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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The first page says it takes way more time for a teacher to implement and that [b]it’s hard to raise an overall grade during the year.[/b] There you’ve got your answer that it’s a bad way of grading. [/quote]

I'm not sure if you are aware of how averages work when you add more numbers to the set that is being averaged???  The fewer numbers (graded work) in the set (ie. earlier in the school year when there have only been 5 graded assignment), the more impact a new number has when added to the set.  As the year progresses, you now have 35 numbers in the set that gets averaged.... so each number has less impact on the average, and it is harder to change the average as new numbers (i.e. graded work) are added.

That's not a flaw of skills-based grading.  That's just a mathematical fact of averages over the course of a year.  As you add more grades, it takes a lot more deviation from the mean to actually pull the mean in one direction or the other.  It may be harder to INCREASE your overall grade in April, but it's also harder to DECREASE your overall grade in April -- because all of your grades up to that point have lead to the grade that you have (i.e. the average of all your work so far).

If you liked having quarter grades where each quarter was a fresh start -- you are essentially saying that you liked being mislead to believe that you were doing better at the beginning of each quarter, without knowing how that would impact your final grade.  You essentially prefer to be ignorant of where you truly stand, and you liked the mirage.  The rolling grade book gives you the most up-to-date information on what your kid's grade is at any point in the year.  Some people like those fun-house-mirrors what make you look skinnier than you are --- that's kind of what quarter grading is vs. the reality of rolling grade book.  Which-- by the way -- is NOT the same as skills based grading.  Those are two different issues.

If you are going to argue against something -- try to make an argument that is legitimate.  [/quote]

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