Assessment & Grading Part 3

In 2009, the Board of Education adopted a new policy and regulation for student grading. This policy and regulation were based on research and best practice in the area of student assessment. Provided below are the major aspects of the regulations and the rationale supporting each of them:

1) Non achievement factors (behavior, effort, attendance, etc...) shall not be included in the academic grade.

Rationale: Grades are flawed when they mix achievement and non-achievement elements. Grades are inflated for some students when desired behaviors are exhibited and grades are deflated for others because of their failure to exhibit these same behaviors. The fix is to report variables such as behaviors separately from achievement, there by ensuring that the grades reflect student achievement as accurately as possible.

2) Care should be taken to ensure that penalties (if used) do not distort achievement or decrease motivation.

Rationale: Penalties distort achievement and can actually reduce motivation for completing the assignment. The fix for late student work is a positive, supportive approach that directly affects student behavior, leaving the scores and the resulting grades as pure measures of achievement.

3) Zeros shall not be used for incomplete work.

Rationale: Grades are flawed when zeros are used; zeros distort the actual achievement record and can decrease student motivation to learn. Zeros represent very extreme scores and their effect on the grade is always exaggerated.

4) Criterion-reference standards shall be used to distribute grades and marks.

Rationale: Grading students by comparing their performance to one another distorts individual achievement. Far superior is clear, criterion-referenced achievement standards that describe a student's proficiency level. The grade is assigned to the student based only on that student's achievement in relation to the applicable standards.

5) Teachers shall make and/or provide quality feedback on formative assessments. Mark from formative assessments shall not be included in grades.

Rationale: Grades are flawed if scores for everything students do find their way into report card grades. The fix is to include, in all but specific, limited cases, only evidence from summative assesments intended to document learning, that is designed to serve as an assessment of learning. By their very nature formative assessments are intended to serve as feedback on progress towards the learning objectives.

6) When repetitive measures are made of the same or similar knowledge skills or behaviors, the more recent mark or marks shall replace the previous mark for grade determination.

Rationale: Grades are flawed when learning is developmental (likely to improve over time with practice and repeated opporunities) and the final grade does not recognize the student's final level of proficiency. The fix for this flaw is that for any developmental learning we must emphasize the more recent evidence and allow new evidence to replace, not simply be added to, old evidence.

7) Consideration shall be given to the use of statistical measures other than the mean for grade calculation.

Rationale: Grades are flawed when they result only from the calculation of the mean (average) in contexts where extreme scores distort results. This can be fixed by considering other measures of central tendency (median and mode) and using professional judgment. We should think and talk about not the calculation, but rather the determination of grades.

8) Teachers shall base grades on quality assessment instruments.

Rationale: Grades are flawed when they arise from poor-quality assesment because the evidence is not accurate. The fix is to check every assessment for quality--clear purpose, clear learning goals, sound design, and avoidance of bias. Assessments that do not meet these four standards of quality will mismeasure student achievement and thus will lead to inaccurate grades.

9) Individual achievement of stated learning goals shall be the sole basis for determining grades.

Rationale: Grades are flawed if they involve the use of group scores from cooperative learning or group activities. This is so because the group scores may not accurately reflect the achievement of each student and therefore would be unfair for some group members.

Grades are summary symbols that should communicate only about student achievement at a point in time. To be effective, they must be consistent, accurate, meaningful, and should support student learning. Unfortunately, because grading has often been an unexamined and private practice, grades have frequently not met these standards and as a result are very often flawed. Our policy and regulation are meant to improve this situation.