APS Most Likely Moving to Standards-Based Grading/Grading for Equity Next School Year

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Ranking and comparing others is fundamental to the upper middle class focus on “meritocracy.” This plan really hits that where it hurts.

No it doesn’t. It just hurts APS and APS students. The rest of the world will continue to focus on work done, grades earned, and tests passed. Because they measure ability, even though no one wants that to be true. This is a fad that will pass, but not before damaging effects.

Not really seeing where you’ve refuted my point.

Your point seems to be that the “meritocracy” is some sham that UMC people can turn off like a light switch and make everything hunky dory for people that don’t do well in school or won’t try. Nope. It’s simply a reality that UMC are more attuned to than others. This effort to not play the game is just a head in the sand move. The earth still revolves around the sun, and real grades still matter.

It hits these parents where it hurts because in their all consuming quest to preserve their place on top of the hierarchy, a credential from a top college is key. This type of grading muddies the water in terms of college admissions.

This. It hurts everyone over all when enrollment -and funding- go down.
Again, no, it doesn’t. Merit based assessments are what the rest of the world runs on. Parents with means will just leave APS, like they leave Alexandria. They go where grades matter and leave behind the people you think are helped by this kind of spiteful, stick it em policy.

Well, ok, I suppose they can pick up their marbles and leave for private schools.

Right. Public schools, especially inner city schools, are the worst offenders when you talk about systematic racism. You are encouraging people like PP to go private which exacerbates the achievement gap we are trying to close. Let’s stop the cycle and help these kids instead of making the problem worse but letting public schools get worse instead of better.

not encouraging anyone. just saying that wealthy families have options. and i imagine more than a few will bail on this school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ranking and comparing others is fundamental to the upper middle class focus on “meritocracy.” This plan really hits that where it hurts.

No it doesn’t. It just hurts APS and APS students. The rest of the world will continue to focus on work done, grades earned, and tests passed. Because they measure ability, even though no one wants that to be true. This is a fad that will pass, but not before damaging effects.

x1000

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I can’t tell if this potential move by APS is trying to show that it is “with it,” well-intentioned, naive, or some mixture of these things.

Let’s go with the mishmash.

Okay so I have not read that book, and I should, but j suspect this is the issue. I imagine that this kind of grading works well in districts that have a better curricular foundation. If what is being assessed is rigorous and a student has to make a huge effort to understand the material, and if they don’t pass a student if they don’t, then just demanding students meet the standard doesn’t seem like a problem. The kids will automatically see the benefit of not getting behind.

I believe part of the theory is that grading homework doesn’t just grade on having done the work. It also grades on home stability. Kids from chaotic, unsupportive homes are going to be at an unfair disadvantage. I agree that’s a problem. Yes kids from underprivileged environments are also going to have a hard time meeting standards but there is no reason to compound the problem by grading homework. (I admit I don’t understand the benefits of allowing test re-takes for full credit without a good reason.)

But when you don’t have to learn much you’re not going to be stretched in any meaningful way, and a high school diploma won’t be more valuable than a GED. People with GEDs are less successful because although they learn the same material, they haven’t been expected to tackle a problem and focus it over an extended amount of time, like learning a lot of material in one semester or completing a long-term class project forces you to do.

[Anonymous]

If people want to send their kids to a school with no grades, fine. But this just seems to be a way to make grading more opaque: There are no percentages, just numbers 1-4, and those numbers still get converted into letter grades. And those letter grades will presumable get re-converted into numbers to generate high school GPAs. So how is this better?

It also seems like more work for already-overburdened teachers: How many times do they have to keep teaching something until a student decides to learn it? How many new tests do they have to write?

I used to teach, and I was happy to cut kids who needed it some slack, but eventually the semester was over and I needed to provide an assessment of their work.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Here we go again…competing parents groups will be formed, accusations will be made, petitions will be circulated, “economists” will be consulted, votes will be postponed, etc. On and on it goes.

It's the Arlington Way.

Doubt there will be a competing group. Arlington is full of parents who busted ass to get here and they are going to be pretty skeptical of this approach, which essentially says they did it wrong.

Arlington is also full of wealthy progressive parents who will not want to publicly oppose this. Behind the scenes, some will express concern. Others won’t care.

Well, I sure as hell hope the SB who pulled his kid to private FOR THIS REASOn publicly opposes it rather than just b****ing about it on the soccer sidelines and making things okay for his own.

SBG for ES makes sense, as long as teachers are trained on how to implement it and there are very clear and consistent rules across APS. And yes, there needs to be more standardization across APS, even within schools, but that can be accomplished without SBG. This is another “balanced literacy” moment. Stop experimenting on our kids, you godd*** monsters! SBG at the secondary level will just mask inequality, while it grows, rather than addressing the root causes, and will NOT prepare kids for the world beyond APS, where they will be measured by both their effort and the end result.

[Anonymous]

A SB member pulled for private because of this?? I didn’t know that. Is that true?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is APS actually moving to standards based grading?

I didn't see that proposal in the slides but I didn't watch the work session.

Did they say during the work session that they want to move to standards based grading system wide?

They want the SB to vote for this six months from now, and put it in effect next fall.

Third to last slide: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/files/C7XLVB557627/$file/101421%20School%20Board%20Work%20Session%20-%20Grading%20%26%20Homework.pdf

Note, the third to last slide says nothing about public comment. They’re hoping the SB will just rubber stamp it I guess

I agree -- they know that there will be mass outcry if they put it out for comment. My youngest is in 6th grade and has yet to receive a letter grade in school. Elementary adopted standards-based grading when she was in grade 3. And now she won't get any letter grades until high school. She gets "M"s which means she meets the bare minimum standard set by the state of VA. To me, that should equal a grade of "C". The whole point of this is for you not to know how well your kid is being taught an to only identify the most direly struggling children. Which sure, they should get additional support. Average and better kids in APS are left to their own devices.

Yes, the point of this is to make everyone feel successful and to not distinguish outstanding students from average students because you don't want the average student to feel bad. This is the way to to make the goal for everyone the equivalent of "meets expectations" or "average" -- whatever those mean.

Um, isn't that the purpose of the diploma? Q) What do you call the guy that finished last in his med school? A) Doctor

To your first question, at a basic level yes. But it's also supposed to indicate one's preparedness for work and/or for post-secondary education.

To your second question: Some graduate "top of their class" or "top 10%" or whatever. Some graduate cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude.
A doctor who was the bottom of their class can end up being a better doctor than those above him. But that's not the point. That doctor may have worked harder to graduate than some of his classmates who graduated ahead of him. And SBG is theoretically designed to account for those types of things. But if not implemented properly, it doesn't. Additionally, getting the same grade despite demonstrating better (ie, sharper, more developed) skills should be recognized. As an employer hiring, I want to know which of my candidates is more efficient and better suited to the pace and demands of my workplace. Having no distinguishing elements between the "top of the class" student's "3" and the bottom of the class student's "3" is useless.

[Anonymous]

So, we were at Discovery from 2015 when this was implemented (at least according to the slides). The good news: the quality of the instruction was fine (more than fine, actually), and the teachers and administrators were great. The only thing I did not like was when they changed the grading. I can't remember the euphemisms, but when we started the student basically received a grade of unsatisfactory, satisfactory, or exceeds level. At some point, they eliminated the exceeds level grade. Once they did that it got a lot harder to actually evaluate how our child was doing, simply because in a lot of the graded topics (and there are a lot), the student gets a satisfactory if he is breathing. The other thing to take into consideration is if they cannot distinguish themselves by exceeding minimal standards, it's going to be increasingly hard to earn a decent living in the U.S. Maybe this is now considered impolite to mention, but that is increasingly the reality of the world they are heading into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The elimination of extra credit. That must be designed to say, no more freebies for wealthy/UMC families who have the time and resources to complete those projects. On this point, I applaud you, leaders of APS!

Sometimes extra credit is an opportunity for students who take a bit longer to master the material, or who don't do well on tests due to test-anxiety to improve their grades. They're not getting hundreds of extra credit points. Extra credit opportunities are generally just a handful of points at most, or a few percentage points. And you don't usually need "time and resources" to complete them....they're typically small, "fun" silly things or an extra worksheet provided by the teacher.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It's insane that a kid can earn an A and then another kid that never turns in homework on-time, repeatedly gets a bad grade and gets to turn that assignment or correct that test OVER AND OVER again will end up with the same GPA. WTF?

I am so glad I pulled both my kids from APS after middle school. One 8th grader left.

Our private HS teaches consequences and instills work habits that they will need in college and for life. It sucks, but that's life. Getting downgraded and having it effect your course grade, is a consequence of not doing the work. And, if the course is too challenging you need to drop down or get help after school.

Why is it insane? The purpose of school is to learn the material, not to ration grades.

Because everyone will half-ass it, duh. Low standards always results in low performance and effort in the aggregate.

+1 My son had a math class in middle school that allowed retakes. He quickly figured out that the retake was the "real" test. So, he never studied for the 1st one. He's really good at math so sometimes he got lucky and did well without studying but if not, he just studied for the 2nd one. By the time DD got to the same teacher she no longer allowed retakes because so many students had learned to approach it that way and she was having to waste class time on all those retakes.

Exactly! These things should be addressed on a case-by-case basis according to the student's real needs for more time to master material. Not available to those who just don't bother to do their work or prepare, and not to encourage those who would otherwise do their work and study to not do so because they know they can "do it later."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t tell if this potential move by APS is trying to show that it is “with it,” well-intentioned, naive, or some mixture of these things.

The first. APS needs to think it is progressive and a leader in top quality education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The elimination of extra credit. That must be designed to say, no more freebies for wealthy/UMC families who have the time and resources to complete those projects. On this point, I applaud you, leaders of APS!

Sometimes extra credit is an opportunity for students who take a bit longer to master the material, or who don't do well on tests due to test-anxiety to improve their grades. They're not getting hundreds of extra credit points. Extra credit opportunities are generally just a handful of points at most, or a few percentage points. And you don't usually need "time and resources" to complete them....they're typically small, "fun" silly things or an extra worksheet provided by the teacher.

I agree, but it sounds like it’s going bye bye.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t tell if this potential move by APS is trying to show that it is “with it,” well-intentioned, naive, or some mixture of these things.

The first. APS needs to think it is progressive and a leader in top quality education.

It’s none of those things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The elimination of extra credit. That must be designed to say, no more freebies for wealthy/UMC families who have the time and resources to complete those projects. On this point, I applaud you, leaders of APS!

Little kids sure maybe that's true but once kids get to upper grades "extra credit" is meant to help kids who might fail because they have done nothing all year and this gives them a way to do something easier and get credit and pass. The kids who are already doing well won't bother as it won't really help them if they already have an A

[Anonymous]

I read the book not expecting to like it but I did. I'm sure much of it is good in theory but not as much in practice. Still, food for thought.