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

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[quote=Anonymous][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]

I don't see it that way. The rolling gradebook is another issue we aren't discussing so it doesn't contribute to this discussion. This discussion is on the elimination of smaller assignments and only focusing on several heavily weighted grades. The practice assignments used to be about 20% of the grade and they worked to help the child do better on the final assessment. So they were both a grade* 20% of the final grade averaged or a grade contributing to homework and a means to achieve a higher score on the final assessments. In this way perhaps they contributed to the 20% of the grade and also let's say 50% of the final assessment grade because if you do this work and do it well, you likely will do well on the final assessment.

In the previous grading example, Child A gets a B (3.0) on the 20% of these assignments an A- on the final (3.6) worth 80% of the grade. The started out with some D's on the practice, maybe an F for missing an assignment, but then learned what the teacher wanted and learned the skill better and so on the final assessment were able to do better than if they didn't do the practice work. Average for this child is (3.6*0.8)+(2.9*0.2)=3.46 or an A-.

Now take the scenario where these other assignments don't count. Any student such as Child B that does not want to put in the work to be sure they get an A or will not assess their own work correctly and will either not do the work or not do it well and with less feedback will not be as prepared for the final assessment. They will be told that this other work doesn't matter that much and won't get feedback and that will decrease their interest in doing the work. Then instead of that A- they might have gotten with all the other assignments completed beforehand, they will likely get a B on the final assessment since its the first time they are actually being graded on these skills.[/quote]

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