Why are kids mad about the new grading?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This change makes a lot of sense. But MCPS should also include A minuses and pluses. It’s ridiculous not to have that

I agree completely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a current MCPS student and heard that students are going to board meetings to talk about the new grading. Why is it such a problem? I’m a rising junior, by the way, and it would just seem that you should keep with your current output of work and your grades will be fine. It seems to only be a problem if you’re slacking off, so I would understand a few stragglers, but even in my own inner circle, people are really mad. Is there something I don’t know? Thanks in advance.

HS Teacher here. A fear that many students have is that this change will impact college admissions because their GPAs will be lower. The problem is that students think they are competing against every other kid who applies to a particular college, but in reality they are competing against the other kids in their high school who will be affected the same way.

What students don’t see is that the current grading policy has actually been hurting college admissions because they have internal data that shows supposedly straight A kids from MCPS weren’t actually ready for their university courses. Students also don’t understand that padding their transcript with As and Bs in AP courses they barely understand doesn’t really help them when they get to college and are completely unprepared for next level courses or how to study and retain information for an entire semester.

This. My kids were under the old system, and the disdain and derision that MCPS got from AO in all the information sessions was humiliating. I just made sure that my kids were NMS scholars, took as many APs that they could and scored in 5s, and took the most rigorous course that they could, aced their SAT etc. Never went TO. We made sure that there was no doubt about the merit of the grades on the transcripts and that validation had to come from national institutions/orgs outside of MCPS.

MCPS allowed students to have AP grades in the classroom on their transcripts but these students did not take the AP exam administered by collegeboard. They get easy As and it was all just BS. Then these kids are dropping out of STEM courses in college because they cannot hack it in college. It is shameful.

Do you have numbers to back up your claim? The old system of AP exams where parents had to pay was crazy. I am glad it is now free. We had to pay over $500 a couple semesters. I can see why people didn't take the exams. For most colleges, AP scores don't matter anyways for admissions considerations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think you’re a student. Regardless, because A’s will be harder to come by, obviously.

Why don’t you think I am?

Because nobody thinks a 16 year old is contemplating grade policies and posting on a parenting forum on a Saturday night in August.

Touché, but here I am.

Do you not have Insta or Snap or the TikTok or whatever you kids use these days to vent your spleen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What 16 year old writes like this?! If you are 16 then wow! You are really smart. If not you’re weird.

??? What sort of comment is that? Incredibly judgemental and offensive.

DP. Why? I have a 17 year old who is always being told to write in her own voice and not sound like a 50 year old. Guess what the OP sounds like?

And some kids can’t help sounding mature and poised. Stop judging.
You come off as such a horrible hater.

No, I am on a website overrun by fake posts. I wish the old days.

Not the pp but a parent of a gifted child. In some cases this can be a real kid.

Would your child write on a mommy board to understand how other kids are feeling rather than use one of the many social media platforms overrun by teenagers? If yes, please reconsider what it means to be gifted.

[Anonymous]

well, ya know. back in the olden days the cut off for A was 93, B 85.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The new system is objectively better in most ways. But here's the counter argument. I have a very serious and anxious kid. And when stress is high, I appreciated being able to remind her of two things.

1. If it's toward the end of a quarter and she has like a 96%, she can stop stressing about that class. Chill out. Focus on another class. Because if it's quarter 3, then it doesn't do any good being way above 90% and if it's quarter 4 and she got an A the prior quarter, there's no way her grade will drop all the way to 79% to create a real drop in grade. The new system changes that equation somewhat (and I fear that her reaction will be to try to get as close to 100% in quarters 1 and 3 as possible, just in case).
and
2. If she got 6 As and a B in quarter 3, then I can tell her to put most of her energy into that one class. That she has wiggle room on the others so can devote her energy to the B.

The other nice implication of the old system was that if a kid is doing a team sport or other activity that takes a ton of time, they have more wiggle room in the busy quarter and can make up the difference in the off quarter.

All the time that her older sibs were in HS, I derided the silly MCPS grading system. But with this kid, it's actually provided some mental health benefits that I've appreciated (particularly since her work ethic is such that she's far, far from abusing the system).

My kid sounds a lot like yours. I blame myself some for emphasizing grades rather than "learn what you love," or something. But my student is anxious and upset about the new system because there is no mental break from the relentless pursuit of the highest score on an assessment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What 16 year old writes like this?! If you are 16 then wow! You are really smart. If not you’re weird.

??? What sort of comment is that? Incredibly judgemental and offensive.

DP. Why? I have a 17 year old who is always being told to write in her own voice and not sound like a 50 year old. Guess what the OP sounds like?

And some kids can’t help sounding mature and poised. Stop judging.
You come off as such a horrible hater.

No, I am on a website overrun by fake posts. I wish the old days.

Not the pp but a parent of a gifted child. In some cases this can be a real kid.

Would your child write on a mommy board to understand how other kids are feeling rather than use one of the many social media platforms overrun by teenagers? If yes, please reconsider what it means to be gifted.

But if you got on the places overrun with teens then you just see them crying about it. Might as well get info from the source.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What 16 year old writes like this?! If you are 16 then wow! You are really smart. If not you’re weird.

??? What sort of comment is that? Incredibly judgemental and offensive.

DP. Why? I have a 17 year old who is always being told to write in her own voice and not sound like a 50 year old. Guess what the OP sounds like?

And some kids can’t help sounding mature and poised. Stop judging.
You come off as such a horrible hater.

No, I am on a website overrun by fake posts. I wish the old days.

Not the pp but a parent of a gifted child. In some cases this can be a real kid.

Would your child write on a mommy board to understand how other kids are feeling rather than use one of the many social media platforms overrun by teenagers? If yes, please reconsider what it means to be gifted.

But if you got on the places overrun with teens then you just see them crying about it. Might as well get info from the source.

They wanted to understand why teens were upset. A mommy board is not going to the source. Agree that it sounds like a reporter or parent. The one thing it does not sound like is a teenager.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a current MCPS student and heard that students are going to board meetings to talk about the new grading. Why is it such a problem? I’m a rising junior, by the way, and it would just seem that you should keep with your current output of work and your grades will be fine. It seems to only be a problem if you’re slacking off, so I would understand a few stragglers, but even in my own inner circle, people are really mad. Is there something I don’t know? Thanks in advance.

If you are really a student, ask your fellow students. 1. Policy should be eased in --- juniors and seniors or at least the seniors should not be under this new policy because they are in their last high school year. 2. Teachers should have been given more time to plan for this change. Maybe make it go into effect second half of upcoming school year if not '26-27 school year.

I disagree. Just rip the bandaid off. The real harm is our national reputation of inflated grades. No use prolonging the pain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The new system is objectively better in most ways. But here's the counter argument. I have a very serious and anxious kid. And when stress is high, I appreciated being able to remind her of two things.

1. If it's toward the end of a quarter and she has like a 96%, she can stop stressing about that class. Chill out. Focus on another class. Because if it's quarter 3, then it doesn't do any good being way above 90% and if it's quarter 4 and she got an A the prior quarter, there's no way her grade will drop all the way to 79% to create a real drop in grade. The new system changes that equation somewhat (and I fear that her reaction will be to try to get as close to 100% in quarters 1 and 3 as possible, just in case).
and
2. If she got 6 As and a B in quarter 3, then I can tell her to put most of her energy into that one class. That she has wiggle room on the others so can devote her energy to the B.

The other nice implication of the old system was that if a kid is doing a team sport or other activity that takes a ton of time, they have more wiggle room in the busy quarter and can make up the difference in the off quarter.

All the time that her older sibs were in HS, I derided the silly MCPS grading system. But with this kid, it's actually provided some mental health benefits that I've appreciated (particularly since her work ethic is such that she's far, far from abusing the system).

My kid sounds a lot like yours. I blame myself some for emphasizing grades rather than "learn what you love," or something. But my student is anxious and upset about the new system because there is no mental break from the relentless pursuit of the highest score on an assessment.

Emphasize to your kid that they don’t have to get straight As under the new system. The benefit of making it more challenging to get an A is that not everyone will have one. I think it would be improved if they also added plus/minus grades because there would be yet more differentiation — even among kids who were in the A range some would get an A- and those in the B range could get a B+. I hope MCPS will make this change moving forward.

[Anonymous]

I don't have a problem with the new policy per se, I'm just hoping that they will get rid of some of all the little busywork assignments, because more isn't always better. Countries that have high stakes stressful exams don't also have tons of little stress crappy things that add up along the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What 16 year old writes like this?! If you are 16 then wow! You are really smart. If not you’re weird.

??? What sort of comment is that? Incredibly judgemental and offensive.

DP. Why? I have a 17 year old who is always being told to write in her own voice and not sound like a 50 year old. Guess what the OP sounds like?

And you sound like a 16 (or maybe 13) year old…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The new system is objectively better in most ways. But here's the counter argument. I have a very serious and anxious kid. And when stress is high, I appreciated being able to remind her of two things.

1. If it's toward the end of a quarter and she has like a 96%, she can stop stressing about that class. Chill out. Focus on another class. Because if it's quarter 3, then it doesn't do any good being way above 90% and if it's quarter 4 and she got an A the prior quarter, there's no way her grade will drop all the way to 79% to create a real drop in grade. The new system changes that equation somewhat (and I fear that her reaction will be to try to get as close to 100% in quarters 1 and 3 as possible, just in case).
and
2. If she got 6 As and a B in quarter 3, then I can tell her to put most of her energy into that one class. That she has wiggle room on the others so can devote her energy to the B.

The other nice implication of the old system was that if a kid is doing a team sport or other activity that takes a ton of time, they have more wiggle room in the busy quarter and can make up the difference in the off quarter.

All the time that her older sibs were in HS, I derided the silly MCPS grading system. But with this kid, it's actually provided some mental health benefits that I've appreciated (particularly since her work ethic is such that she's far, far from abusing the system).

My kid sounds a lot like yours. I blame myself some for emphasizing grades rather than "learn what you love," or something. But my student is anxious and upset about the new system because there is no mental break from the relentless pursuit of the highest score on an assessment.

There are a lot of breaks during the year. If she needs more, drop a level in some of her classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The new system is objectively better in most ways. But here's the counter argument. I have a very serious and anxious kid. And when stress is high, I appreciated being able to remind her of two things.

1. If it's toward the end of a quarter and she has like a 96%, she can stop stressing about that class. Chill out. Focus on another class. Because if it's quarter 3, then it doesn't do any good being way above 90% and if it's quarter 4 and she got an A the prior quarter, there's no way her grade will drop all the way to 79% to create a real drop in grade. The new system changes that equation somewhat (and I fear that her reaction will be to try to get as close to 100% in quarters 1 and 3 as possible, just in case).
and
2. If she got 6 As and a B in quarter 3, then I can tell her to put most of her energy into that one class. That she has wiggle room on the others so can devote her energy to the B.

The other nice implication of the old system was that if a kid is doing a team sport or other activity that takes a ton of time, they have more wiggle room in the busy quarter and can make up the difference in the off quarter.

All the time that her older sibs were in HS, I derided the silly MCPS grading system. But with this kid, it's actually provided some mental health benefits that I've appreciated (particularly since her work ethic is such that she's far, far from abusing the system).

My kid sounds a lot like yours. I blame myself some for emphasizing grades rather than "learn what you love," or something. But my student is anxious and upset about the new system because there is no mental break from the relentless pursuit of the highest score on an assessment.

Emphasize to your kid that they don’t have to get straight As under the new system. The benefit of making it more challenging to get an A is that not everyone will have one. I think it would be improved if they also added plus/minus grades because there would be yet more differentiation — even among kids who were in the A range some would get an A- and those in the B range could get a B+. I hope MCPS will make this change moving forward.

Agree that more precision is better!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a problem with the new policy per se, I'm just hoping that they will get rid of some of all the little busywork assignments, because more isn't always better. Countries that have high stakes stressful exams don't also have tons of little stress crappy things that add up along the way.

I don’t think we want to emulate those countries. And your method doesn’t track with research on learning.