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

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[quote=Anonymous]  [quote]You know darn well that the purpose of this SBG is to give kids more agency over their learning process and it is based on the latest research on learning.  (I'm basing this on the video, not my own personal knowledge of learning research.)[/quote]

[b]I hate to break it to you, but educational research is not known for it's quality. And then the video actually doesn't cite real educational research. It refers to Ted Dintersmith, a venture capitalist that decided to become an education guru. He went and visited some cool schools doing neat things and wrote a book about what learning could be. This is not research. He just observed, probably with the principal at his side. Then it talk about deeper learning which doesn't have anything to do with SBG. Deeper learning did not happen for my kids this year. SBG is a grading system. If you know of any studies that show SBG works, please post it. Educational research should not be anecdotes, observations, or ideas.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/08/21/a-shocking-statistic-about-the-quality-of-education-research/

The principle of replication is the cornerstone of scientific inquiry.

From the article, "Their study says that despite the fact that replication of education research findings is vital to policymakers and educators, only 0.13 percent of education articles were replicated." There’s more: While nearly 68 percent of the replicated studies were successful in reaching the same conclusions as the original studies, it was also true that replications “were significantly less likely to be successful when there was no overlap in authorship between the original and replicating articles,” according to an abstract of the report. When an entirely new team of researchers did a replication, they were successful in duplicating the results of the original 54 percent of the time. “The results,” the abstract said, “emphasize the importance of third-party, direct replications in helping education research improve its ability to shape education policy and practice.”

For more than a decade, school reformers have said that education policy should be driven by “research” and “data,” but there’s a big question about how much faith anyone should have in a great deal of education research. This is so not only because the samples are too small or because some research projects are funded by specific companies looking for specific results, but because in nearly all cases, it appears that nobody can be certain their results are completely accurate.[/b]

[quote]You cannot seriously think that FCPS wants or expects every student to have the SAME GRADES across the classroom, grade-level, school, and district.  Yes, they are trying to bring lower performing students into greater learning.  But, it's just silliness to suggest that they want all kids to get the same grades and therefore FCPS (according to the chicken littles on this thread) is trying to bring DOWN the high performing kids, and falsely bring UP the low performing kids. [/quote]

[b]I don't care what the motives are at this point, although I assume it's self-serving or misguided. We have been discussing what we are seeing with our kids' grades[/b]

[quote]There is a philosophy in education research that DE-emphasizing grades is good for the student (even if it is not good for the student's parent!).  And along with that is the idea of emphasizing learning and taking ownership of learning.  [/quote]

[b]There you go again talking about "research" It's not research. More likely, someone or more than one, wrote a book and now trains teachers/holds workshops/sells something to FCPS[/b]

[quote]I don't know if what I've described (based on the video of SBG) is the wave of the future and what schools should all be doing.  Or if this philosophy will be scrapped in 10 yrs. 
 But, I know that what they are trying to do is based in research.  It's not a conspiracy to screw over the smart kids just to help the poor kids.  And when you go down that line of argument, you just make yourselves look like crazy people.  [/quote]

[b]Well, the SBG wave of the future happened more than 10 years ago. We are copying something that has shown to fail thousands of students. SBG is failing kids all over the country such as in Baltimore which adopted equity grading policies. I guess Madison should have implemented this back when they started thinking about in 2015 if they wanted to be a school of the future. According to Einstein, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. What I'm seeing at Madison is crazy.[/b]

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