Reply to WaPo article on new grading system

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Reply to "WaPo article on new grading system"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]All of you need to do some research on standards based grading.  It has nothing to do with percentages, or comparing how one child is doing to how other children in the class are doing.  The new report cards are actually quite informative compared to the old ones, if teachers know how to explain them to parents.  I think that is where the issues lie.[/quote]

OP here, I took up your challenge of researching SBG and what I found out is MCPS should be done a better job of the rollout given how many other places have had many of the same issues.  How involved were teachers and parents in coming up with the report card?  Did MCPS come up with ways to address challenges of SBG?  Did they communicate how this would impact special needs kids that have to show adverse academic impact to receive an IEP or how it would impact the HGC process where being at least a grade level ahead was part of the old criteria? Here is one article talking about the same thing
http://see.ludwig.lajuntaschools.org/?p=799

I actually went to back to school night and went to the PTA meeting, taking off time from work to go in the morning, to learn about the new grading system.  While there were ton of questions about ES at the meeting, my question about I's was never answered.  How do you know if 'I' is because the material is new versus your child is struggling in showing profiency?  We were basically told outright the goal is P by the end of the year. Getting to point 4 of the article above "use SBG to provide even less information to parents than your traditional grading system", for my child that is not getting proficient how do I know when I should be concerned and what is your plan to get him to proficient? I don't think I am asking too much that the school report cards and the communication around it address those two very basic points. If the whole point of SBG is to say whether my child meets proficiency or not in what has been deemed critical skills to have in X grade you got to let me know when I need to step in to help before my child has failed and when it is appropriate for me to expect you have a plan and can communicate the plan to me to get my child to proficient before I get the report card on the last day of school. Like we used to say about the employee reviews at my first job, there should be no surprises.  I shouldn't see anything but P's on the last report card of the year if you haven't been sounding the alarm all year long. My mom, a teacher in another school district, is familiar with SBG and was surprised the teachers did not have to document a plan to get kids with I's to the level of proficient.

10:02, you nailed exactly my earlier points.  It's too bad you couldn't have been in the room as the community input (assuming there was any) to the new report card and rollout.

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