More skills based grading at madison hs

[Anonymous]

How is it fair when one fcps school grades things like homework, quizzes, classwork, along with 2-3 major assessments and a different school has 2-3 major assessments and that is the whole grade? The former allows students the opportunity to increase a grade but the latter has no such buffer.

How is it fair when one fcps school allows retakes up to 100 and another only up to 80?

How is it fair when one fcps school allows students to do corrections on a test up to 100 while at home and another doesn't offer retakes at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is it fair when one fcps school grades things like homework, quizzes, classwork, along with 2-3 major assessments and a different school has 2-3 major assessments and that is the whole grade? The former allows students the opportunity to increase a grade but the latter has no such buffer.

How is it fair when one fcps school allows retakes up to 100 and another only up to 80?

How is it fair when one fcps school allows students to do corrections on a test up to 100 while at home and another doesn't offer retakes at all?

How is anything fair? Follow the rules of your school and if you know you only have 8 retakes, adjust. I don't care what my friend's kid in McLean is doing because my goal for my child is learning, not competition with the rest of the county. And what you are talking about in the bolded is, wait for it, grade inflation. Not learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it fair when one fcps school grades things like homework, quizzes, classwork, along with 2-3 major assessments and a different school has 2-3 major assessments and that is the whole grade? The former allows students the opportunity to increase a grade but the latter has no such buffer.

How is it fair when one fcps school allows retakes up to 100 and another only up to 80?

How is it fair when one fcps school allows students to do corrections on a test up to 100 while at home and another doesn't offer retakes at all?

How is anything fair? Follow the rules of your school and if you know you only have 8 retakes, adjust. I don't care what my friend's kid in McLean is doing because my goal for my child is learning, not competition with the rest of the county. And what you are talking about in the bolded is, wait for it, grade inflation. Not learning.

You sound silly. PP was talking about whether one school only allows a student to increase their grade to a maximum 80% (vs. 100% at another school), not whether a student is allowed 8 retakes.

For a county that talks incessantly about equity, wildly different grading policies at different high schools makes no sense, especially knowing that college admissions officers may not be able to parse the distinctions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in FCPS and worked at a school with this grading but moved to an IB school.

There is no way, whatsoever an IB can adopt this approach to assessments -- these schools have to align their grading practices to the IB standard, which do not align whatsoever with standards based grading as used in FCPS. I actually asked about this when I joined this school and they made it very, very clear it would be impossible to run two different grading systems in the school, so they are going to stick with IB assessment protocols.

So, net-net, if you want to avoid this, I would recommend considering an IB school.

Just send your kids to Marshall or South Lakes and call it a day if you hate this so much.

Why? It will eventually come over to there anyway. Why do we have to settle for some new plan that has shown no benefit and doesn't solve a single problem at the school? Those schools don't have room and there is no reason to sell a property and buy in a new neighborhood just because of some grading policy that is deeply unpopular and half baked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it fair when one fcps school grades things like homework, quizzes, classwork, along with 2-3 major assessments and a different school has 2-3 major assessments and that is the whole grade? The former allows students the opportunity to increase a grade but the latter has no such buffer.

How is it fair when one fcps school allows retakes up to 100 and another only up to 80?

How is it fair when one fcps school allows students to do corrections on a test up to 100 while at home and another doesn't offer retakes at all?

How is anything fair? Follow the rules of your school and if you know you only have 8 retakes, adjust. I don't care what my friend's kid in McLean is doing because my goal for my child is learning, not competition with the rest of the county. And what you are talking about in the bolded is, wait for it, grade inflation. Not learning.

You sound silly. PP was talking about whether one school only allows a student to increase their grade to a maximum 80% (vs. 100% at another school), not whether a student is allowed 8 retakes.

For a county that talks incessantly about equity, wildly different grading policies at different high schools makes no sense, especially knowing that college admissions officers may not be able to parse the distinctions.

And the entire purpose of this new grading policy is to be more specific, so why wouldn't it need to be done for all schools then the same way? Makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it fair when one fcps school grades things like homework, quizzes, classwork, along with 2-3 major assessments and a different school has 2-3 major assessments and that is the whole grade? The former allows students the opportunity to increase a grade but the latter has no such buffer.

How is it fair when one fcps school allows retakes up to 100 and another only up to 80?

How is it fair when one fcps school allows students to do corrections on a test up to 100 while at home and another doesn't offer retakes at all?

How is anything fair? Follow the rules of your school and if you know you only have 8 retakes, adjust. I don't care what my friend's kid in McLean is doing because my goal for my child is learning, not competition with the rest of the county. And what you are talking about in the bolded is, wait for it, grade inflation. Not learning.

You don’t know what grade inflation is. It’s when a teacher gives a higher grade than a kid deserves. It’s not when a teacher doesn’t count graded assignments, drum which a student certainly can learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it fair when one fcps school grades things like homework, quizzes, classwork, along with 2-3 major assessments and a different school has 2-3 major assessments and that is the whole grade? The former allows students the opportunity to increase a grade but the latter has no such buffer.

How is it fair when one fcps school allows retakes up to 100 and another only up to 80?

How is it fair when one fcps school allows students to do corrections on a test up to 100 while at home and another doesn't offer retakes at all?

How is anything fair? Follow the rules of your school and if you know you only have 8 retakes, adjust. I don't care what my friend's kid in McLean is doing because my goal for my child is learning, not competition with the rest of the county. And what you are talking about in the bolded is, wait for it, grade inflation. Not learning.

You don’t know what grade inflation is. It’s when a teacher gives a higher grade than a kid deserves. It’s not when a teacher doesn’t count graded assignments, drum which a student certainly can learn.

Drum = from

[Anonymous]

There was talk this week that Madison might be considering grading all assignments again at least to some low stakes level and just having exit tickets and some in class practice not count towards grading. That would be a step in the right direction and help keep better connection and purpose for all assignments and assessments. I'm pleased at least this change might be happening. There was also talk about making the rubrics for the assignment and assessment grading and feedback more visible to the students and parents pre and post assessment. It's still a lot of unnecessary grading work on assessments to me and I still don't agree with the grade revisions over retakes, but if the staff think it will better streamline how their standards are measured in assessments, I guess it will have some benefit for teachers to make sure all standards are covered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was talk this week that Madison might be considering grading all assignments again at least to some low stakes level and just having exit tickets and some in class practice not count towards grading. That would be a step in the right direction and help keep better connection and purpose for all assignments and assessments. I'm pleased at least this change might be happening. There was also talk about making the rubrics for the assignment and assessment grading and feedback more visible to the students and parents pre and post assessment. It's still a lot of unnecessary grading work on assessments to me and I still don't agree with the grade revisions over retakes, but if the staff think it will better streamline how their standards are measured in assessments, I guess it will have some benefit for teachers to make sure all standards are covered.

Some talk by whom and to whom?

[Anonymous]

The principal during the PTA meeting this week.

[Anonymous]

I've also heard all schools are going to a 50-100 scale next year which will help with the grading. It would be nice if they would go back to giving pluses and minuses, but at least the grading difference will only be 10 verses 25 points between grades with this change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've also heard all schools are going to a 50-100 scale next year which will help with the grading. It would be nice if they would go back to giving pluses and minuses, but at least the grading difference will only be 10 verses 25 points between grades with this change.

There will still be pluses and minuses. Who said otherwise? The change is that currently a 62% is an F, next year 60+ will be a D.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've also heard all schools are going to a 50-100 scale next year which will help with the grading. It would be nice if they would go back to giving pluses and minuses, but at least the grading difference will only be 10 verses 25 points between grades with this change.

There will still be pluses and minuses. Who said otherwise? The change is that currently a 62% is an F, next year 60+ will be a D.

There are no pluses and minuses at Madison. During back to school night they said there would be, but there aren’t.

[Anonymous]

A student's quarter and final grades can have a plus or minus. But the grades for each assignment, test or project will be A, B, C. ect, withiut plus and minus.

I think it makes sense. Basically streamlining with a 1, 2, 3, or 4 type of grade for each assignment/test/project. But yes, there are plus/minus grades on report cards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A student's quarter and final grades can have a plus or minus. But the grades for each assignment, test or project will be A, B, C. ect, withiut plus and minus.

I think it makes sense. Basically streamlining with a 1, 2, 3, or 4 type of grade for each assignment/test/project. But yes, there are plus/minus grades on report cards.

Only for a final grade though. Not per assessment. I guess when each assessment is four different grades it becomes harder to separate each grade so much.