Docking grades in elementary school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that the grade is based on what your child can complete independently. If they needed a little support to get it correct, that is a B in standards based grading. If your child needed extensive support and was unable to complete the work at all, than a D is appropriate. I actually prefer that to just giving A’s even when the teacher is almost spoon feeding the answers (that happens a lot with one of my kids with an IEP).

I get this and I see your point. The other thing is that this school offers free tutoring. The teacher says she is doing fine and doesn't need tutoring. She brought home 4 Ds this week. That is doing fine?? I've also asked about an IEP and crickets. Do you know who I talk to at the school about having her evaluated?

You request a screening meeting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:3rd grader will bring home classwork that says "Needed some guidance B" or "Needed a lot of guidance D". The assignment will be completely correct and it seems like the teacher is docking dd for asking for help. New to MCPS, is this normal? I feel like it is teaching her that if she asks for help she will get a bad grade.

It is standards based grading, so they’re looking for mastery of the material. Is this Ashburton?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think you are getting the whole story. I would email the teacher and ask what DD or you need to do to get the grades up.

I'm going by what the assignment says. The answers are correct but at the top the teacher has written "Need a lot of guidance. D" The grade in the parentvue gradebook for the assignment is D.

Yeah so? If the student needed help to the assignment correctly then they should not get an A. What’s so difficult to understand?

[Anonymous]

It seems weird to be penalized with a lower grade just for asking for help. I've never heard of this before. And to be penalized in 2nd and 3rd grade seems especially harsh. But yes we're only getting one side of the story – would need to hear what the student and teacher have to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems weird to be penalized with a lower grade just for asking for help. I've never heard of this before. And to be penalized in 2nd and 3rd grade seems especially harsh. But yes we're only getting one side of the story – would need to hear what the student and teacher have to say.

It probably isn’t just asking a couple questions, but rather needing to be walked through the assignment. Better for OP to know her DD can’t complete the skills independently than to find out in 4th grade or later that she was passed along with an undiagnosed LD or an academic lag.

[Anonymous]

Talk to the teacher. It sounds like this teacher doesn’t understand standards based grading. It does not mean that students can’t ask questions or ask for help. It doesn’t mean that instructions shouldn’t be given. You DD should be able to do the assignment again if she isn’t meeting the standard.

A good teacher will be able to give guidance without spoon feeding the actual answers. This requires listening to the students question not assuming you know what they don’t know. If the student looks lost, asking them questions to understand what they do know. Show them a model or different example, walk them through this and then see if they can do it on their own. Give them confidence and then have them complete for mastery.
The concept behind standards based is that students can reattempt until they meet the standard but many teachers don’t want the extra work.

Lazy teachers or incompetent ones interpret standards based to mean I don’t have to give good instructions, I don’t have to grade, I assign grades without any accountability …which means that often I basically rank and stack without really looking at the work. This means the best students always get As, students that do fine but don’t care get Bs and Cs, students who wasted my time and get things wrong get DS. Much faster!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:3rd grader will bring home classwork that says "Needed some guidance B" or "Needed a lot of guidance D". The assignment will be completely correct and it seems like the teacher is docking dd for asking for help. New to MCPS, is this normal? I feel like it is teaching her that if she asks for help she will get a bad grade.

It is standards based grading, so they’re looking for mastery of the material. Is this Ashburton?

no

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Talk to the teacher. It sounds like this teacher doesn’t understand standards based grading. It does not mean that students can’t ask questions or ask for help. It doesn’t mean that instructions shouldn’t be given. You DD should be able to do the assignment again if she isn’t meeting the standard.

A good teacher will be able to give guidance without spoon feeding the actual answers. This requires listening to the students question not assuming you know what they don’t know. If the student looks lost, asking them questions to understand what they do know. Show them a model or different example, walk them through this and then see if they can do it on their own. Give them confidence and then have them complete for mastery.
The concept behind standards based is that students can reattempt until they meet the standard but many teachers don’t want the extra work.

Lazy teachers or incompetent ones interpret standards based to mean I don’t have to give good instructions, I don’t have to grade, I assign grades without any accountability …which means that often I basically rank and stack without really looking at the work. This means the best students always get As, students that do fine but don’t care get Bs and Cs, students who wasted my time and get things wrong get DS. Much faster!

I’ve found the opposite. Standards based grading seems to eliminate grading that favors fluff and extra frills, especially in writing assignments and projects. It seems to even the playing field for science fair since the focus is on showing mastery rather than being able to afford fancy materials and have the help of a parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love that teacher. Yes, if the teacher has to walk a kid through an assignment the kid should earn a worse grade than a kid getting the same answers without needing help.

This person is wrong and shows you how sick some people are. The teacher should be telling a parent well before end of Q1 about bad grades as they occur. There is only one kind of teacher that likes to spring this kind of news on a parent after a full Q - the type that gets off on it.

If you believe your child is possibly disabled (504), then you'll need a Special Needs advocate. Start documenting everything and get your child evaluated and tested.

If your child is doing the assignments and there are no behavioral issues, I'd start documenting everything and check each assignment. If your teacher is not returning every graded assignment, I'd be careful. There is a reason behind why your teacher didn't say anything to you and I'd be very leery of that individual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love that teacher. Yes, if the teacher has to walk a kid through an assignment the kid should earn a worse grade than a kid getting the same answers without needing help.

This person is wrong and shows you how sick some people are. The teacher should be telling a parent well before end of Q1 about bad grades as they occur. There is only one kind of teacher that likes to spring this kind of news on a parent after a full Q - the type that gets off on it.

If you believe your child is possibly disabled (504), then you'll need a Special Needs advocate. Start documenting everything and get your child evaluated and tested.

If your child is doing the assignments and there are no behavioral issues, I'd start documenting everything and check each assignment. If your teacher is not returning every graded assignment, I'd be careful. There is a reason behind why your teacher didn't say anything to you and I'd be very leery of that individual.

paranoid much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love that teacher. Yes, if the teacher has to walk a kid through an assignment the kid should earn a worse grade than a kid getting the same answers without needing help.

This person is wrong and shows you how sick some people are. The teacher should be telling a parent well before end of Q1 about bad grades as they occur. There is only one kind of teacher that likes to spring this kind of news on a parent after a full Q - the type that gets off on it.

If you believe your child is possibly disabled (504), then you'll need a Special Needs advocate. Start documenting everything and get your child evaluated and tested.

If your child is doing the assignments and there are no behavioral issues, I'd start documenting everything and check each assignment. If your teacher is not returning every graded assignment, I'd be careful. There is a reason behind why your teacher didn't say anything to you and I'd be very leery of that individual.

The OP is talking about assignment grades not quarter grades. Sounds like the teacher is doing the correct thing in making the parent aware of where the child is struggling.