter grades entirely.
The report cards are an important component of our communication to parents about the progress their child is making. I recently participated in a Think Tank
session at Merrimack College with other elementary school administrators where
we discussed standards based report cards. I had already immersed myself in
knowing and understanding the differences and reasoning for utilizing a standards based report card but I learned even more from the session.
Traditional
letter grades are now simply an inadequate way of providing appropriate
feedback based on what we currently
teach. In 1780 Yale University was the first to quantify grades on a 4.0
scale, which is the bases of letter grades. Prior to that, feedback to students
at all levels was mainly in the form of a written narrative. In 1877, Harvard
created "divisions" which resulted in 90-100 being the top division,
and eventually an "A", and so on.
Today,
many schools continue to use the same grading procedures from centuries before
us, yet our instruction, curriculum and expectations have changed dramatically.
A powerful and effective report card
should provide parents with information on how their child is doing at that
point in time by separating the academic achievements based on known
expectations and how they are doing with non academic achievements such as
social skills, effort and other work habits.
There are
many misnomers too that we must overcome when discussing report cards. Thomas Guskey, a well known speaker and professor of Education at the University of
Kentucky, discusses several of these in many different articles. One of his
main points about traditional grades is that they are either inflated or the
teacher believes they must follow a traditional bell curve. A bell curve is
what happens when nothing is done. Teaching is intervention and when we provide
the appropriate intervention, we can shift a traditional bell curve so that
most, if not all students meet a standard, therefor greatly altering a bell
curve.
Guskey
also addresses the fact that many of us attended schools where grades were
based on the standing of other students. In other words, where did we fit in?
Were we average or above average for the class? The problem with this thinking
is that it doesn't tell us how well a student has learned, only that they did
better or worse than their classmates. Grades in this system become unclear.
Students need to know what they are expected to do and know how they can show
it or prove it.
Furthermore,
if a standard is clear to a student, for instance, they are expected to be able
to multiply two digit numbers accurately, does it matter how much they
struggled to do this for two months if now they can do it and have proven
such? Traditional grading systems would have taken an average over the course
of a term, and for such a student who struggled, their average score over time
would be quite low. However, at the end of the term, they have proven they know
how to multiply two digit numbers. Isn't that the only thing that matters when
reporting academic achievement to parents? Now if the student didn't work hard
and didn't do homework for the first part of the term, which was the likely
reason for his/her struggle, then that information can also be communicated in a
standards based report card, but in the work habits section.
From my
discussion with other colleagues I was amazed at how different each school's reports cards are. It struck me that we really should all have the same report
cards. After all, aren't all third graders in Massachusetts expected to know
the same things and have the same skills? I can see how there may be some
sections, such as work habits and behavior, that are left up to a school
district to decide what will be reported, but the core content areas should all
have the same reporting system throughout the entire state.
If we all
had the same reporting system, we would change the way we grade to help us
accurately report at the end of the term, and in order to grade along the way,
we would all need to plan effectively with assessments and a consistent focus
on what we want students to know and be able to do. Standardizing report cards,
would be a great leap forward for improving the teaching and learning
throughout the entire state.
