Anonymous
07/16/2025 08:30
Subject: Please no more skills based grading!
How is skills based grading different from standards based grading, which has been in the ES for quite a while now?
Anonymous
07/16/2025 06:44
Subject: Re:Please no more skills based grading!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Issues like this one are one reason why more people with means are and will choose alternatives to public school, even the "good" ones.
That is a goal of FCPS. Get the families to pay private and larger taxes without the kids attending.
Dude- you won the national election. Voucher are coming and your “taxes” will be lowered as you pay more for every consumer good and sponsor tariffs. But hey- at least the dingbats who want no taxes won’t be paying taxes, just inflation. woo hoo!
There is no way the goal of FCPS is to get more taxes without kids attending. Get over yourself.
PS- those private schools will keep charging more as the vouchers are implemented so they can
1- keep out the poors
2- get even more money that FCPS does per pupil.
Anonymous
07/16/2025 05:31
Subject: Re:Please no more skills based grading!
Anonymous wrote:Issues like this one are one reason why more people with means are and will choose alternatives to public school, even the "good" ones.
That is a goal of FCPS. Get the families to pay private and larger taxes without the kids attending.
Anonymous
07/16/2025 05:21
Subject: Please no more skills based grading!
SBG like many things looks great on paper and properly implemented can work. But when has FCPS ever been good at implementing things as designed.
Anonymous
07/15/2025 19:17
Subject: Please no more skills based grading!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:what is it?
NP.
It is a form of “equity grading.”
Instead of regular tests, they are given skills tests that are graded off a rubric, not proficient, proficient, more than proficient, mastery etc. They will take the most recent grade of a "skill". I think it is meant to try to get kids to bring up their grade by retaking certain skills but we have experienced that it actually can lower your grade and also they are so focused on the skill part that learning the actual content is overlooked. I hope that all FCPS high schools use the same grading methodologies and this skills based grading approach goes away.
It’s meant to further racial equity goals in FCPS.
I was ok with it this year at Madison. Sounds like they will make changes to it again though that will make it more like the few years prior-which were flat out terrible. The counting the SOL, only allowing retake up to 90, etc don’t work well with skills based grading.
Are the SOL counting and up to 90 the changes you speak of to happen or are there more expected?
Is the up to 90 retakes relevant with SBG? My kid had no retakes at Madison. Just grade replacement with the next test.
Anonymous
07/15/2025 19:08
Subject: Please no more skills based grading!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:How does it promote equity?
In the past, grades could included things like homework (either graded homework or completed homework) as part of the grade.
However, homework is racist. So it must be ungraded, or eliminated.
Some of the most anti-homework parents I know are white. They don’t think Larla should be forced to do homework after school and dance/acro/parkour class.
And I agree. Kids are in school all day - then we ask them to work hours after school on homework? Ridiculous. College was easy for me after FCPS high school! It was refreshing only having reading for homework.
Um, where did you go to college such that you only had reading for homework? I did 10 years of higher ed and that was never my experience. It was much harder than high school, and I had a ton of work to do outside of class between reading, writing, and problem sets.
My memory is that most classes only had like 1-2 tests, 1-2 papers and a final for the entire semester. Not really daily homework that is graded. Mostly reading and preparing for lectures. Much less time intensive than the daily homework FCPS assigns and expects done by the next class period.
There are a lot more assignments in college nowadays. Not daily, but definitely more than the 3-5 big tests/papers that we had.
Anonymous
07/15/2025 15:34
Subject: Please no more skills based grading!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:How does it promote equity?
In the past, grades could included things like homework (either graded homework or completed homework) as part of the grade.
However, homework is racist. So it must be ungraded, or eliminated.
Some of the most anti-homework parents I know are white. They don’t think Larla should be forced to do homework after school and dance/acro/parkour class.
And I agree. Kids are in school all day - then we ask them to work hours after school on homework? Ridiculous. College was easy for me after FCPS high school! It was refreshing only having reading for homework.
Um, where did you go to college such that you only had reading for homework? I did 10 years of higher ed and that was never my experience. It was much harder than high school, and I had a ton of work to do outside of class between reading, writing, and problem sets.
My memory is that most classes only had like 1-2 tests, 1-2 papers and a final for the entire semester. Not really daily homework that is graded. Mostly reading and preparing for lectures. Much less time intensive than the daily homework FCPS assigns and expects done by the next class period.
Anonymous
07/15/2025 12:07
Subject: Re:Please no more skills based grading!
Anonymous wrote:Issues like this one are one reason why more people with means are and will choose alternatives to public school, even the "good" ones.
True.
Covid brought a massive boost in private school admission in FCPS.
Due to Gatehouse’ bloat, mismanagement, and insistence on increasingly woke policies such as “skills based grading,” private education in FFX county will only increase in the future.
The school board and superintendent have no one to blame but themselves.
Anonymous
07/14/2025 11:01
Subject: Re:Please no more skills based grading!
Issues like this one are one reason why more people with means are and will choose alternatives to public school, even the "good" ones.
Anonymous
07/13/2025 06:48
Subject: Please no more skills based grading!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Our skills based grading sucked. Content quizzes and tests and long homework packets counted as nothing. However, after my kid worked their butt off on the science project, they were graded harshly on presentation skills for looking at notecards during final presentation. Teacher seemed to purposely give kids high grades that she wanted to lift up and lower kids that she felt were unworthy of an A in the class.
This is the big issue with SBG, it is so easy to social engineer equitable grading. Surprised it isn’t in place county wide in FCPS.
Perhaps the next thing the school board does post boundary study.
It’s only easy to do so, if rubrics and exemplars are not used. SBG is supposed to include both. They make it clear to students and parents how the teacher will evaluate the student.
I teach in a different district and I’ve wanted us to switch to SBG for the past five years because I see students who don’t master the objectives passing based on other parts of the assignment that are really just fluff but make up 75% of the points.
Anonymous
07/13/2025 06:31
Subject: Please no more skills based grading!
Anonymous wrote:Our skills based grading sucked. Content quizzes and tests and long homework packets counted as nothing. However, after my kid worked their butt off on the science project, they were graded harshly on presentation skills for looking at notecards during final presentation. Teacher seemed to purposely give kids high grades that she wanted to lift up and lower kids that she felt were unworthy of an A in the class.
This is the big issue with SBG, it is so easy to social engineer equitable grading. Surprised it isn’t in place county wide in FCPS.
Perhaps the next thing the school board does post boundary study.
Anonymous
07/13/2025 01:10
Subject: Please no more skills based grading!
Untrue for our school. Multiple choice was used for reading comprehension questions for passages and the one book required. Multiple choice was also used for telling if paragraphs were problem-solving, chronological, sequential, cause-effect, etc. multiple choice was used for literary terms like personification, metaphor, simile, etc.Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:If you are going to allow retakes, let the kids retake up to a 100. Who does that hurt? The teachers aren't doing anything by hand. Everything is automated. Even English tests are multiple choice.
I am an English teacher. The only multiple-choice assessments we, as a department, give are the ones provided by the district (which are required but are not graded). Every other assessment is short answer or essay-based.
On average, our students have five or six summative assessments per quarter, one or two of which are full-length essays.
Anonymous
07/12/2025 21:44
Subject: Please no more skills based grading!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:How does it promote equity?
In the past, grades could included things like homework (either graded homework or completed homework) as part of the grade.
However, homework is racist. So it must be ungraded, or eliminated.
Some of the most anti-homework parents I know are white. They don’t think Larla should be forced to do homework after school and dance/acro/parkour class.
And I agree. Kids are in school all day - then we ask them to work hours after school on homework? Ridiculous. College was easy for me after FCPS high school! It was refreshing only having reading for homework.
Um, where did you go to college such that you only had reading for homework? I did 10 years of higher ed and that was never my experience. It was much harder than high school, and I had a ton of work to do outside of class between reading, writing, and problem sets.
Anonymous
07/12/2025 21:20
Subject: Please no more skills based grading!
Our skills based grading sucked. Content quizzes and tests and long homework packets counted as nothing. However, after my kid worked their butt off on the science project, they were graded harshly on presentation skills for looking at notecards during final presentation. Teacher seemed to purposely give kids high grades that she wanted to lift up and lower kids that she felt were unworthy of an A in the class.
Anonymous
07/10/2025 11:37
Subject: Please no more skills based grading!
Anonymous wrote:There's no accountability for the quality ofnthe tests. When a "test" is only four questions and multiple choice with no partial credit, one mistake in a calculation and the kid has a C. So one little mistake has a huge effect on the grade but piles of homework and classwork count for nothing. Its stressful for the kids and letting them retake up to an A was the counterbalance to that.
No kids used the first test for "review" bc every teacher required huge packets to be completed (no credit for completing review packets) before another chance at the four multiple choice questions.
+1