Standards based grading divides campus
Standards based grading has arrived at CVHS as students and teachers try to bring down the rise in F grades during distance learning period.
Between 2019 and 2020, the amount of letter F grades for the first quarter rose significantly, going from 2.6% up to 6.7%, likely caused by the transition to distance learning.
“Some students really adapted well to distance learning and figured it out while others completely fell off track and had little support, making it much harder for them now that we’re back in person,” math teacher Kelley O’Hern stated.
Many CVHS teachers have followed a nationwide trend by implementing a standards based grading policy in their classrooms. Standards based grading aims to grade for understanding and quality of work. It works on a 0-4 scale and does not count formative assignments like homework, participation or effort, basing grades exclusively on tests and projects but allowing for retakes.
CVHS students are divided on their feelings about this new policy though. Out of 135 students surveyed, 95% of them have a teacher using standards based grading, 62.5% of students approve of standards based grading while the other 37.5% do not.
“I like how it really helps you learn things. For example I have found retakes very helpful when trying to raise grades. I can review old tests and learn more than just being sad about my bad score,” sophomore Joshua Mak said.
Though other students are not happy with the new system. “It’s a confusing grading method that makes it near impossible to see why your grade increased or dropped. Cryptic, and it preys on people who don’t take tests well. You’re screwed if you’re a bad test taker because, guess what: that’s your entire grade. It’s not fair, it’s not easy to understand, and it doesn’t help students,” said junior Bronson Burfield.
The four-point system makes it difficult for students to calculate grades and many feel this system was never fully explained to them or teachers. But despite the challenges, many students are happy with this grading system, saying that the retake policy and non-required homework is helping them learn more and achieve higher grades.
Even teachers are split on how they think this grading affects students. “The previous style of grading allows us to offer different paths to success for people with different learning styles that maybe aren’t strong test takes but are still learning and taking info out of class through effort and participation,” said social studies teacher Eric Bahm.
“I feel it really helps students understand if they are comprehending or not. They ask for help now because we’re grading on assessment. I think students are improving in their writing and understanding their reading because they know they can retake it and ask questions,” English teacher Tina Johansson said.
I feel like standards spaced grading is a good concept but the grading focuses on tests over assignments meaning that if someone isnt good at test taking they would get a lower grade even though they did well on assignments
This is a great article! I personally like standards-based grading, at least the way my teacher uses it. It leaves an opportunity for me to make up missing assignments and tests for 100%. But this article helped me understand the other point of view as well.
I like the idea of retakes in standards based grading. I feel that it motivates students to try to improve themselves and understand the things they did not understand before. It also allows students to try again if they happen to have a bad day on a test.
I don’t really have a lot of classes using standard base grading but in the classes that I do have it, it is not that bad.
I personally support standards based grading because it much easier to pass classes like Math and some Science Classes. There is also much more freedom in the system, meaning that if students don’t need to do homework, they can skip it without consequence and still do perfectly fine their class.
I believe standard based grading is good because to me, tests reflect your grade more than other assignments.
I think it is really interesting to see how much online learning has affected students and their grades during the first quarter of this year and even last years first quarter.
These stats are helpful
I like standards based grading when you can retake to get up to a 4 because it takes a lot of the pressure off of tests and since the homework isn’t graded you can prioritize other classes’ workloads without stressing too hard. And for the retakes you’ll actually have to learn the content to get a 4, so standards based grading really emphasizes the learning part. However, I am against the type of standards based grading where you can only retake to get a 3 because I think it goes against the whole purpose, if you retook the standard and got everything right shouldn’t your score reflect your actual understanding of the subject, unmarred by any type of outer consequences? But overall, standards based grading has made my junior year much easier.
I think that standard-based grading is actually pretty useful. I think this way because it allows you to show your mastery level of each standard in that certain subject. Another thing I like about it is that homework does not count toward your grade so you don’t have to do it. You should still do some homework if you’re struggling with certain things but if you’re doing fine then you can just relax.
I think that if a student has to deal with standards-based grading, I think that it should be their choice to do it, but I am already sick and tired of having to deal with it involuntarily. It is why I am NOT doing well in Integrated 3, but instead I am doing AVERAGE, and I am risking getting a B in Integrated 3, which means that I risk being just AVERAGE. What this is doing is having a harmful effect on people’s grades, does NOT consider ALL of the hard work that we put in all semester to do well, places the standardized test in classrooms, and by the way, more and more colleges are getting rid of standardized tests, and it causes some students MORE stress because it puts WAY more pressure on them to do well on EVERY test, because if a student does poorly on a test, then their grade could go down A LOT, because standardized tests are your ENTIRE grade, and they should NOT be. They should AT LEAST grade things like projects and SPECIFIC assignments that are to see what they know, and it does NOT have to be an assessment or a test. I think that we should use RESTORATIVE grading, and some methods I have heard of are maybe using more “lenient” grading scales where maybe a student would get a C if they get a 50%, ESPECIALLY if you want students to NOT have to be stressed out OR no-zero policies where the lowest a student can get is 40%-50% ONLY IF an F has to be set at ANYTHING above 50%, or ALLOW STUDENTS TO RETAKE TESTS FOR FULL CREDIT AND STOP PENALIZING STUDENTS FOR LATE ASSIGNMENTS, IT’S THAT SIMPLE, AND WE SHOULD BE UNDERSTANDING OF THINGS, and I think that it would be helpful to the student (they can still get full credit), AND the teacher (less work for them) if we QUIT taking points off or penalizing students for late work. That would be more equitable than standards-based grading. Standards-based grading is a BROKEN system, and I wish that they would get rid of it right now.