Standards Based Grading - APS

[Anonymous]

This is our first year having a standards based report card. Is the standard set at what the child should know BY THE END of the year, or are they judging by some intermediate standard based on what they should know by the end of the grading quarter?

[Anonymous]

The standards listed on the report card change from quarter to quarter so I think they are supposed to know them now, but some standards show up on more than one report card so maybe those are supposed to be learned by the end of the year... Also, my 3rd grade son's teacher appears to be grading him based on how he is doing on certain official graded assessments rather than whether or not he actually knows the material so in that case it's more a correlation to level of effort instead of mastery (which I'm fine with - but it's not standards based grading as I understand it).

Basically, the only useful information on how your kid is doing comes from the parent teacher conference and the little write up at the top.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. Yeah, my 3rd grader’s report card seems like it was a waste of time for the teacher tbh

[Anonymous]

We were told some standards are year-long standards so kid not expected to meet them until end of the year. Other standards are where they should be at quarter end. It’s a farce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were told some standards are year-long standards so kid not expected to meet them until end of the year. Other standards are where they should be at quarter end. It’s a farce.

I'm the poster from 14:15 - That makes sense with how some standards are there multiple times and some are only once, but of course there's no indication which are which. Very pointless. My 3rd grader's teacher seems to have unofficially turned it into a O/S/U grading scale based on graded work completed in class. Therefore, my kid has some Developing and Approaching on things he has definitely mastered. He's not trying and deserves to get a bad grade, so I'm kind of glad the teacher is calling him out, but that's not how these are supposed to work, right? It would make more sense to do traditional ABC or OSU grades.

[Anonymous]

What bothers me is that there’s no way to tell from the report card what are my kid’s strengths. The comments are about what an excited learner DD is and meets stds in almost everything. But what is she excelling at? Our old report card included strengths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The standards listed on the report card change from quarter to quarter so I think they are supposed to know them now, but some standards show up on more than one report card so maybe those are supposed to be learned by the end of the year... Also, my 3rd grade son's teacher appears to be grading him based on how he is doing on certain official graded assessments rather than whether or not he actually knows the material so in that case it's more a correlation to level of effort instead of mastery (which I'm fine with - but it's not standards based grading as I understand it).

Basically, the only useful information on how your kid is doing comes from the parent teacher conference and the little write up at the top.

Your child’s teacher is indeed supposed to “be grading him based on how he is doing on certain official graded assessments” — but standard by standard as opposed to say, math overall. That is how he demonstrates “whether or not he actually knows the material.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were told some standards are year-long standards so kid not expected to meet them until end of the year. Other standards are where they should be at quarter end. It’s a farce.

I'm the poster from 14:15 - That makes sense with how some standards are there multiple times and some are only once, but of course there's no indication which are which. Very pointless. My 3rd grader's teacher seems to have unofficially turned it into a O/S/U grading scale based on graded work completed in class. Therefore, my kid has some Developing and Approaching on things he has definitely mastered. He's not trying and deserves to get a bad grade, so I'm kind of glad the teacher is calling him out, but that's not how these are supposed to work, right? It would make more sense to do traditional ABC or OSU grades.

Sincere question, no snark intended: How else is the teacher supposed to assess the child, other than graded work completed in class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were told some standards are year-long standards so kid not expected to meet them until end of the year. Other standards are where they should be at quarter end. It’s a farce.

I'm the poster from 14:15 - That makes sense with how some standards are there multiple times and some are only once, but of course there's no indication which are which. Very pointless. My 3rd grader's teacher seems to have unofficially turned it into a O/S/U grading scale based on graded work completed in class. Therefore, my kid has some Developing and Approaching on things he has definitely mastered. He's not trying and deserves to get a bad grade, so I'm kind of glad the teacher is calling him out, but that's not how these are supposed to work, right? It would make more sense to do traditional ABC or OSU grades.

Sincere question, no snark intended: How else is the teacher supposed to assess the child, other than graded work completed in class?

According to the APS website:

“Because every student is unique, SBG accepts a variety of demonstrations of skill as valid, so teachers use a wide array of student work examples, artifacts, conferences, and analyses to meaningfully understand each learner. Teachers seek to create authentic learning experiences and to help students create demonstrations of their skills within authentic contexts.”

Theoretically my lazy child would receive credit for all of the ungraded assignments where he demonstrated full understanding of the topic. However, he didn’t do it on the official mastery assignment so no dice. Again, I have no issue with the teacher doing it the normal way with assessments, but that’s not consistent with the Ed-speak coming out of Syphax.

[Anonymous]

Don't waste your time trying to understand the APS standards-based grading. It's just a tool for teachers to avoid the hard work of preparing assessments and grading assessments. The teacher sticks out a wet finger and estimates the direction of the wind and that's it. Zero value to students or parents - it doesn't tell you anything about how your child is doing. Whatever little information is there is buried in meaningless fluffed up wording - I honestly don't know how parents put up with this nonsense. We were strung along with these APS "assessments" for four years until we had enough of APS and voted with our feet. Now we have actual assessments and finally understand how our child is doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were told some standards are year-long standards so kid not expected to meet them until end of the year. Other standards are where they should be at quarter end. It’s a farce.

I'm the poster from 14:15 - That makes sense with how some standards are there multiple times and some are only once, but of course there's no indication which are which. Very pointless. My 3rd grader's teacher seems to have unofficially turned it into a O/S/U grading scale based on graded work completed in class. Therefore, my kid has some Developing and Approaching on things he has definitely mastered. He's not trying and deserves to get a bad grade, so I'm kind of glad the teacher is calling him out, but that's not how these are supposed to work, right? It would make more sense to do traditional ABC or OSU grades.

Sincere question, no snark intended: How else is the teacher supposed to assess the child, other than graded work completed in class?

According to the APS website:

“Because every student is unique, SBG accepts a variety of demonstrations of skill as valid, so teachers use a wide array of student work examples, artifacts, conferences, and analyses to meaningfully understand each learner. Teachers seek to create authentic learning experiences and to help students create demonstrations of their skills within authentic contexts.”

Theoretically my lazy child would receive credit for all of the ungraded assignments where he demonstrated full understanding of the topic. However, he didn’t do it on the official mastery assignment so no dice. Again, I have no issue with the teacher doing it the normal way with assessments, but that’s not consistent with the Ed-speak coming out of Syphax.

I hear ya. I’m sure it will not surprise you that you the edu-speak coming out of Syphax (I love that description) is not always realistic. That quote may as well read, “teachers will magically understand what each learner can do.” Even if said learner doesn’t show it. Or shows it rarely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't waste your time trying to understand the APS standards-based grading. It's just a tool for teachers to avoid the hard work of preparing assessments and grading assessments. The teacher sticks out a wet finger and estimates the direction of the wind and that's it. Zero value to students or parents - it doesn't tell you anything about how your child is doing. Whatever little information is there is buried in meaningless fluffed up wording - I honestly don't know how parents put up with this nonsense. We were strung along with these APS "assessments" for four years until we had enough of APS and voted with our feet. Now we have actual assessments and finally understand how our child is doing.

Ah yes…
It’s the teachers who came up with this system. We were looking for something that would require a lot more work, ideally accompanied by hours of meetings and “professional development,” only for APS to change its mind several times until it figured it out. You got it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't waste your time trying to understand the APS standards-based grading. It's just a tool for teachers to avoid the hard work of preparing assessments and grading assessments. The teacher sticks out a wet finger and estimates the direction of the wind and that's it. Zero value to students or parents - it doesn't tell you anything about how your child is doing. Whatever little information is there is buried in meaningless fluffed up wording - I honestly don't know how parents put up with this nonsense. We were strung along with these APS "assessments" for four years until we had enough of APS and voted with our feet. Now we have actual assessments and finally understand how our child is doing.

Ah yes…
It’s the teachers who came up with this system. We were looking for something that would require a lot more work, ideally accompanied by hours of meetings and “professional development,” only for APS to change its mind several times until it figured it out. You got it!

It's certainly not the parents who came up with this system. It's absolutely the "educators" who did. Aka the teachers who got promoted to Syphax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What bothers me is that there’s no way to tell from the report card what are my kid’s strengths. The comments are about what an excited learner DD is and meets stds in almost everything. But what is she excelling at? Our old report card included strengths.

It doesn’t tell you what they’re excelling at (unless teachers put that in their comments, which is very laborious and time consuming), but it does tell you how they’re doing in each subset of skills.

For example…

Old system:
- Math: B-

New system:
- Counting coins up to x dollars: M
- Counting by x up to 100: M
- Adding and subtracting numbers up to 20 (or whatever): A
- Solving exponential equations: D

Of course, we don’t know whether an “M” comes from 71 or 99 percent-level work. And we don’t know if that “D” was earned with scores around 15 or 51…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't waste your time trying to understand the APS standards-based grading. It's just a tool for teachers to avoid the hard work of preparing assessments and grading assessments. The teacher sticks out a wet finger and estimates the direction of the wind and that's it. Zero value to students or parents - it doesn't tell you anything about how your child is doing. Whatever little information is there is buried in meaningless fluffed up wording - I honestly don't know how parents put up with this nonsense. We were strung along with these APS "assessments" for four years until we had enough of APS and voted with our feet. Now we have actual assessments and finally understand how our child is doing.

Ah yes…
It’s the teachers who came up with this system. We were looking for something that would require a lot more work, ideally accompanied by hours of meetings and “professional development,” only for APS to change its mind several times until it figured it out. You got it!

It's certainly not the parents who came up with this system. It's absolutely the "educators" who did. Aka the teachers who got promoted to Syphax.

Many Syphax people were teachers long, long ago, and for short periods of time. Anyone with any real power over there is fully immersed in that special blend of educationalese, bureaucracy and self-importance. You don’t get to blame this on teachers.

And if you think it makes life easier for teachers, you are woefully (and likely deliberately) uninformed.