"P" grade even if incomplete or not all correct?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly it's just variable because teachers are human and interpreting the system differently. My 5th graders teacher gives a bunch of Is (which have motivated my slacker 5th grader who got all As previously out of just 'mailing it in'). She now works her butt off to get those Ps. My 1st grader seems to get ES'es for completing his assignments, even if he is clearly writing asinine answers designed to impress his little buddies. Oh well...

And this is why the system is worse than grades. It just seems so much more subjective.

Have you had teachers who give you an A for pretty much anything, and other teachers who won't give you an A no matter what? I have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly it's just variable because teachers are human and interpreting the system differently. My 5th graders teacher gives a bunch of Is (which have motivated my slacker 5th grader who got all As previously out of just 'mailing it in'). She now works her butt off to get those Ps. My 1st grader seems to get ES'es for completing his assignments, even if he is clearly writing asinine answers designed to impress his little buddies. Oh well...

And this is why the system is worse than grades. It just seems so much more subjective.

Have you had teachers who give you an A for pretty much anything, and other teachers who won't give you an A no matter what? I have.

Sure, for some subjects, but not as much as I'm seeing here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly it's just variable because teachers are human and interpreting the system differently. My 5th graders teacher gives a bunch of Is (which have motivated my slacker 5th grader who got all As previously out of just 'mailing it in'). She now works her butt off to get those Ps. My 1st grader seems to get ES'es for completing his assignments, even if he is clearly writing asinine answers designed to impress his little buddies. Oh well...

And this is why the system is worse than grades. It just seems so much more subjective.

Have you had teachers who give you an A for pretty much anything, and other teachers who won't give you an A no matter what? I have.

Yes, but the difference here is that you have an entire system where the county-based school system wants teachers to give out majority "P's." The pressure on teachers to give out Ps skews the value/meaning of a P (simply b/c they are so prevalent). Haven't you seen the posters in the classrooms that say "We aim for Proficient." Yikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly it's just variable because teachers are human and interpreting the system differently. My 5th graders teacher gives a bunch of Is (which have motivated my slacker 5th grader who got all As previously out of just 'mailing it in'). She now works her butt off to get those Ps. My 1st grader seems to get ES'es for completing his assignments, even if he is clearly writing asinine answers designed to impress his little buddies. Oh well...

And this is why the system is worse than grades. It just seems so much more subjective.

Have you had teachers who give you an A for pretty much anything, and other teachers who won't give you an A no matter what? I have.

Yes, but the difference here is that you have an entire system where the county-based school system wants teachers to give out majority "P's." The pressure on teachers to give out Ps skews the value/meaning of a P (simply b/c they are so prevalent). Haven't you seen the posters in the classrooms that say "We aim for Proficient." Yikes.

HUH? What is the difference in aiming for "P" and aiming for "A"? You do want them to aim for a good grade correct? This is a teacher who put that up in his/her classroom, how is that a countywide "thing"? I do not see your point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I am not bothered. First, not everything is a P. Second, these are elementary school children, not adults. Third, elementary school is not a competition.

Hard work does result in something different than mediocre or bad work -- namely, it results in you having done your best.

Then using your logic, why grade anything? Just tell kids to do their best and no need to have anything graded. Teachers can assign a subjective grade for reporting purposes to the county. It doesn't matter, we patents told them to do their best, no feedback is required. Give me a break.

Yes, actually, I would be happy with no grades in elementary school. There are other forms of feedback from teachers that are much more useful. And in elementary school especially, children should be learning to love learning for the sake of learning, not for the sake of grades.

(This is another difference between elementary school and the adult workplace, given that adults typically do not work for the sake of working, but rather for the sake of getting paid.)

I am afraid that your view is very short sighted. If your view is adopted, this country will be in big trouble. Regardless, here is a short response on this matter from someone else.

"For education, an ultimate goal is to get students motivated to learn by themselves such that when they are out of schools, they will overcome challenges by themselves through learning. However, without seeing where they are and knowing what they can achieve, it is absolutely hard for them to get motivated.

Parents have been wondering whether there was a visible path for any P student to get an ES grade. All of us understand that the vibrancy of our society is from diversity instead of all-the-same. It is very hard for anyone to know what the true strength of any student is when he/she gets P all over the place. For these straight P students, their parents do not know where to encourage their kids.

More importantly, without visibility and clarity of the path towards ES, straight P students can be less willing to go extra miles in order to further build up their core strength. This is true for all students regardless of their social-economical status.

I think that maybe, all of us agree that simply producing straight-P students may not necessarily forecast a happy ending for an education system, families, and our society. "

[Anonymous]

But you kne how to get an A and you do not know how to get an ES. Consider Math, my 5th grade DS last year knew exactly the score she needed to get on the unit test to get an A in the class. My 4th grade son has no idea what he needs to do to get an ES or a P for that matter. I know, "just do you best" and do not worry about the grade. I disagree that it isn't helful to clarify expection and link effort and reward even for a 10 year old. IMHO anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I am not bothered. First, not everything is a P. Second, these are elementary school children, not adults. Third, elementary school is not a competition.

Hard work does result in something different than mediocre or bad work -- namely, it results in you having done your best.

Then using your logic, why grade anything? Just tell kids to do their best and no need to have anything graded. Teachers can assign a subjective grade for reporting purposes to the county. It doesn't matter, we patents told them to do their best, no feedback is required. Give me a break.

Yes, actually, I would be happy with no grades in elementary school. There are other forms of feedback from teachers that are much more useful. And in elementary school especially, children should be learning to love learning for the sake of learning, not for the sake of grades.

(This is another difference between elementary school and the adult workplace, given that adults typically do not work for the sake of working, but rather for the sake of getting paid.)

I am afraid that your view is very short sighted. If your view is adopted, this country will be in big trouble. Regardless, here is a short response on this matter from someone else.

"For education, an ultimate goal is to get students motivated to learn by themselves such that when they are out of schools, they will overcome challenges by themselves through learning. However, without seeing where they are and knowing what they can achieve, it is absolutely hard for them to get motivated.

Parents have been wondering whether there was a visible path for any P student to get an ES grade. All of us understand that the vibrancy of our society is from diversity instead of all-the-same. It is very hard for anyone to know what the true strength of any student is when he/she gets P all over the place. For these straight P students, their parents do not know where to encourage their kids.

More importantly, without visibility and clarity of the path towards ES, straight P students can be less willing to go extra miles in order to further build up their core strength. This is true for all students regardless of their social-economical status.

I think that maybe, all of us agree that simply producing straight-P students may not necessarily forecast a happy ending for an education system, families, and our society. "

I am not the poster to whom you are responding, but I have to say I agree with them.
I would be fine without grades in elementary school.
I understand that there are areas of the new grading system that is murky. However, I think the most valuable information comes from the teacher and not necessarily the grade on the paper. We are lucky that our DC's teacher is very good about putting specific comments on DC'S work and on the weekly assessment. This allows us to keep track of areas of weakness and strength. To me the comments are much more telling than the actual grade, as it give us "specific" information as to where DC needs help and exactly what DC is learning.
At this point, we want to instill in DC a love of learning and reaching DC'S highest level, not in comparison to others.
Once this is ingrained and becomes DC's basic mode of operation, I feel this is what is going to best ensure DC's ability to learn, work through challenges and aim for DC'S definition of success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I am not bothered. First, not everything is a P. Second, these are elementary school children, not adults. Third, elementary school is not a competition.

Hard work does result in something different than mediocre or bad work -- namely, it results in you having done your best.

Then using your logic, why grade anything? Just tell kids to do their best and no need to have anything graded. Teachers can assign a subjective grade for reporting purposes to the county. It doesn't matter, we patents told them to do their best, no feedback is required. Give me a break.

Yes, actually, I would be happy with no grades in elementary school. There are other forms of feedback from teachers that are much more useful. And in elementary school especially, children should be learning to love learning for the sake of learning, not for the sake of grades.

(This is another difference between elementary school and the adult workplace, given that adults typically do not work for the sake of working, but rather for the sake of getting paid.)

I am afraid that your view is very short sighted. If your view is adopted, this country will be in big trouble. Regardless, here is a short response on this matter from someone else.

"For education, an ultimate goal is to get students motivated to learn by themselves such that when they are out of schools, they will overcome challenges by themselves through learning. However, without seeing where they are and knowing what they can achieve, it is absolutely hard for them to get motivated.

Parents have been wondering whether there was a visible path for any P student to get an ES grade. All of us understand that the vibrancy of our society is from diversity instead of all-the-same. It is very hard for anyone to know what the true strength of any student is when he/she gets P all over the place. For these straight P students, their parents do not know where to encourage their kids.

More importantly, without visibility and clarity of the path towards ES, straight P students can be less willing to go extra miles in order to further build up their core strength. This is true for all students regardless of their social-economical status.

I think that maybe, all of us agree that simply producing straight-P students may not necessarily forecast a happy ending for an education system, families, and our society. "

I am not the poster to whom you are responding, but I have to say I agree with them.
I would be fine without grades in elementary school.
I understand that there are areas of the new grading system that is murky. However, I think the most valuable information comes from the teacher and not necessarily the grade on the paper. We are lucky that our DC's teacher is very good about putting specific comments on DC'S work and on the weekly assessment. This allows us to keep track of areas of weakness and strength. To me the comments are much more telling than the actual grade, as it give us "specific" information as to where DC needs help and exactly what DC is learning.
At this point, we want to instill in DC a love of learning and reaching DC'S highest level, not in comparison to others.
Once this is ingrained and becomes DC's basic mode of operation, I feel this is what is going to best ensure DC's ability to learn, work through challenges and aim for DC'S definition of success.

10:15 here. Your arguments are
1) If there is a good teacher, ....
2) Knowing the path toward ES will scare students away from "love of learning ..."

Those are questionable arguments. In addition, I am not sure how you can generalize.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly it's just variable because teachers are human and interpreting the system differently. My 5th graders teacher gives a bunch of Is (which have motivated my slacker 5th grader who got all As previously out of just 'mailing it in'). She now works her butt off to get those Ps. My 1st grader seems to get ES'es for completing his assignments, even if he is clearly writing asinine answers designed to impress his little buddies. Oh well...

And this is why the system is worse than grades. It just seems so much more subjective.

Have you had teachers who give you an A for pretty much anything, and other teachers who won't give you an A no matter what? I have.

Yes, but the difference here is that you have an entire system where the county-based school system wants teachers to give out majority "P's." The pressure on teachers to give out Ps skews the value/meaning of a P (simply b/c they are so prevalent). Haven't you seen the posters in the classrooms that say "We aim for Proficient." Yikes.

HUH? What is the difference in aiming for "P" and aiming for "A"? You do want them to aim for a good grade correct? This is a teacher who put that up in his/her classroom, how is that a countywide "thing"? I do not see your point.

The "difference" is that aiming for an A is aiming for excellence and the best outcome. Aiming for a P is aiming for some I'll-defined idea of "what a child in this grade should be able to do." that isn't about individual excellence it is about generic county wide standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But you kne how to get an A and you do not know how to get an ES. Consider Math, my 5th grade DS last year knew exactly the score she needed to get on the unit test to get an A in the class. My 4th grade son has no idea what he needs to do to get an ES or a P for that matter. I know, "just do you best" and do not worry about the grade. I disagree that it isn't helful to clarify expection and link effort and reward even for a 10 year old. IMHO anyway.

Really, IMHO, who cares if you get an ES or if you don't get an ES? Or if you get an A or not an A on the math test? You should work so that you get the highest score you can get on the unit test, not so that you can get an A or an ES. This is elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I am not bothered. First, not everything is a P. Second, these are elementary school children, not adults. Third, elementary school is not a competition.

Hard work does result in something different than mediocre or bad work -- namely, it results in you having done your best.

Then using your logic, why grade anything? Just tell kids to do their best and no need to have anything graded. Teachers can assign a subjective grade for reporting purposes to the county. It doesn't matter, we patents told them to do their best, no feedback is required. Give me a break.

Yes, actually, I would be happy with no grades in elementary school. There are other forms of feedback from teachers that are much more useful. And in elementary school especially, children should be learning to love learning for the sake of learning, not for the sake of grades.

(This is another difference between elementary school and the adult workplace, given that adults typically do not work for the sake of working, but rather for the sake of getting paid.)

I am afraid that your view is very short sighted. If your view is adopted, this country will be in big trouble. Regardless, here is a short response on this matter from someone else.

"For education, an ultimate goal is to get students motivated to learn by themselves such that when they are out of schools, they will overcome challenges by themselves through learning. However, without seeing where they are and knowing what they can achieve, it is absolutely hard for them to get motivated.

Parents have been wondering whether there was a visible path for any P student to get an ES grade. All of us understand that the vibrancy of our society is from diversity instead of all-the-same. It is very hard for anyone to know what the true strength of any student is when he/she gets P all over the place. For these straight P students, their parents do not know where to encourage their kids.

More importantly, without visibility and clarity of the path towards ES, straight P students can be less willing to go extra miles in order to further build up their core strength. This is true for all students regardless of their social-economical status.

I think that maybe, all of us agree that simply producing straight-P students may not necessarily forecast a happy ending for an education system, families, and our society. "

I am not the poster to whom you are responding, but I have to say I agree with them.
I would be fine without grades in elementary school.
I understand that there are areas of the new grading system that is murky. However, I think the most valuable information comes from the teacher and not necessarily the grade on the paper. We are lucky that our DC's teacher is very good about putting specific comments on DC'S work and on the weekly assessment. This allows us to keep track of areas of weakness and strength. To me the comments are much more telling than the actual grade, as it give us "specific" information as to where DC needs help and exactly what DC is learning.
At this point, we want to instill in DC a love of learning and reaching DC'S highest level, not in comparison to others.
Once this is ingrained and becomes DC's basic mode of operation, I feel this is what is going to best ensure DC's ability to learn, work through challenges and aim for DC'S definition of success.

10:15 here. Your arguments are
1) If there is a good teacher, ....
2) Knowing the path toward ES will scare students away from "love of learning ..."

Those are questionable arguments. In addition, I am not sure how you can generalize.

Hi 10:15!
I was not saying that the path to ES will scare students away, I am sorry if what I wrote lead you to believe that. What I was trying to say is that, in my estimation, that the path to ES should not necessarily be the PRIMARY goal. Should it be clearer, yes I think that would be helpful. My main point is that I think we should get away from thinking that the grade is the primary goal AND the primary indicator of "how" the child is doing. The teachers need to give more feedback, I was using our kid's teacher as an example of how giving that feedback is immensely helpful. Is my point clearer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The "difference" is that aiming for an A is aiming for excellence and the best outcome. Aiming for a P is aiming for some I'll-defined idea of "what a child in this grade should be able to do." that isn't about individual excellence it is about generic county wide standards.

Why do you think that the standards are ill-defined? They're quite well-defined, as far as I can tell. MCPS publishes them. You can look them up.

And if you think that an A necessarily means individual excellence, well...

[Anonymous]

Ps- the posters about "aim for P" are county produced materials distributed to schools as part of the 2.0 roll-out. They are very much a count wide thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ps- the posters about "aim for P" are county produced materials distributed to schools as part of the 2.0 roll-out. They are very much a count wide thing.

Ok -- so what is the problem (serious question) a "P" means proficient - proficient is a good thing:
"competent or skilled in doing or using something.

synonyms: skilled, skillful, expert, experienced, accomplished, competent, masterly, adept, adroit, deft, dexterous, able, professional, consummate, complete, master;"

[Anonymous]

This will really blow your mind...my kid had a spelling test...got a few wrong...teacher let DC retake the test for just those few words...
all I care about is now DC can spell those words