Message from Jack Smith about Grade Inflation
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Anonymous
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I think there is room for far more rigorous grading AND grade recovery programs. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Grades are a measurement. You can do this infrequently and without recovery allowances to use grades as a ranking tool or you can give them frequently and with recovery options to give feedback and incentivize learning. Students don't know what they don't know and grading can or written feedback can show them where the gaps exist in their learning. Quality instruction requires quality feedback and grading. If the student has a motivation like grade recovery to go learn the material then you are more likely to come out with a positive outcome on all fronts. Allowing this for assignments, tests and quizzes leading up to a cumulative exam is a good method for K-12 students. This approach significantly helps kids in the middle of the performance curve who may struggle but are willing to work hard or are very smart but don't always follow instructions the first time around. It doesn't help the kids at the bottom unless the school intervenes and pushes them to do the recovery efforts. What MCPS is doing is avoiding rigorous grading at every level and just inflating the scores, there is no cumulative end of year exam and many students move on with gaps in their understanding. These kids weren't accelerated too fast or unable to learn the material -they simply received inferior instruction and feedback. Teachers are being forced to spend more time collecting data for MCPS than rigorously grading student work. Teachers figure out that the system doesn't care if they give kids easy grades as long as they report data that central office likes to see. I would prefer that teachers spent far more time grading student's work more rigorously than reporting up data to the central office for their random spin efforts. |
Anonymous
Your assumptions are incorrect. My child is actually in a high school test-in program (and has been in MCPS magnets since 4th grade) so we certainly aren't trying to avoid hard work or a good education. |
Anonymous
So as a former university professor, I can tell you that top grades are a combination of organization, maturity, hard work and intelligence. HS and MS kids who are intelligent may simply lack the maturity or executive functioning developmental skills to get good grades in a truly rigorous K-12 curriculum but many of those same kids will mature later on and have no problem in college. There is an argument to be made that forcing kids to exercise executive functioning skills that developmentally they don't have yet simply wrecks their academic motivation and self esteem. They accept being a B or C students rather than having their development sped up. |
Anonymous
Sorry, I don't buy that either. I have one of those kids who has executive functioning challenges. ADHD and severe executive function issues. Loses things ALL THE TIME (still as a senior). Ninth grade was a struggle, sophomore still tough, but better, junior year huge improvement, etc. He is in a rigorous private high school. Just got accepted to a top 10 university. Managed to get an almost perfect SAT score. But still disorganized lol. Are you saying that schools should dumb down the curriculum so that these disorganized kids can thrive? I don't think so. Let them fail and learn by their mistakes. Also for those who require it, there are accommodations. Don't sacrifice strength in overall academics just to accommodate the few. |
Anonymous
I agree |
Anonymous
My child doesn't go to MCPS--I follow this forum because I'm MCPS staff. My child has a 132 IQ and straight As at a rigorous private. I can assure you that my child chokes on standardized exams -- anxiety gets in her way. Everyone has cognitive limits--but standardized tests don't happen to reflect hers. You're pretty ignorant. Be honest and recognize that. |
Anonymous
You don't trust the county to educate your kid? just curious |
Anonymous
| I work in another Maryland school district as a teacher and I switched my DS out of public school in 6th grade. He coasted along throughout ES earning straight As for not doing much of anything. He has to work hard to earn an A in private school. No retakes, no excuses, no rounding up grades, more difficult grading scale. |
Anonymous
I do not. Not at all. I don't like working in the county anymore either, though, so I'll be changing that up too. It's a shame. |
Anonymous
| J |
Anonymous
New PP chiming in - I recently moved my child to a private for high school. Still have one child in a lower grade in MCPS, hence why I follow this forum. The private high school gives final exams as a way to prepare kids for important cumulative exams in college. Resiliency needs to be practiced and learned in high school or children will have a rude awakening when they reach college. One problem in the transfer was educational gaps found with the pre-enrollment assessments the private school gave my child. The good thing about these assessments is that it let the teachers know what needed to be taught so my child was on the same level as other kids in her class. The private does the tests for everyone entering in the school, but they have identified specific issues from MCPS transfers because of the years of MCPS lacking a well designed and vetted curriculum. My child was an honors student who received mostly As in MCPS but really needed extra support to fill in MCPS educational gaps for the first marking period in private. I would say she will be better prepared for college because of the transfer to a private school. Another benefit of private is the moral of the staff. The teaching staff is recognized as professionals and they are not micromanaged like MCPS teachers. Many have Ph.D.s in the subject area and have taught at local universities. They are highly skilled in their profession but have the opportunity to connect individually with children because of the smaller class sizes at a private school. My child's largest class has 18 students. |
Anonymous
| Jack Smith's letter to MCPS parents is just spin in reaction to the media attention. Even middle school students taking a high school credited class recognize if you get an A the first marking period, you don't have to work as hard the second marking period because getting a B is enough to receive an A for the semester. When there were final exams, students were motivated to work every semester to get the higher grade. A + A would equal an A. Otherwise, if you received a B you would have to get the A on the exam to receive an A for the semester. The exams were motivation. The simple removal of exams has in itself inflated grades and students will be ill equipped for college test taking skills. |
Anonymous
uh You do realize that your kid's magnet school experiences are in a bubble and do not reflect what happens in an average classroom on a daily basis. |
Anonymous
| The reason why there were lower grades in the past isn't that there's grade inflation today but because of the widespread use of leaded gas affected your generation's ability to reason. |
Anonymous
I was the poster to whom you responded. - former MCPS teacher (in another district now for the same reason) |