Reply to K report card is such BS

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Reply to "K report card is such BS"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They are easier to understand not just because parents are used to them but because there's more of a gradient and there was usually some sort of mathematical formula for the grades  based on achievement + effort and everyone knew that. If you didn't turn in your homework that counted X percent but if you aced the tests you might still be able to get an A or a B because it sounded Y percent.

These new report cards in K are supposed to be based on mastery but some teachers give Is even if a student has mastered the material due to lack of effort or whatever. So it is very confusing and very subjective.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

And what I wish they would move back to. Letter grades seem easier to understand and easier for student/parents to interpret how the student is doing.

This doesn't apply yet in kindergarten, but in a system that uses letter grades it seems easier to give students a goal to work towards and parents more options for standards to hold their children to.

I wish letter grades would be brought back at least for 3rd grade and up, which is what our old school system did. I don't mind the fuzzy, looser standards and evaluations so much for K-2 but by 3rd grade I think there should be actual grades that actually mean something and everyone is clear on their meaning.[/quote]

Letter grades seem easier to understand and easier for parents to interpret because that's what people are used to.[/quote][/quote]

They're easier to understand because they are quantitative rather than qualitative. By that, I mean that letter grades are typically based on percentages, which are arrived at by taking the total of points a student earned on activities that were assessed divided by the total number of points possible had the student gotten all answers correct on all assessed assignments. There was very little question about "What does a B mean and how/why did my kid get that grade?" (it means the student demonstrated that they know/can correctly perform between 80% and 89% of the assessed information or skills) as compared to how much confusion there is surrounding what I/P/E mean and how or why kids get those.

The answer to "How can my child get the next higher score" is way easier to answer under letter grades.

Also, one criticism I have seen of standards based grading is that there are only two "successful" levels where the student has met the standard, and since E's are rare most students who have met or exceeded the standard will have a P. Therefore, it is hard to tell exactly how your student is doing. They have met the standard, but have they just barely met it or are they far above it and producing work that's consistently almost completely free from mistakes? That is information I would find valuable, and due to the design of the letter grade system it is much easier to find that out under letter grades. With letter grades there are either 3 or 4 "successful" levels, depending on the school's policies. Either a D or a C is "barely meeting" the standards, and there are well-defined levels above that to differentiate how well a given student is meeting or exceeding the standards.[/quote]

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