Madison H.S. Parents - Principal Survey and Skills-Based Grading

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I can glean, the issue with this for many parents and kids isn't REALLY that they are peeved about equity-it is that the extra assignments that used to inflate their grades are now gone.

So are we against "equity" or FOR grade inflation?

Skills based grading by design reduces the number of As, Ds, and Fs to reduce the gap. My kid is fine with homework not counting. What seems unfair is the elimination of the A- and B+ grades, so to get an A you generally need to make zero mistakes on a test. So kids get fewer As, which is the point of the grading policy. But most high schools aren’t doing this, so when my average kid applies to public schools that admit students largely by GPA and don’t have time to investigate the grading policies of each individual school, they will be at a disadvantage. Kids are miserable enough. I just don’t see why we need to make things more difficult for them.

Agreed. Also that the assessments aren’t even labeled as skills so no one can even track these skills at all. They just somehow show up in the grades after the fact so if say you are taking Algebra the test will be listed as test 7.2 and you have no idea that test covers just the skill for graphing and then the grade shows up and your kid has a B in graphing without ever knowing that was the final in that skill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From what I can glean, the issue with this for many parents and kids isn't REALLY that they are peeved about equity-it is that the extra assignments that used to inflate their grades are now gone. Hi

So are we against "equity" or FOR grade inflation?

Both. You can still drill down and see that kids are not meeting the state benchmarks. If I was from a URM family I would be much more interested in the actual grades than the differential. Why can’t Madison meet the state averages when other schools nearby meet them? Are they entering their data wrong or are they really not able to teach to the state minimum? That is the issue they should be addressing, not if they have too many kids who really should be at TJ but prefer Madison making their differential too high.

Secondly I don’t know anything about extra credit. Some teachers are no longer following any standards and it’s a complete free for all because of this skills based grading and just lack of follow through and standards. Some have retakes for all assignments. Some just major assessments. Some none at all. This is unfair and not following their own standards. There are assignments given but it’s not like there is some category that you know whether it is for practice or for a grade unless you check on SIS and no one can do this all the time so it’s not intuitive to know which assignments count and which don’t. A good number of assignments don’t even make it onto the Schoology calendar and just pop up. There is also no individual skill listed for any of these assignments so you have no idea this is your last chance to practice skill 4 of that class. Maybe there has been no practice on this skill for months and no graded assignments so the child doesn’t end up doing well on the assessment. Then the grades are whole letter grades which is just lazy grading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This new grading trend is driving us to reconsider home schooling (Virtual Virginia)... something we would never consider otherwise.

That's online school. Your child would still be considered a public school student, not a homeschooled one

[Anonymous]

The two areas where low income students do not meet state standards are in reading and biology. The school should be focusing on bringing up these test scores from the elementary level up rather than a partially put together skills based grading program.

[Anonymous]

Based on our department meeting today, Reid is making every school go to a 50-100 scale, eliminating the 0-4 option for next year.

Posting this from another thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Based on our department meeting today, Reid is making every school go to a 50-100 scale, eliminating the 0-4 option for next year.

Posting this from another thread.

Great news. How about the skills based grading and the not for grading isssues?

[Anonymous]

Madison parent here - just waiting for the end of the school year so I can send someone (who?) my thoughts on skills based grading. I’m so tired of how the grading methods change every year and Madison has to be the pilot for it all. Also I’m worried about teachers leaving over this - it must be exhausting for them too. Has anyone reached out to the school board or superintendent about this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Madison parent here - just waiting for the end of the school year so I can send someone (who?) my thoughts on skills based grading. I’m so tired of how the grading methods change every year and Madison has to be the pilot for it all. Also I’m worried about teachers leaving over this - it must be exhausting for them too. Has anyone reached out to the school board or superintendent about this?

Yes but was it really a pilot or did the school want to do this? In Vienna there tend to be a lot of principals that see their role as needing to be up on the latest education bandwagon for optics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Madison parent here - just waiting for the end of the school year so I can send someone (who?) my thoughts on skills based grading. I’m so tired of how the grading methods change every year and Madison has to be the pilot for it all. Also I’m worried about teachers leaving over this - it must be exhausting for them too. Has anyone reached out to the school board or superintendent about this?

No teacher is leaving over standards based grading. They’d be leaving for a million other reasons first. As a teacher and a parent in the district, I’ve learned over the years that when they send you a survey about something they’re “thinking” of implementing, it’s already decided upon, and when they ask your feedback, they only want the affirming feedback. Surveys are about optics and them looking like they’re seeking consensus. They’re not. They’re gonna do what they wanna do regardless.

[Anonymous]

What is the history on this skills based grading? Why did it even come about? What is Madison’s role in it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I can glean, the issue with this for many parents and kids isn't REALLY that they are peeved about equity-it is that the extra assignments that used to inflate their grades are now gone.

So are we against "equity" or FOR grade inflation?

Skills based grading by design reduces the number of As, Ds, and Fs to reduce the gap. My kid is fine with homework not counting. What seems unfair is the elimination of the A- and B+ grades, so to get an A you generally need to make zero mistakes on a test. So kids get fewer As, which is the point of the grading policy. But most high schools aren’t doing this, so when my average kid applies to public schools that admit students largely by GPA and don’t have time to investigate the grading policies of each individual school, they will be at a disadvantage. Kids are miserable enough. I just don’t see why we need to make things more difficult for them.

This is precisely the problem.

[Anonymous]

Please contact the school board over this. Silence will mean no change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please contact the school board over this. Silence will mean no change.

This is the type of grading the school board would want. Makes Administration look good, creates more work for teachers and hurts the talented kids. Need to get the superintendent on the record with respect to what FCPS grading policy is going to be for 23-24 and beyond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please contact the school board over this. Silence will mean no change.

This is the type of grading the school board would want. Makes Administration look good, creates more work for teachers and hurts the talented kids. Need to get the superintendent on the record with respect to what FCPS grading policy is going to be for 23-24 and beyond.

I’m sure FCPS will be status who except for Madison.

[Anonymous]

What is interesting is that IB schools can’t do this. They have to follow IB assessment policies.