APS - Standards Based Grading

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I much prefer SBG in elementary school as both a teacher and a parent. It is standard procedure in many countries and I have direct experience with it. When done properly it actually gives much more targeted feedback than the typical letter/number based systems, and is very easy to determine if a child is exceeding expectations. That said, I would not use it in MS or HS.

How can you tell if a child is exceeding expectations? They only gets a "Meets" after a subject is introduced and tested, even if the kid knew the topic at the beginning of the year. There is no "Exceeds" nor any opportunity to demonstrate knowledge of standards in the next grade up. Basically you only get feedback whether your child is meeting the absolute minimum standards and no feedback whether they're turning in work or doing the assignments.

And, as we discovered when we asked about an area where our kid received "Approaching Mastery," they list all of the standards for the year and evaluate even if they haven't reached that point in the school year.

I don't know if that's done to make it appear that there's progress? We asked about a specific area where our kid got "approaching" and were told that all kids received "approaching" because that hadn't started that unit yet. It seemed disingenuous at best.

[Anonymous]

I haven’t spoken to a single parent IRL that is please with SBG. It seems only the equity warriors on AEM cheerleader school board members like it. How can we reverse this trend in APS. I’m ver concerned with lack of homework, SBG, endless retakes and no consequences occurring in APS.

[Anonymous]

My kids are at Gunston - I think essentially they can get the equivalent of an 85% on tests (with retakes) and get an A because that is a "meets." it is totally absurd. The teachers hate it from what I hear.

[Anonymous]

We are applying to private school because I’ve finally had enough with APS. The schools are completely flabbergasted by the report cards and say it provides no tangible feedback on how our son is performing. This means it basically only standardized tests that they’re looking at. Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

There are so very many reasons to bail from APS, but this isn’t one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are so very many reasons to bail from APS, but this isn’t one of them.

PP here. Agree. But SBG is making it harder to bail because schools are like “WTF is this? We need academic records.”

[Anonymous]

Although my English is very good (but not my first language) I also don't understand these report cards, or their purpose. For me it's a bunch of intentionally vague crap. The perhaps most mind-boggling is the top of the new grading scale: Meets Standard. That's the highest you can get. This, in my mind, could mean anything from barely making it with a mysterious standard, to apparently, excelling far beyond what is asked.

The real question they need to answer is : What is different in healthy competition vs. unhealthy competition, and how can we foster healthy competition?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t spoken to a single parent IRL that is please with SBG. It seems only the equity warriors on AEM cheerleader school board members like it. How can we reverse this trend in APS. I’m ver concerned with lack of homework, SBG, endless retakes and no consequences occurring in APS.

Perhaps run for school board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I much prefer SBG in elementary school as both a teacher and a parent. It is standard procedure in many countries and I have direct experience with it. When done properly it actually gives much more targeted feedback than the typical letter/number based systems, and is very easy to determine if a child is exceeding expectations. That said, I would not use it in MS or HS.

How can you tell if a child is exceeding expectations? They only gets a "Meets" after a subject is introduced and tested, even if the kid knew the topic at the beginning of the year. There is no "Exceeds" nor any opportunity to demonstrate knowledge of standards in the next grade up. Basically you only get feedback whether your child is meeting the absolute minimum standards and no feedback whether they're turning in work or doing the assignments.

And, as we discovered when we asked about an area where our kid received "Approaching Mastery," they list all of the standards for the year and evaluate even if they haven't reached that point in the school year.

I don't know if that's done to make it appear that there's progress? We asked about a specific area where our kid got "approaching" and were told that all kids received "approaching" because that hadn't started that unit yet. It seemed disingenuous at best.

Yes, this. It is nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually prefer standards-based grading because it gives more targeted information and feedback. Our current school does traditional letter grades and our former school did standards-based.

What I’ve read is that most SBG policies have “exceeds expectations,” but not APS. And all the comments at our school are largely a copy and paste job. I’d be fine w SBG if it had exceed expectations but middle school should have traditional A, B, C, D, F.

APS middle schools do have traditional letter grades.

Gunston has SBG and the idea is to roll it out to other schools.

Gunston report cards have letter grades

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually prefer standards-based grading because it gives more targeted information and feedback. Our current school does traditional letter grades and our former school did standards-based.

What I’ve read is that most SBG policies have “exceeds expectations,” but not APS. And all the comments at our school are largely a copy and paste job. I’d be fine w SBG if it had exceed expectations but middle school should have traditional A, B, C, D, F.

APS middle schools do have traditional letter grades.

Gunston has SBG and the idea is to roll it out to other schools.

Gunston report cards have letter grades

The APS version of SBG is providing no quantitative feedback during the quarter and then producing a grade at the end of the marking period. And no deadlines, so teachers have to take endless late work and write as many tests as students want for remakes.

I would probably be considered an "equity warrior on AEM," but this is garbage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually prefer standards-based grading because it gives more targeted information and feedback. Our current school does traditional letter grades and our former school did standards-based.

What I’ve read is that most SBG policies have “exceeds expectations,” but not APS. And all the comments at our school are largely a copy and paste job. I’d be fine w SBG if it had exceed expectations but middle school should have traditional A, B, C, D, F.

APS middle schools do have traditional letter grades.

Gunston has SBG and the idea is to roll it out to other schools.

Gunston report cards have letter grades

Gunston has letter grades but those translate the SBG into letter grades and the school uses SBG techniques/policies related to things like retests. They consider a "meets" to be an A. The school is incredibly focused on equity. The principal has said it is her top priority and she is a big public supporter of SBC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually prefer standards-based grading because it gives more targeted information and feedback. Our current school does traditional letter grades and our former school did standards-based.

What I’ve read is that most SBG policies have “exceeds expectations,” but not APS. And all the comments at our school are largely a copy and paste job. I’d be fine w SBG if it had exceed expectations but middle school should have traditional A, B, C, D, F.

APS middle schools do have traditional letter grades.

Gunston has SBG and the idea is to roll it out to other schools.

Gunston report cards have letter grades

Gunston has letter grades but those translate the SBG into letter grades and the school uses SBG techniques/policies related to things like retests. They consider a "meets" to be an A. The school is incredibly focused on equity. The principal has said it is her top priority and she is a big public supporter of SBC.

Oh sweet baby Jesus. What does this translate to at gunston? What does equity mean to this principal and how is the school focused on equity? Equity is perfectly fine idea but the way we keep seeing APS implement it (like SBG) seems to undermine all access to opportunity rather than ensuring all
Kids get what they need to access it. Like APS looked at that picture of people looking over a fence and rather than saying “hey the little kid needs a box” decided to break the kneecaps of the adult. Look equity!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually prefer standards-based grading because it gives more targeted information and feedback. Our current school does traditional letter grades and our former school did standards-based.

What I’ve read is that most SBG policies have “exceeds expectations,” but not APS. And all the comments at our school are largely a copy and paste job. I’d be fine w SBG if it had exceed expectations but middle school should have traditional A, B, C, D, F.

APS middle schools do have traditional letter grades.

Gunston has SBG and the idea is to roll it out to other schools.

Gunston report cards have letter grades

Gunston has letter grades but those translate the SBG into letter grades and the school uses SBG techniques/policies related to things like retests. They consider a "meets" to be an A. The school is incredibly focused on equity. The principal has said it is her top priority and she is a big public supporter of SBC.

How is a "meets" an A? C is supposed to be the average grade, although I know it's used much less now. But, A is supposed to be for above average work, in theory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s a lot of stupid in this system but why is the highest level “meets standard”???? There is nothing higher? Why does APS hate achievement?

There used to be exceeds expectations, but the requirement is that the teacher had to show that the child consistently exceeded which was nearly impossible to do.

"Exceeds expectations" can be squirrelly. Is it exceeding the expectations for the grade level standard or exceeding the expectations that the teacher has for the student. If the latter, there is no consistency in application.

Better to say "exceeds standards".