Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents are telling you it’s providing less information. FCPS has specifically said it’s to help struggling students. I don’t know what battle you are fighting today. Why are you such a proponent of a grading system that has shown no long term benefit? Why are you so blind to the arguments against it and so for it when it’s been nothing but a failure at Madison and around the United States? What is your actual battle and agenda?

No one brought about this battle as a need for change other than the FCPS administration. We are fighting to bring back the previous policy since we were never made aware of a need for change, given a reason why Madison needed this change, or had any say about it’s coming about.

My “battle” is ignorance. The execution may be poor but the goal is to provide more info and shift focus towards learning/mastery. It has nothing to do with “equity” regardless of how you conflate it with other initiatives.

Not sure why you would say this.

“Grading for Equity” is a primer for this exact system of standards based grading. SBG being part and parcel of the county’s focus on equity isn’t really up for debate.

West Potomac has the same grading system and even refers to the implementation as “West Potomac's Equitable Grading Journey.”

https://westpotomachs.fcps.edu/gradingandreporting

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look what SBG did to Baltimore schools, it will do the same to FCPS.

Yes, that was clearly the only difference between Baltimore and FCPS so that comparison is totally rational.

Some of the schools in Virginia are not that much different than some of the Baltimore schools. The reports from Baltimore were for the entire city, not just the bad areas. Some parts of Fairfax look very different than Madison. With this system implemented there it will likely drop those high schools. The Wakefield High teachers all petitioned against this program because they know it hurts disadvantaged students even more than wealthy ones.

To attribute all challenges a school system may have to SBG is intellectually dishonest. What is your goal here? Make ridiculous comments to trash FCPS?

No. I didn’t bring up Baltimore but since it’s supposed to help disadvantaged students it’s an important point to show that it actually doesn’t.

Parents didn’t bring this change. I was never asked if my student needed this grading system before it was implemented. There was no push from anyone to bring down FCPS. Kids parents and teachers have been blindsided by a policy no one asked for. It was specifically brought forward by administration not teaching students pushing equity and I’m sure they have good intentions but the reality is that this program does not work for anyone.

Nope. SBG is just providing more information to parents about their kid’s learning. It helps all kids.

It has nothing to do with “equity” or “crt” or whatever battle you are fighting today.

How does it provide more info?

So what info did I get about what my kid knows when the whole quarter grade for a class was based on one in-class essay the 2nd week of September? And the teacher told the class, “don’t worry, this grade doesn’t really matter.” Further, the lack of -/+ grades is less specific. The truth is none of the 1st quarter grades really mattered.

Well it’s not doing that. It provides less feedback to students. It’s more confusing to follow and it doesn’t result in more mastery of skills. It also hasn’t done that throughout the country.

The execution is poor. That we can agree.

Anonymous wrote:Parents are telling you it’s providing less information. FCPS has specifically said it’s to help struggling students. I don’t know what battle you are fighting today. Why are you such a proponent of a grading system that has shown no long term benefit? Why are you so blind to the arguments against it and so for it when it’s been nothing but a failure at Madison and around the United States? What is your actual battle and agenda?

No one brought about this battle as a need for change other than the FCPS administration. We are fighting to bring back the previous policy since we were never made aware of a need for change, given a reason why Madison needed this change, or had any say about it’s coming about.

My “battle” is ignorance. The execution may be poor but the goal is to provide more info and shift focus towards learning/mastery. It has nothing to do with “equity” regardless of how you conflate it with other initiatives.

Where is the data saying that Madison parents were looking for more data on standards achievements for their kids and the data on how this system has helped them? It doesn’t exist for either data point. No one at Madison was consulted before this change. No one asked for it.

Parents are telling you it’s providing less information. FCPS has specifically said it’s to help struggling students. I don’t know what battle you are fighting today. Why are you such a proponent of a grading system that has shown no long term benefit? Why are you so blind to the arguments against it and so for it when it’s been nothing but a failure at Madison and around the United States? What is your actual battle and agenda?

No one brought about this battle as a need for change other than the FCPS administration. We are fighting to bring back the previous policy since we were never made aware of a need for change, given a reason why Madison needed this change, or had any say about it’s coming about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look what SBG did to Baltimore schools, it will do the same to FCPS.

Yes, that was clearly the only difference between Baltimore and FCPS so that comparison is totally rational.

Some of the schools in Virginia are not that much different than some of the Baltimore schools. The reports from Baltimore were for the entire city, not just the bad areas. Some parts of Fairfax look very different than Madison. With this system implemented there it will likely drop those high schools. The Wakefield High teachers all petitioned against this program because they know it hurts disadvantaged students even more than wealthy ones.

To attribute all challenges a school system may have to SBG is intellectually dishonest. What is your goal here? Make ridiculous comments to trash FCPS?

No. I didn’t bring up Baltimore but since it’s supposed to help disadvantaged students it’s an important point to show that it actually doesn’t.

Parents didn’t bring this change. I was never asked if my student needed this grading system before it was implemented. There was no push from anyone to bring down FCPS. Kids parents and teachers have been blindsided by a policy no one asked for. It was specifically brought forward by administration not teaching students pushing equity and I’m sure they have good intentions but the reality is that this program does not work for anyone.

Nope. SBG is just providing more information to parents about their kid’s learning. It helps all kids.

It has nothing to do with “equity” or “crt” or whatever battle you are fighting today.

A couple of standards related but not standards tested assignments whether for extra credit or regular credit might be good for the school system too. My example above was approved by the teacher before starting the assignment so it had some parameters while also allowing flexibility. It would help kids pick something they wanted to explore and would help subdue the squabbles that the standards don’t teach to my culture or gender or political philosophy arguments.

The School Board doesn’t care. They just want equal outcomes for all.

What was intellectually dishonest was attributing a grading system that has been around for 100 plus years to somehow creating poor extra credit programs. SBG doesn’t take away from people asking this and extra credit is not the horror the SBG slides make it out to be. I’ve never met a teacher who gave extra credit for tissues for the classroom and if they did it’s likely it helped kids not get sick and learn more. Extra credit typically meant a lot of work and was a positive lesson that going the extra mile paid off. Why does every new policy need to trash what went before it? If it’s so good it should be able to stand on its own merits.

It’s entirely honest to say that SBG has not helped poor performing school systems. It’s meant to help them and it doesn’t. It’s an important point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look what SBG did to Baltimore schools, it will do the same to FCPS.

Yes, that was clearly the only difference between Baltimore and FCPS so that comparison is totally rational.

Some of the schools in Virginia are not that much different than some of the Baltimore schools. The reports from Baltimore were for the entire city, not just the bad areas. Some parts of Fairfax look very different than Madison. With this system implemented there it will likely drop those high schools. The Wakefield High teachers all petitioned against this program because they know it hurts disadvantaged students even more than wealthy ones.

To attribute all challenges a school system may have to SBG is intellectually dishonest. What is your goal here? Make ridiculous comments to trash FCPS?

No. I didn’t bring up Baltimore but since it’s supposed to help disadvantaged students it’s an important point to show that it actually doesn’t.

Parents didn’t bring this change. I was never asked if my student needed this grading system before it was implemented. There was no push from anyone to bring down FCPS. Kids parents and teachers have been blindsided by a policy no one asked for. It was specifically brought forward by administration not teaching students pushing equity and I’m sure they have good intentions but the reality is that this program does not work for anyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look what SBG did to Baltimore schools, it will do the same to FCPS.

Yes, that was clearly the only difference between Baltimore and FCPS so that comparison is totally rational.

Some of the schools in Virginia are not that much different than some of the Baltimore schools. The reports from Baltimore were for the entire city, not just the bad areas. Some parts of Fairfax look very different than Madison. With this system implemented there it will likely drop those high schools. The Wakefield High teachers all petitioned against this program because they know it hurts disadvantaged students even more than wealthy ones.

To attribute all challenges a school system may have to SBG is intellectually dishonest. What is your goal here? Make ridiculous comments to trash FCPS?

An extra assignment to bring up a half point grade is also a nice gesture for students and less complex of a grading puzzle than SBG. People are going to want that half a letter grade bump whatever the system is. Why not just create it and have it be something worthwhile that demonstrates mastery of the year? Or have a final? Teachers used to do that all the time and it was a good thing. Final extra project worth a one point grade bump.
Once my middle school teacher gave a two point letter grade bump for the quarter if you read a second book of the same genre as the in class book and wrote a three page comparison report on the two books. The second book was a fascinating read and I liked picking it out myself and comparing the two. I was able to move my grade from an A minus to an A during a time when teachers actually gave grades to the single digits. I think I learned more from that exercise than the original book. New ways of grading aren't necessarily better just because they are new.

Another problem that SBG has introduced is replacing grades from practice to assessment and then changing past assessment grades. Many kids and parents have no idea what their grade is from week to week because it keeps changing. It's too hard to follow. They also may or may not get feedback on their practice work or even their assessment because each assessment has multiple grades that are hard to follow. It's a highly inaccurate grading system to follow and is meant to be inaccurate to create equity of all kids having similar grades.

If Madison wants to be sure that all standards are learned by the end of the year then they should just have finals. That's what finals did. Assessed all of the year's standards.