More skills based grading at madison hs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ While at the same time complaining about grade inflation making their kid seem less competitive. So gross. They don't care about learning...only grade grubbing.

Yeah and previously, kids and families that didn't do any schoolwork or homework were upset they were getting failing grades and poor grades. They didn't care about learning... only whether they received a grade less than others who worked harder. Disgusting.

This grading program does nothing to help kids learn. It's obvious it does not help with grades or with learning. I don't know what you are smoking.

Says who? You? My child is learning. Gets all As and had a 1400 on the PSAT, with no outside help. Plenty of kids are actually learning.

[Anonymous]

And for the record, people that care about grades and college, care about learning. I'm not sure where you got this false impression that people who attend competitive colleges are less interested in academics than the typical American kid. No one at TJ is there just for the prestige. It's hard work. People want good grades to get into good colleges, but they don't want the grades and then flunk out of college or not attend. They want to have the ability to progress in education and the workforce. There is nothing wrong with caring about grades. It's a false assumption that kids who care about grades don't care about education. This program more importantly, does not help kids learn and it also does not help kids achieve high grades. It really does nothing helpful other than perhaps note where there is a standard a child is weak in over time so that the teacher can focus on bringing up that skill. If they bother to do that. There are so many difficulties with the program that it's unlikely teachers are even modifying curriculum for skills their students have difficulty with. I haven't seen any teachers change curriculum for standards that kids are having difficulty with and it's much more work for the teacher on top of being confusing for everyone else. Overall, there are many more minuses than pluses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ While at the same time complaining about grade inflation making their kid seem less competitive. So gross. They don't care about learning...only grade grubbing.

Yeah and previously, kids and families that didn't do any schoolwork or homework were upset they were getting failing grades and poor grades. They didn't care about learning... only whether they received a grade less than others who worked harder. Disgusting.

This grading program does nothing to help kids learn. It's obvious it does not help with grades or with learning. I don't know what you are smoking.

Says who? You? My child is learning. Gets all As and had a 1400 on the PSAT, with no outside help. Plenty of kids are actually learning.

Great for your kid, but why do you think a grading program should be tailored to them? Why would we tailor an entire grading program for the school towards the valedictorians who can learn anywhere and have no difficulty? It's easy to see this program is causing a lot of disruption for everyone and is not helpful if your child is struggling. The program is supposed to help more struggling students and is doing the opposite. Seriously sit down. You kid I assumed got straight A's before the change? Then what is the problem? Telling parents and students they are gross? What is wrong with you? Many kids are struggling and its supposed to make learning easier and is doing the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Sorry I don’t understand this - are the PTA notes posted? What I’d like the school admin to see is how my child received “A”s on practices that the teachers don’t bother to actually grade and then much lower grade on the assessments. So my child is thinking that they know the material when in fact they don’t - the teacher just entered a default A because the practice is not for grading. What a mess.

I obviously know nothing about your child or how their teachers operate, but this happens a lot in my classroom—especially with lower level classes.

Most of my assignments are self checking. The math problems loop through each other to form a circuit, the graphed functions overlap the problem numbers, the answer to the equations matches an answer bank that solves the riddle, or even just good old fashioned “here are the answers, check your work.” Between answer banks and friends and photomath, just about every single classwork assignment I get is correct. But I have no idea why it’s correct—is it because the student knew what they were doing? Or because their seat mate walked them through it? Or because they took it home and googled and then copied the answers? I grade those assignments to guilt kids into doing them, but they are worth 1 point each while assessments are 100 points (so it ends up with their final grade being ~95% assessments).

Parents get mad that their kid has an A in homework but an F on the test and why can’t their homework be worth more but it just can’t. It’s not an accurate reflection of what the kid knows. It’s fluff points. The only thing that has a major impact on grades in my room are independent assignments done without access to phone/computer/friends, within the walls of my classroom.

Sounds like the kid may be getting too much parental help on the homework…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Sorry I don’t understand this - are the PTA notes posted? What I’d like the school admin to see is how my child received “A”s on practices that the teachers don’t bother to actually grade and then much lower grade on the assessments. So my child is thinking that they know the material when in fact they don’t - the teacher just entered a default A because the practice is not for grading. What a mess.

I obviously know nothing about your child or how their teachers operate, but this happens a lot in my classroom—especially with lower level classes.

Most of my assignments are self checking. The math problems loop through each other to form a circuit, the graphed functions overlap the problem numbers, the answer to the equations matches an answer bank that solves the riddle, or even just good old fashioned “here are the answers, check your work.” Between answer banks and friends and photomath, just about every single classwork assignment I get is correct. But I have no idea why it’s correct—is it because the student knew what they were doing? Or because their seat mate walked them through it? Or because they took it home and googled and then copied the answers? I grade those assignments to guilt kids into doing them, but they are worth 1 point each while assessments are 100 points (so it ends up with their final grade being ~95% assessments).

Parents get mad that their kid has an A in homework but an F on the test and why can’t their homework be worth more but it just can’t. It’s not an accurate reflection of what the kid knows. It’s fluff points. The only thing that has a major impact on grades in my room are independent assignments done without access to phone/computer/friends, within the walls of my classroom.

Sounds like the kid may be getting too much parental help on the homework…

This isn't Madison. None of the homework is graded at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ While at the same time complaining about grade inflation making their kid seem less competitive. So gross. They don't care about learning...only grade grubbing.

Yeah and previously, kids and families that didn't do any schoolwork or homework were upset they were getting failing grades and poor grades. They didn't care about learning... only whether they received a grade less than others who worked harder. Disgusting.

I mean, a kid who gets 100 on tests without doing a lick of work should have an A for content mastery, right? Why penalize someone for skipping something they don’t need to do? Grades should measure knowledge. If we want to add “study skills” or “work habits” and assign grades on the transcript for those then fine, but an A next to “advanced chemistry” should mean they mastered 90%+ of the material, regardless of how much work it took to get there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ While at the same time complaining about grade inflation making their kid seem less competitive. So gross. They don't care about learning...only grade grubbing.

Yeah and previously, kids and families that didn't do any schoolwork or homework were upset they were getting failing grades and poor grades. They didn't care about learning... only whether they received a grade less than others who worked harder. Disgusting.

I mean, a kid who gets 100 on tests without doing a lick of work should have an A for content mastery, right? Why penalize someone for skipping something they don’t need to do? Grades should measure knowledge. If we want to add “study skills” or “work habits” and assign grades on the transcript for those then fine, but an A next to “advanced chemistry” should mean they mastered 90%+ of the material, regardless of how much work it took to get there.

Are you the speaker? This is exactly what he said and he's so wrong. It means the class is too easy and the kid should be in a different class. It also doesn't mean that work habits don't matter. Tell that to any employer or even a business owner about their own success. It all matters. The kid should be in a harder class or they should just do the work with ease because its easy for them. Life isnt just a series of large scale tests. Its daily practice. Like any class the teaching is to the mean, not the outliers. This is a straw man argument.

[Anonymous]

Look what SBG did to Baltimore schools, it will do the same to FCPS.

[Anonymous]

In addition to grades I didn't hear any parent complaining that grades were overly unfair or not measuring the correct skills. I know some kids weren't doing well on the SOLs but I don't know how long they were in the system and some kids will just never get those skills because of disabilities. It wasn't an issue before just like grading wasn't an issue. None of these things were issues before. The pushback is all because of the new sbg system. They are trying to solve problems that aren't there and creating problems instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In addition to grades I didn't hear any parent complaining that grades were overly unfair or not measuring the correct skills. I know some kids weren't doing well on the SOLs but I don't know how long they were in the system and some kids will just never get those skills because of disabilities. It wasn't an issue before just like grading wasn't an issue. None of these things were issues before. The pushback is all because of the new sbg system. They are trying to solve problems that aren't there and creating problems instead.

Duh, because tiger parents knew their kids’ grades were being fluffed by simply turning papers in so it was okay if they didn’t actually know everything, their grades said otherwise.

I teach at a different school and it is WILD how many emails I get at the end of the year that “my son has an 88.9, isn’t it possible to please bump it to an A-, he’s turned everything non all year!”

Meanwhile the kid hasn’t gotten higher than an 85 on any assessment all year and got a 75 on the final. Tell me why a kid like that even deserves a B+, let alone a A-. That should be a B- kid IMO, but I don’t make the rules I just follow them.

So yeah of course no one complained. They were reaping the benefits of fluff padding grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In addition to grades I didn't hear any parent complaining that grades were overly unfair or not measuring the correct skills. I know some kids weren't doing well on the SOLs but I don't know how long they were in the system and some kids will just never get those skills because of disabilities. It wasn't an issue before just like grading wasn't an issue. None of these things were issues before. The pushback is all because of the new sbg system. They are trying to solve problems that aren't there and creating problems instead.

Duh, because tiger parents knew their kids’ grades were being fluffed by simply turning papers in so it was okay if they didn’t actually know everything, their grades said otherwise.

I teach at a different school and it is WILD how many emails I get at the end of the year that “my son has an 88.9, isn’t it possible to please bump it to an A-, he’s turned everything non all year!”

Meanwhile the kid hasn’t gotten higher than an 85 on any assessment all year and got a 75 on the final. Tell me why a kid like that even deserves a B+, let alone a A-. That should be a B- kid IMO, but I don’t make the rules I just follow them.

So yeah of course no one complained. They were reaping the benefits of fluff padding grades.

Wonder if student asked for the bump up if may have had better chance to be considered? I often wonder if parents get hard no if they ask teachers things v if student asked for themselves, if might get different answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look what SBG did to Baltimore schools, it will do the same to FCPS.

Yes, that was clearly the only difference between Baltimore and FCPS so that comparison is totally rational.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In addition to grades I didn't hear any parent complaining that grades were overly unfair or not measuring the correct skills. I know some kids weren't doing well on the SOLs but I don't know how long they were in the system and some kids will just never get those skills because of disabilities. It wasn't an issue before just like grading wasn't an issue. None of these things were issues before. The pushback is all because of the new sbg system. They are trying to solve problems that aren't there and creating problems instead.

Duh, because tiger parents knew their kids’ grades were being fluffed by simply turning papers in so it was okay if they didn’t actually know everything, their grades said otherwise.

I teach at a different school and it is WILD how many emails I get at the end of the year that “my son has an 88.9, isn’t it possible to please bump it to an A-, he’s turned everything non all year!”

Meanwhile the kid hasn’t gotten higher than an 85 on any assessment all year and got a 75 on the final. Tell me why a kid like that even deserves a B+, let alone a A-. That should be a B- kid IMO, but I don’t make the rules I just follow them.

So yeah of course no one complained. They were reaping the benefits of fluff padding grades.

These things don't go together at all. You are dumb.

[Anonymous]

What is wild is that people have had to be graded for all of their assignments since the beginning of public school and now somehow that's a problem when of course it isn't. The IB schools arent getting an overhaul just because there are other grades beyond unit summatives. Teachers just don't want to grade.

Requests for work at the end of the year will happen regardless by people who are on a cusp. It has nothing to do with the work before. Whatever program you have for grading, someone is going to want to try for a higher grade at the end of the year whether through an assignment or retake. A professor was even saying that happened in college without this silly grading system. These requests have also gone on since the beginning of school.

Madison actually replaces grades from the past. You think that is somehow more accurate than an extra credit assignment to bump up a grade by a half a percentage point? SGB is an incredibly inaccurate grading system. The only thing it does is ensure sometime throughout the year various standards are assessed. It is not a system that accurately measures standards. It's just a system that ensures standards are measured.

Then there is the fact that now all of the grades are whole letter grades. Obviously not accurate in the slightest. The grades used to be more accurate with pluses and minuses. Many of the grades are 0.25, 0.t, 0.75 and 1. How is this accurate if only grades to the 25 percentile and replaceable? There is nothing accurate about this system.

Madison is also one of the only schools that doesn't have finals. Some teachers there stop teaching a whole month or two early because there is no one watching them and no final to teach to. They also don't require a science fair project like I guess a lot of other schools do. It's not "standards based". Nothing that would actually give kids some ownership of what they are learning. Just more teaching to the test.

Finally what happened to educating the entire child and portrait of a graduate? Is the slogan now for FCPS going to be Portrait of a Standards Achieved Graduate? Is this the direction FCPS wants to go as a standards based teach to the test school system rather than an innovative one and one that is a whole child experience? Private schools love to tout that they aren't just about grades and are educating the whole child for the 21st century. Why would FCPS want to minimize their educational goals to SOLs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look what SBG did to Baltimore schools, it will do the same to FCPS.

Yes, that was clearly the only difference between Baltimore and FCPS so that comparison is totally rational.

Some of the schools in Virginia are not that much different than some of the Baltimore schools. The reports from Baltimore were for the entire city, not just the bad areas. Some parts of Fairfax look very different than Madison. With this system implemented there it will likely drop those high schools. The Wakefield High teachers all petitioned against this program because they know it hurts disadvantaged students even more than wealthy ones.