Ugh standards based grading. It only helps if your kid is struggling and even then, you should know well before report cards so you can intervene.

If your kid is average or above average, it’s equivalent of the shrug emoji. You get a “meets” for everything. There is no “exceeds”. You don’t know which subjects are your kid’s strongest or weakest so that you can supplement at home or seek differentiation.

Or in the case of my kid who is going into 3rd never having received any feedback besides checks and an occasional check plus, he doesn’t know to try to get all the questions right the first time or to do his best. He has been rewarded for doing an ok job and has no incentive to do better than “meets”.

Not my hill to die on, but it’s dumb.

Anonymous wrote:What you aren’t understanding is that in elementary school the vast majority of the A’s B’s and C’s are NOT based on numerical computation like 90%. They are based on a teacher going “I think this kid is doing well, so I say they are at an A”. Until at least 4th grade there aren’t these big unit tests for every subject and the whole point of standards based is to show the student learning the skill over time and with practice.

My 3rd grader in APS had unit tests, spelling tests, graded writing assignments and presentations, weekly math tests, etc, and received number grades all year. For written work there was always a rubric showing what was needed to earn each grade. The grades were used to give her a letter grade on her report card each quarter.

For my kids it seems the teachers mark progressing all year and meets in the final report card. Unhelpful rubbish. If teachers want to track when kids meet standards they can do that, but the point of report cards is to help parents (and kids) now how they are doing. Report cards need to be in a format that conveys this information.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do they track for middle school?

There’s no tracking of public school children in America. That isn’t something we do here.

For math, they use Math Inventory & SOL scores to determine placement.

Anonymous wrote:wait, do all APS schools use this standards based grading?

I guess I have an old school way of thinking about school but self guided iPad learning and "standards based grading" sound...eh

Not all

Anonymous wrote:wait, do all APS schools use this standards based grading?

I guess I have an old school way of thinking about school but self guided iPad learning and "standards based grading" sound...eh

You’re not wrong.

Anonymous wrote:How do they track for middle school?

There’s no tracking of public school children in America. That isn’t something we do here.

wait, do all APS schools use this standards based grading?

I guess I have an old school way of thinking about school but self guided iPad learning and "standards based grading" sound...eh

Anonymous wrote:Here’s some information on it: https://www.arlingtonparentsforeducation.org/teachers-lounge (teacher perspective)

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?u=12119a80f9eb7a7322f4902ae&id=0fa9b2fc24 (parent perspective)

I can't read crap from APE, sorry.

The reason to be concerned about SBG is the additional work it puts on teachers, who now have to keep giving makeup tests to see if a kid has achieved competence in a skill yet.

What you aren’t understanding is that in elementary school the vast majority of the A’s B’s and C’s are NOT based on numerical computation like 90%. They are based on a teacher going “I think this kid is doing well, so I say they are at an A”. Until at least 4th grade there aren’t these big unit tests for every subject and the whole point of standards based is to show the student learning the skill over time and with practice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In theory shouldn't it be giving you more helpful data. So I haven't seen one of these yet. But lets say the standards are

Reading comp: Below expectations
Reading fluency: Meets expectations

Doesn't that then make you say "oh so I need to work on my kid on reading comp and they are okay on reading fluency so we don't need to do that"

Vs just A or B. All A tells me is my kid got the assignment right. It doesn't tell me whether he struggled to get there.

Quite the opposite. "Meets expectations" means nothing. I have no idea what "meets" means, what level of comprehension or fluency. Versus an "A" that tells me they more than "meet" expectations or a "C" that tells me they barely "meet" expectations. An "A" tells me 90% or more; a B tells me 80-90%. "Meets" just tells me "passed" - which a "D" also tells me.

This. It is basically Pass/Fail. There's a whole lot of room there in "pass". Is that just barely passing, or acing it or somewhere in between? Hard to tell.

From OP: “We left APS b/c pandemic and return to Taylor this year, there are no grades? I read the slides, so basically it’s pass fail?”

So it’s pass fail but instead of on a subject or entire class, it’s pass fail on some subset of standards? Do they really list that many of the skills as standards for each subject?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In theory shouldn't it be giving you more helpful data. So I haven't seen one of these yet. But lets say the standards are

Reading comp: Below expectations
Reading fluency: Meets expectations

Doesn't that then make you say "oh so I need to work on my kid on reading comp and they are okay on reading fluency so we don't need to do that"

Vs just A or B. All A tells me is my kid got the assignment right. It doesn't tell me whether he struggled to get there.

Quite the opposite. "Meets expectations" means nothing. I have no idea what "meets" means, what level of comprehension or fluency. Versus an "A" that tells me they more than "meet" expectations or a "C" that tells me they barely "meet" expectations. An "A" tells me 90% or more; a B tells me 80-90%. "Meets" just tells me "passed" - which a "D" also tells me.

This. It is basically Pass/Fail. There's a whole lot of room there in "pass". Is that just barely passing, or acing it or somewhere in between? Hard to tell.

Anonymous wrote:In theory shouldn't it be giving you more helpful data. So I haven't seen one of these yet. But lets say the standards are

Reading comp: Below expectations
Reading fluency: Meets expectations

Doesn't that then make you say "oh so I need to work on my kid on reading comp and they are okay on reading fluency so we don't need to do that"

Vs just A or B. All A tells me is my kid got the assignment right. It doesn't tell me whether he struggled to get there.

Quite the opposite. "Meets expectations" means nothing. I have no idea what "meets" means, what level of comprehension or fluency. Versus an "A" that tells me they more than "meet" expectations or a "C" that tells me they barely "meet" expectations. An "A" tells me 90% or more; a B tells me 80-90%. "Meets" just tells me "passed" - which a "D" also tells me.