Reply to MCPS report cards -- how common is ES?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]22:45 here - My ES in math kid tends to go crazy on math assignments...he does the basic work but then writes almost proofs or long explanations of what he's doing, spontaneously provides other examples, gives the teacher new problem sets on the back. He also uses much larger numbers than the worksheets might suggest, so if it is a simple thing on even and odds (just an example, this is something they did much earlier in the year), he will compare numbers in the millions or something with decimals, etc. He also does things with negative numbers, fractions, etc. He basically just challenges himself for fun on the worksheets.[/quote]

Thats great and exactly what I think ES is intended to be...  not just that everything was done correctly but that student went above and beyond what was asked for...[/quote]

The problem I have with this model is that it is basically "what color am I thinking of?"  Meaning, it is completely subjective and there is no direction given.  You are asking a 3rd grader to imagine and then create what a teacher might want (but doesn't tell you in advance).  That is asking an awful lot of a young child and asking for a level of precociousness that isn't, in and of itself, indicative of mastery of the subject matter.

Imagine if, at your job, your boss said "in order to get the highest performance assessment, you have to do something extraordinary but I won't tell you what that is."  An adult would find this arbitrary and unsettling - why would a child not feel the same way?

Another problem with this model is that if most of the kids get a P (unless they read the teacher's mind, create problems on their own, solve them and describe them in a manner that pleases the teacher!), then most kids look exactly the same on paper.  So, that tells me that, eventually, in order to differentiate kids, schools will HAVE TO rely on some standardized test.  So by not differentiating kids in the classroom, aren't we creating a system where only the "good-standardized-test-takers" will be able to rise above.  When I was in school, there were some kids who didn't do as well on standardized tests, but were amazing in the classroom, creative, etc., and the report card reflected all of that.  Now, if the report card from the classroom doesn't say anything, we are - maybe inadvertently - making the standardized test the ONLY differentiating factor for these kids.  Am I right? [/quote]

Why do you have a problem with it...  It has no bearing on anything.  As has been stated on here many times the goal is P thats what is being asked of the child.  If your child through his own interest, motivation provides more thats WONDERFUL but not required.

And every job I've ever had evaluates personnel on behaviors/attitudes that are not specifically spelled out but what one just does because they have the ability.

Your last point I agree with on some level but I also think grades in the traditional sense are very misleading.  There are people that get straight A's that are useless.  They don't know how to create, improvise in ways that someone who just doesn't put in as much effort but gets B's might.  When I was in school these people got overlooked...

I[/quote]

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