Subjective grading in MCPS elementary schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay just going with the theory that you are right, though I think that isn't a definite by any means:

As a teacher this is my opinion. Try not to approach this so adversarily. That won't be helpful. Ask to see grading rubrics, standards or anything else that will help you interpret your childs grade. Ask to sit down with the child and the teacher and have the teacher walk you both through what their expectations are for a sample assignment, what your child did, and how your child could have received a better grade. Ask to see exemplars of the type of work the teacher is expecting. Ask about how grading is explained to the kids - do they know what the expectations are? But try framing this in a partnership - ie can we have a meeting to work together to figure out what is keeping my childs grades low and how we can all work together to improve their grade?

Approaching them with hostility may shut down lines of communication.

Excellent advice. Not the OP, but when I sat down with my son's teacher when he was having some trouble, she did exactly as you suggest - telling me the expectations and explaining why points were taken off.

[Anonymous]

I am sure the suspected teacher can provide tons of paperwork trying to back up her grade, making every silly excuse to dismiss the student's work. But how about a side by side comparison with other students' work and grades in the classroom? That's where you will find the truth.

No. A good teacher doesn't grade in comparison to other students. He or she grades according to the benchmarks and learning objectives of the lesson, and on the progress of the student from the previous assignment to the present one.

If you have a problem with a teacher's grading, by all means, meet with them, ask for and examine the criteria they use for grading. But if you go in to the meeting with the negative assumptions you express above, and consider the criteria a teacher may have for you to be "silly", then you deserve no respect and the alienation you will receive is everything you deserve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am sure the suspected teacher can provide tons of paperwork trying to back up her grade, making every silly excuse to dismiss the student's work. But how about a side by side comparison with other students' work and grades in the classroom? That's where you will find the truth.

No. A good teacher doesn't grade in comparison to other students. He or she grades according to the benchmarks and learning objectives of the lesson, and on the progress of the student from the previous assignment to the present one.

If you have a problem with a teacher's grading, by all means, meet with them, ask for and examine the criteria they use for grading. But if you go in to the meeting with the negative assumptions you express above, and consider the criteria a teacher may have for you to be "silly", then you deserve no respect and the alienation you will receive is everything you deserve.

There you go. One of the retaliatory teachers that OP was complaining about!

[Anonymous]

MCPS teacher here - yes, the new standards-based grading means that students will be graded based on the level they are currently performing on. For example, a student who is reading above grade level may have lower marks on his/her report card than a student reading on grade level. Gone are the days of O, S, N, and A, B, C, D. Now the newfangled grading system is: ES -Exceeds Standard, P -Proficient, I -In Progress, N -Not yet.
It is true that *occasionally* a teacher will punish an obnoxious parent by giving students lower marks. These teachers usually don't last long...not that MCPS can fire them or anything (thanks to the union)...but they can be involuntarily transferred to an undesirable school in an undesirable location and placed in an undesirable grade in hopes that they'll quit out of frustration. Usually works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS teacher here - yes, the new standards-based grading means that students will be graded based on the level they are currently performing on. For example, a student who is reading above grade level may have lower marks on his/her report card than a student reading on grade level. Gone are the days of O, S, N, and A, B, C, D. Now the newfangled grading system is: ES -Exceeds Standard, P -Proficient, I -In Progress, N -Not yet.
It is true that *occasionally* a teacher will punish an obnoxious parent by giving students lower marks. These teachers usually don't last long...not that MCPS can fire them or anything (thanks to the union)...but they can be involuntarily transferred to an undesirable school in an undesirable location and placed in an undesirable grade in hopes that they'll quit out of frustration. Usually works.

NP here. This is an interesting information. if a student reading above grade level may have lower mark on the grade report than a student reading on grade level, then aren't the grades misleading if you need to compare two students for say magnet admission? TIA.

[Anonymous]

A teacher at an elementary school in Potomac actually told me once she had coworkers that would inflate report card grades (ie. give all kids A's or B's) on their report cards just so they could be finished with the report cards quickly. After all, if a child gets a good grade, what parent is going to argue with that?

As a parent of children with learning disabilities, I have questioned the validity of the grades that they have on their report cards knowing what their strengths and weaknesses are and keeping a file at home with all the grades that were sent home. When the grades didn't add up, I asked the teacher and she said she had discretion to pick a grade (basically pick a grade out of thin air). Over inflating grades for children with difficulties makes problems appear to not exists and is how elementary teachers pass kids and their problems on to the next grade and eventually on to middle school.

MCPS has Edline for middle school and high school students so all grades are posted and parents can review their child's grades at anytime during the marking period, not just at the end. The system provides transparency and an ability for parents to provide extra help at home if they notice a child didn't do well on an assignment. Why doesn't MCPS have Edline for elementary school children?

The new grading system is even more subjective especially for subjects like math that should have concrete, objective, and measurable results. The county should rethink why don't they want to accurately report how well or how poorly its children are performing?