But then the schools might reveal who is ahead and who is behind the curve. This might mean that parents will clam or for more instruction to help the kid who needs more help and parents will clam or for more enrichment for the kid who is advanced. In the bizzaro world of MCPS, such things are unacceptable. That's right, everyone is a p. Se, doesn't that make it all so much easier...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Second, the O/S/I and letter grade reporting structure did not demonstrate what information the student learned any more than the current grading structure does. An A in social studies (for example) tells you that the teacher thinks the child did well. But what did the child learn? And did the A demonstrate that the child learned 90%+ of the material? And was this child who got an A performing at the same level as that child who got an A? And what if most of the class got an A?

It's important to note that the O/S/I/N system was only in place for K-2. I no longer have children this young, but if the C2.0 report card has supplanted this system, it doesn't matter so much because the two are essentially the same.

The real problem is that the C2.0 report card system of ES/P/I/N has now supplanted the former A/B/C/D/E system that used to be in place from grade 3 to 5. This is a critical stage where kids are increasingly expected to acquire academic skills, which if they are not acquired will mean that the student perpetually becomes consigned to being behind grade level. Formerly, an A meant that on a test or group of tests you demonstrated an ability to answer 90% or more of the questions, B/80%, etc. Parents could see the tests and could understand what material the student was missing. This no longer happens in C2.0. Now in many schools kids are not being given a clear opportunity to earn an ES, so the whole grading system has essentially become pass/fail, except that they are calling "fail" "in progress" until the very last opportunity that a child can demonstrate "proficiency" and then if at the end of the year the child has not become proficient the "fail" is called "Not proficient".

This is the same smoke and mirrors grading that exists for the MSA, where "basic" appears to not be negative to parents when instead it really means that a child did not acquire expected grade level skills. And, where there is no motivation for the school to get kids to anything more than 1 point above "basic" cut scores.

ITA with other posters who say that the new grading system is extremely dangerous for the special education population, because schools often use the phrase "achieving at grade level" to deny services. Many parents rely on more granular grade reports to show during the IEP process that their child is not responding to instruction and needs special instruction. This is now almost impossible to show for many, many kids. It's bad for kids, but will save a lot of money!

This is very informative. My child is in 5th grade in a HGC and we have missed the entire C2.0 rollout so far but I wonder what to expect next year in middle school. Does anyone know if they will use the new grading system in middle school? Right now, dc gets points for every assignment and test. They are given different weights depending on the subject (in Math, the tests and quizzes matter more than the homework assignments) and we can see how much dc earned on each assignment and test and what dc's overall grade is. 90+ is an "A", 80+ is a "B" and so on. I find this very easy to understand and I can also tell at a glance the cause of a falling or improving grade. I hope this continues in middle school when it will be much more challenging to get feedback from teachers on a particular child's progress or lack thereof.

Not in middle school right now. I'm not clear whether the new grading system is or isn't under consideration for MS. I am a middle school parent, and I would fight LONG and HARD to oppose taking away the A/B/C/D/E system in middle school. This is an important time for kids to acclimate to a grading system before it counts in high school, as well as an important time for parents to understand where there kids are skill-wise before HS, again, when it really counts.

PP at 8:46, I think yours is the most rational criticism I have read of the new grading system.

Anonymous wrote:All of you need to do some research on standards based grading. It has nothing to do with percentages, or comparing how one child is doing to how other children in the class are doing. The new report cards are actually quite informative compared to the old ones, if teachers know how to explain them to parents. I think that is where the issues lie.

OP here, I took up your challenge of researching SBG and what I found out is MCPS should be done a better job of the rollout given how many other places have had many of the same issues. How involved were teachers and parents in coming up with the report card? Did MCPS come up with ways to address challenges of SBG? Did they communicate how this would impact special needs kids that have to show adverse academic impact to receive an IEP or how it would impact the HGC process where being at least a grade level ahead was part of the old criteria? Here is one article talking about the same thing
http://see.ludwig.lajuntaschools.org/?p=799

I actually went to back to school night and went to the PTA meeting, taking off time from work to go in the morning, to learn about the new grading system. While there were ton of questions about ES at the meeting, my question about I's was never answered. How do you know if 'I' is because the material is new versus your child is struggling in showing profiency? We were basically told outright the goal is P by the end of the year. Getting to point 4 of the article above "use SBG to provide even less information to parents than your traditional grading system", for my child that is not getting proficient how do I know when I should be concerned and what is your plan to get him to proficient? I don't think I am asking too much that the school report cards and the communication around it address those two very basic points. If the whole point of SBG is to say whether my child meets proficiency or not in what has been deemed critical skills to have in X grade you got to let me know when I need to step in to help before my child has failed and when it is appropriate for me to expect you have a plan and can communicate the plan to me to get my child to proficient before I get the report card on the last day of school. Like we used to say about the employee reviews at my first job, there should be no surprises. I shouldn't see anything but P's on the last report card of the year if you haven't been sounding the alarm all year long. My mom, a teacher in another school district, is familiar with SBG and was surprised the teachers did not have to document a plan to get kids with I's to the level of proficient.

10:02, you nailed exactly my earlier points. It's too bad you couldn't have been in the room as the community input (assuming there was any) to the new report card and rollout.

Let's not forget that, in addition to the new report cards which hardly provide any information, unit tests have been eliminated. Last year, my dc would come home with unit tests which very clearly showed exactly how he did - section by section. It might say Math unit 2: 14 of 16 correct in computation, 5 of 10 correct in algebraic functions etc. These unit tests provided a lot of information as the quarter progressed and then the report card (which was more informative) completed the picture. This year, a few quizzes come home, unit testing had been eliminated and virtually everyone gets a p. If this isn't meant to hide- the-ball about individual student achievement, I dint know what is.

Anonymous wrote:
What happens when you "pass" in the first week...just hang out until everyone else "gets it"?

No. That is not what happens.

Anonymous wrote:All of you need to do some research on standards based grading. It has nothing to do with percentages, or comparing how one child is doing to how other children in the class are doing. The new report cards are actually quite informative compared to the old ones, if teachers know how to explain them to parents. I think that is where the issues lie.

Pass/fail, how motivating! Also, what a great way of getting a youngster to reach full potential... What happens when you "pass" in the first week...just hang out until everyone else "gets it"?

Btw folks, if you want to see a real report card, swing by the British School and check one out. Very comprehensive and insightful; it even has a section where the elementary school students write their goals for the semester and assess their strengths/weaknesses.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Second, the O/S/I and letter grade reporting structure did not demonstrate what information the student learned any more than the current grading structure does. An A in social studies (for example) tells you that the teacher thinks the child did well. But what did the child learn? And did the A demonstrate that the child learned 90%+ of the material? And was this child who got an A performing at the same level as that child who got an A? And what if most of the class got an A?

It's important to note that the O/S/I/N system was only in place for K-2. I no longer have children this young, but if the C2.0 report card has supplanted this system, it doesn't matter so much because the two are essentially the same.

The real problem is that the C2.0 report card system of ES/P/I/N has now supplanted the former A/B/C/D/E system that used to be in place from grade 3 to 5. This is a critical stage where kids are increasingly expected to acquire academic skills, which if they are not acquired will mean that the student perpetually becomes consigned to being behind grade level. Formerly, an A meant that on a test or group of tests you demonstrated an ability to answer 90% or more of the questions, B/80%, etc. Parents could see the tests and could understand what material the student was missing. This no longer happens in C2.0. Now in many schools kids are not being given a clear opportunity to earn an ES, so the whole grading system has essentially become pass/fail, except that they are calling "fail" "in progress" until the very last opportunity that a child can demonstrate "proficiency" and then if at the end of the year the child has not become proficient the "fail" is called "Not proficient".

This is the same smoke and mirrors grading that exists for the MSA, where "basic" appears to not be negative to parents when instead it really means that a child did not acquire expected grade level skills. And, where there is no motivation for the school to get kids to anything more than 1 point above "basic" cut scores.

ITA with other posters who say that the new grading system is extremely dangerous for the special education population, because schools often use the phrase "achieving at grade level" to deny services. Many parents rely on more granular grade reports to show during the IEP process that their child is not responding to instruction and needs special instruction. This is now almost impossible to show for many, many kids. It's bad for kids, but will save a lot of money!

This is very informative. My child is in 5th grade in a HGC and we have missed the entire C2.0 rollout so far but I wonder what to expect next year in middle school. Does anyone know if they will use the new grading system in middle school? Right now, dc gets points for every assignment and test. They are given different weights depending on the subject (in Math, the tests and quizzes matter more than the homework assignments) and we can see how much dc earned on each assignment and test and what dc's overall grade is. 90+ is an "A", 80+ is a "B" and so on. I find this very easy to understand and I can also tell at a glance the cause of a falling or improving grade. I hope this continues in middle school when it will be much more challenging to get feedback from teachers on a particular child's progress or lack thereof.

Setting aside report card grades, what kind of grades/feedback do you get on math work or quizzes? Do you still get worksheets home with 80% or A or 3+, etc.? I find it useful as a parent to have these grades on a quiz or worksheet so that I can assess my child's performance. I may not have time to go through every piece of paper that comes home, but seeing a C or a D when you're used to seeing A's and B's is a red flag that helps you focus on what you need to review with your child. In my experience, a poor grade can also help motivate a student to do better.

Anonymous wrote:

Second, the O/S/I and letter grade reporting structure did not demonstrate what information the student learned any more than the current grading structure does. An A in social studies (for example) tells you that the teacher thinks the child did well. But what did the child learn? And did the A demonstrate that the child learned 90%+ of the material? And was this child who got an A performing at the same level as that child who got an A? And what if most of the class got an A?

It's important to note that the O/S/I/N system was only in place for K-2. I no longer have children this young, but if the C2.0 report card has supplanted this system, it doesn't matter so much because the two are essentially the same.

The real problem is that the C2.0 report card system of ES/P/I/N has now supplanted the former A/B/C/D/E system that used to be in place from grade 3 to 5. This is a critical stage where kids are increasingly expected to acquire academic skills, which if they are not acquired will mean that the student perpetually becomes consigned to being behind grade level. Formerly, an A meant that on a test or group of tests you demonstrated an ability to answer 90% or more of the questions, B/80%, etc. Parents could see the tests and could understand what material the student was missing. This no longer happens in C2.0. Now in many schools kids are not being given a clear opportunity to earn an ES, so the whole grading system has essentially become pass/fail, except that they are calling "fail" "in progress" until the very last opportunity that a child can demonstrate "proficiency" and then if at the end of the year the child has not become proficient the "fail" is called "Not proficient".

This is the same smoke and mirrors grading that exists for the MSA, where "basic" appears to not be negative to parents when instead it really means that a child did not acquire expected grade level skills. And, where there is no motivation for the school to get kids to anything more than 1 point above "basic" cut scores.

ITA with other posters who say that the new grading system is extremely dangerous for the special education population, because schools often use the phrase "achieving at grade level" to deny services. Many parents rely on more granular grade reports to show during the IEP process that their child is not responding to instruction and needs special instruction. This is now almost impossible to show for many, many kids. It's bad for kids, but will save a lot of money!

Anonymous wrote:All of you need to do some research on standards based grading. It has nothing to do with percentages, or comparing how one child is doing to how other children in the class are doing. The new report cards are actually quite informative compared to the old ones, if teachers know how to explain them to parents. I think that is where the issues lie.

If the teachers don't know how to explain them, somehow, you trust them to know how to decide the grades?

All of you need to do some research on standards based grading. It has nothing to do with percentages, or comparing how one child is doing to how other children in the class are doing. The new report cards are actually quite informative compared to the old ones, if teachers know how to explain them to parents. I think that is where the issues lie.

It sounds like you have quite a bias here. You seem to think that the reason a parent would want their child to get good grades is to "preen." I disagree. Parents want (and deserve) to be able to see data that demonstrates what information the student has learned. This information used to be readily accessible in MCPS schools. Under the new reporting structure and report cards, it isn't accessible at all. Sure, a teacher can claim that all students have earned a 'P" but what, really does this mean. Does it mean that the student learned 70% of the material, 80%, 90%? Sure, one could argue that somewhere between 70-90% is proficient, but as a parent, I want to know whether it is the former or the latter. The is quite a difference between 70% and 90% and when the schools want to put the vast majority of kids into the "P" category, it means that kids who are actually earning on the lower end will look like stronger students and, perhaps, will not get the extra help they need.
Time to stop vilifying the motives of parents and time to examine why a large school system would want to artificially make it appear that most of the kids are performing at exactly the same level.

+3

Anonymous wrote:OP, I can certainly understand that you would like to have this information! But I can't imagine a report card that teachers could actually produce for all of the children in their class that would give it to you. You say you have talked to the teacher about your concerns -- if I were you, I think I would ask for another teacher conference.

OP here, with the old grading system, the grades plus comments plus end of unit assessment gave me enough information to tell if my child was struggling or where he was doing okay but could maybe use some additional attention at home and the areas of strengths. The on/off nature of proficient or not proficient (by end of year) without comments loses the nuances. Anyway, short of asking the teacher "show me the rubric" a la Jerry Maguire, I have to trust if he says despite the interim work and report card I's my son is on track that I will see a P 4th quarter. It may well be that DS is not yet showing P work but isn't so off the mark that he meets the threshold for additional school resources. Time will tell.

OP, I can certainly understand that you would like to have this information! But I can't imagine a report card that teachers could actually produce for all of the children in their class that would give it to you. You say you have talked to the teacher about your concerns -- if I were you, I think I would ask for another teacher conference.

And if the teacher conference doesn't answer your questions, I don't think it's a problem with the grading system, but it may be a problem with the teacher.

Also, I get a lot of information about questions like this from the work my child brings home.