What is an average report card?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC goes to a parochial school and is in 4th grade. Report card was half A's half B's. Assume this means she is middle of pack. Any teachers or others in the kbow who could comment. Is a C considered a flunking grade in parochial school? I have always considered C' s flunking grades.

My bet is that she is somewhere between the 50th and the 75th percentile. Good enough not to worry, but not a superstar. Many Cs is underachieving, a few would not be. Of course, this is my bet.

I know why you are frustrated. It isn't that you care about how other kids are doing in a nosy way, but it would be nice to gauge your own child's progress. If you don't think the school would recommend her for the math track that finishes with calculus by senior year (algebra in8th) you might want to look harder at progress and make sure if it is a B it is a solid B.

For what it was s worth:
My kid got slightly better grades than that through elementary and middle, always in the most advanced class. He is still mostly in advanced tracks and still getting a mix in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does the report card not tell you how to interpret the grade levels? If you don't know how to interpret them, you should ask the school. They should have clear answers that look like e.g. C -- struggles to meet grade level standards; B -- meets grade level standards; A -- exceeds grade level standards.

Also, doesn't matter if the report card is "average" -- the school should be measuring the students against the specific things they expect them to learn, not against the performance of other students.

Yes, this is the modern way of grading. Each individual is graded against the education standard, not in competition with all the other students. Traditional schools are sometimes academic competitions with prize days.

[Anonymous]

you forgot to add a period

[Anonymous]

Standards grading is crap. College admissions is a competition against your peers.

[Anonymous]

For us, C means you are where you should be(very common for younger grades), B means you know more than average about that subject and A means you are at the standard of about 2 years older than you(very rare).

[Anonymous]

For us, C means you are where you should be(very common for younger grades), B means you know more than average about that subject and A means you are at the standard of about 2 years older than you(very rare).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your child is in 4th grade, got over 90% in all but two classes, and you're sending her to summer school (sorry, "academic camp") because that's not good enough for you? Way to make sure your kid burns out before grades even matter. Is she trying hard? Developing good study skills? Enjoying the process of learning? If yes, then she's doing exactly what she should be doing at her age.

I have to agree with this poster. Who cares what others do? Look at the work your DD is doing, evaluate whether she seems to understand it, and if she is struggling determine if she needs extra assistance. Comparing grades and worrying about a report card with mostly As and some Bs in the 4th grade is setting your daughter up to not care or have serious anxiety about school.

[Anonymous]

At my son's public middle school in Bethesda, about 70% of the students are on the honor roll (As and Bs). There are about 20% of straight A students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get all a+'S

well good for you

[Anonymous]

Kind of curious how the new policy in MCPS will play out. My first thought is there's little to no objective criteria for assigning letter grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kind of curious how the new policy in MCPS will play out. My first thought is there's little to no objective criteria for assigning letter grades.

My kid got an A in metacognition!

[Anonymous]

Great

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd say most As and Bs with maybe a C or two in there would be "middle of the pack". At my DS's middle school "honor roll" means you have all As and Bs and less than half his grade achieves that (including him -- he's ended up with 1 C each semester so far, but looking better for this semester!)

Same at our middle school, and DC has the similar performance -- mix of As and Bs with the occasional C. The A/B honor roll is pretty big, but still less than half the grade. Maybe 10% of the grade make all As in a quarter.

[Anonymous]

In our middle school, the graduating 8th grade class had about 57% on 3.5+ GPA honor roll. about 20 kids maintained a solid 4.0 for all three years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on which school. Some schools have a lot of grade inflation.

Very true. The retake thing cracks me up too. What's good is a test if you can just take another one if you do poorly?

Our principal is tough on grade inflation (reminds regularly that C is average) and I hear our parochial school "grades harder" than others. That said, we are still in an affluent area where kids come from highly educated families and have a lot of academic support at home so there are lots on honor roll even with the higher scale that ADW schools use.
.

I think the opposite of this--what good is a test if you can retake to learn what you missed?