I have two kids in third grade and they each bring home a fair smattering of ES's, I's and P's. The teachers are using the grading scale to indicate how well they are doing, at least in our school. I have no problem with it.

Anonymous wrote:You are fooling yourself if you think kids don't care. They do and they notice inequities which is very bad with this system. The highly motivated kids care much more and its deflating for them.

Yes, I agree, if by "highly motivated kids", you mean "kids motivated by grades".

You are fooling yourself if you think kids don't care. They do and they notice inequities which is very bad with this system. The highly motivated kids care much more and its deflating for them.

Anonymous wrote:
Of course the two cases are different. Children are not that stupid. They know there are grades called N, I, P, and ES.

Yes, they know that there are grades called N, I, P, and ES. But do they care? And should they care?

Here is what I want my elementary school kids to learn: do your best.

Here are some things I don't want my elementary school kids to learn:

do your best so that you get a good grade.
do your best, but if you don't get a good grade, your best wasn't good enough.
it doesn't matter if you did your best; what matters is how your work compares to others' work.

Anonymous wrote:How is nobody getting a grade different from everybody getting the same grade? In both cases, the grades are irrelevant to the child. As they should be, in elementary school.

(If in fact everybody does get the same grade. This is what everybody seems to believe on DCUM. I'd like to know how they know.)

Of course the two cases are different. Children are not that stupid. They know there are grades called N, I, P, and ES. And they know the grades they get, and I assume they must have an idea about the amount of effort they put. They see they mostly get the same grade for quite different quality of work. This is very detrimental even for adults, let alone children.
But instead, if they could get a motivating paragraph or two from the teacher mostly stressing their strength, but also subtly making suggestions for further improvement, it would be a lot more beneficial for that age group, in my humble opinion.

How is nobody getting a grade different from everybody getting the same grade? In both cases, the grades are irrelevant to the child. As they should be, in elementary school.

(If in fact everybody does get the same grade. This is what everybody seems to believe on DCUM. I'd like to know how they know.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

One day, when your child takes a real test that has real consequences, you are likely in for a rude awakening. One day, your child won't even know how to learn large quantities of info, retain that info and successfully test on that material. Either this will happen in MS or HS (if 2.0 is finally abandoned by then) or it is when your kid takes an SAT test. Taking squishy assessments that don't have a clear standard might work for you and your kid now, but that isn't reality. Everyone getting the same letter grade regardless of whether they answer all questions correctly or whether they get 7 questions wrong. Big wake up call coming your way when your kid simply expects a "good" grade for everything.

I had no grades in elementary school. None. We didn't have tests either. I got straight As in middle school. I got straight As in high school. I got an 800 on the SAT. I graduated cum laude from an Ivy League school. I have a Ph.D. When is my rude awakening coming?

Not the previous PP, but having no grades is not the same as everyone getting "the middle of the road grade". The latter sends a wrong message to young children that no matter what you do, you won't get ES, or hardly get I. I would rather get a narrative report from the teacher, and no grades for elementary school.

Anonymous wrote:

One day, when your child takes a real test that has real consequences, you are likely in for a rude awakening. One day, your child won't even know how to learn large quantities of info, retain that info and successfully test on that material. Either this will happen in MS or HS (if 2.0 is finally abandoned by then) or it is when your kid takes an SAT test. Taking squishy assessments that don't have a clear standard might work for you and your kid now, but that isn't reality. Everyone getting the same letter grade regardless of whether they answer all questions correctly or whether they get 7 questions wrong. Big wake up call coming your way when your kid simply expects a "good" grade for everything.

I had no grades in elementary school. None. We didn't have tests either. I got straight As in middle school. I got straight As in high school. I got an 800 on the SAT. I graduated cum laude from an Ivy League school. I have a Ph.D. When is my rude awakening coming?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curriculum is too repetitive and the grading is horrible. My child has no clue how he is doing with a P. 100% = P 85% = P. He has no motivation to strive for excellence. Why bother- it's just another P. And I have not seen one single math assignment, quiz, or paper with any sort of grade at all. It's a week until end of the quarter conferences and I have no clue how he's doing in math and neither does he. When I ask how it's going in math, he just shrugs his shoulders. I also see a LOT of worksheets from all subject areas that come home that he says he doesn't have to do. It's either a huge waste of paper or my child is not doing the work. Since I haven't had any feedback, our family has no clue how he's really doing. The grading system when we see it, is meaningless.

If your elementary school child works, or doesn't work, for a grade, that is a problem.

If you don't know how he's doing in math, and he doesn't either, and you haven't seen any graded papers, and he says he doesn't have to do the stuff that he brought home, and you haven't talked to the teacher about this -- those are also problems.

But they're not Curriculum 2.0's problems.

AMEN!
Almost all of my DC's classwork comes home at the end of the week -- all with grades AND NOTES..and gets a weekly assessment that comes home...at parent/teacher conference we were handed a detailed assessment of DC's areas of strengths and areas that needed focus(teacher's wording -- she did not use the word "weakness") ...
You have teacher and/or school problems not a curriculum problem

B.S. The curriculum change IS the heart of the problem. Even honest teachers, principals, administrators will tell you so (off the record, of course). THEY think it is ridiculous. if you don't get that this is a bad curriculum along with a hide-the-ball grading system (which has drastically eliminated real tests) then, frankly, you deserve the sub-par system you are getting.

One day, when your child takes a real test that has real consequences, you are likely in for a rude awakening. One day, your child won't even know how to learn large quantities of info, retain that info and successfully test on that material. Either this will happen in MS or HS (if 2.0 is finally abandoned by then) or it is when your kid takes an SAT test. Taking squishy assessments that don't have a clear standard might work for you and your kid now, but that isn't reality. Everyone getting the same letter grade regardless of whether they answer all questions correctly or whether they get 7 questions wrong. Big wake up call coming your way when your kid simply expects a "good" grade for everything.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curriculum is too repetitive and the grading is horrible. My child has no clue how he is doing with a P. 100% = P 85% = P. He has no motivation to strive for excellence. Why bother- it's just another P. And I have not seen one single math assignment, quiz, or paper with any sort of grade at all. It's a week until end of the quarter conferences and I have no clue how he's doing in math and neither does he. When I ask how it's going in math, he just shrugs his shoulders. I also see a LOT of worksheets from all subject areas that come home that he says he doesn't have to do. It's either a huge waste of paper or my child is not doing the work. Since I haven't had any feedback, our family has no clue how he's really doing. The grading system when we see it, is meaningless.

If your elementary school child works, or doesn't work, for a grade, that is a problem.

If you don't know how he's doing in math, and he doesn't either, and you haven't seen any graded papers, and he says he doesn't have to do the stuff that he brought home, and you haven't talked to the teacher about this -- those are also problems.

But they're not Curriculum 2.0's problems.

AMEN!
Almost all of my DC's classwork comes home at the end of the week -- all with grades AND NOTES..and gets a weekly assessment that comes home...at parent/teacher conference we were handed a detailed assessment of DC's areas of strengths and areas that needed focus(teacher's wording -- she did not use the word "weakness") ...
You have teacher and/or school problems not a curriculum problem

Anonymous wrote:Curriculum is too repetitive and the grading is horrible. My child has no clue how he is doing with a P. 100% = P 85% = P. He has no motivation to strive for excellence. Why bother- it's just another P. And I have not seen one single math assignment, quiz, or paper with any sort of grade at all. It's a week until end of the quarter conferences and I have no clue how he's doing in math and neither does he. When I ask how it's going in math, he just shrugs his shoulders. I also see a LOT of worksheets from all subject areas that come home that he says he doesn't have to do. It's either a huge waste of paper or my child is not doing the work. Since I haven't had any feedback, our family has no clue how he's really doing. The grading system when we see it, is meaningless.

If your elementary school child works, or doesn't work, for a grade, that is a problem.

If you don't know how he's doing in math, and he doesn't either, and you haven't seen any graded papers, and he says he doesn't have to do the stuff that he brought home, and you haven't talked to the teacher about this -- those are also problems.

But they're not Curriculum 2.0's problems.

Curriculum is too repetitive and the grading is horrible. My child has no clue how he is doing with a P. 100% = P 85% = P. He has no motivation to strive for excellence. Why bother- it's just another P. And I have not seen one single math assignment, quiz, or paper with any sort of grade at all. It's a week until end of the quarter conferences and I have no clue how he's doing in math and neither does he. When I ask how it's going in math, he just shrugs his shoulders. I also see a LOT of worksheets from all subject areas that come home that he says he doesn't have to do. It's either a huge waste of paper or my child is not doing the work. Since I haven't had any feedback, our family has no clue how he's really doing. The grading system when we see it, is meaningless.

^^ pp here -- I meant to add that the kind of notes the teacher provides are "...where did you get that from the text" "...larla needs to extract facts/info from text to support..."
Then when she gets better...get notes saying that she is getting better.
Teacher does not seem to take off for handwriting and I sort of wish she did...my kid rushes and it looks a hot mess and I know she can have adult looking handwriting when she wants to...
Saying that to say...we get most of what we want... and I plan to ask about the handwriting component at teacher conference

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, from the graded work I'm getting back in math, a P is perfect and an I means that something (no matter how minor) was wrong. I.e. a label was omitted on a graph so now the that section is an I. Perhaps it's just an issue w/ the teachers understanding of the new grading system, but A/B/C with percentages gives more granularity since they don't seem to be giving any ES or N scores.

Are you getting the work back with just a P or an I on the top, or are the incorrect parts/problems marked?

If you're getting marked work back, then what more information does a P/I vs. A/B/C provide? You're got the marked work; you know what the child did and didn't do right.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. She's gotten I's when I can't see anything explicitly wrong, or nothing is called out in a BCR. And it just seems so subjective; miss one label due to carelessness and it's an I? What constitutes proficient? My kids understands exactly what she's doing and makes a careless mistake. Is that an I? P? Who knows? With grades at least you had a general idea where the kids was falling in the spectrum. Perhaps it's just the current teacher.

What spectrum ? And I am seriously not trying to be a smartass, but if you see where your kid is making mistakes, sees what she is doing right or wrong -- what spectrum do you need to see where she falls?
You already have a fairly good idea of what she does and does not know.

Sure, for concrete things, but what about a BCR? It's not like those are right/wrong. If she gets an I on a BCR w/ no other feedback what does that mean? I do understand what you're saying; basically look at the tests; determine what she does and does not know and ignore the "grade" coming back. It could be I'm more frustrated w/ the lack of concrete feedback than I am w/ the grading scale.

PP here and I hear you; I would be frustrated as well. Try asking the teacher for more feedback. Email the teacher, tell her you need more concrete information as to where your kid is doing well and where she needs help. See if that works. It so happens our teacher is good about providing notes and I am bit of nudge (from time to time) with the emails.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, from the graded work I'm getting back in math, a P is perfect and an I means that something (no matter how minor) was wrong. I.e. a label was omitted on a graph so now the that section is an I. Perhaps it's just an issue w/ the teachers understanding of the new grading system, but A/B/C with percentages gives more granularity since they don't seem to be giving any ES or N scores.

Are you getting the work back with just a P or an I on the top, or are the incorrect parts/problems marked?

If you're getting marked work back, then what more information does a P/I vs. A/B/C provide? You're got the marked work; you know what the child did and didn't do right.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. She's gotten I's when I can't see anything explicitly wrong, or nothing is called out in a BCR. And it just seems so subjective; miss one label due to carelessness and it's an I? What constitutes proficient? My kids understands exactly what she's doing and makes a careless mistake. Is that an I? P? Who knows? With grades at least you had a general idea where the kids was falling in the spectrum. Perhaps it's just the current teacher.

What spectrum ? And I am seriously not trying to be a smartass, but if you see where your kid is making mistakes, sees what she is doing right or wrong -- what spectrum do you need to see where she falls?
You already have a fairly good idea of what she does and does not know.

Sure, for concrete things, but what about a BCR? It's not like those are right/wrong. If she gets an I on a BCR w/ no other feedback what does that mean? I do understand what you're saying; basically look at the tests; determine what she does and does not know and ignore the "grade" coming back. It could be I'm more frustrated w/ the lack of concrete feedback than I am w/ the grading scale.