New grading system seeks to improve schooling by the numbers
Making the grade
What does it mean when Julie gets a 3 in reading? Or when Patrick earns a 2 in art?
Elementary school report cards in the Janesville School District are now using number grades instead of the traditional A-B-C-D-F. Here's how report cards define the new grades:
4—In addition to "3" performance, demonstrates in-depth understanding and application that goes beyond the learning goals.
3—Demonstrates mastery regarding the information and/or processes (simple or complex) of the learning goals.
2—Demonstrates mastery regarding the simpler details and processes and demonstrates partial understanding regarding the more complex ideas and processes of the learning goals.
1—With help, a partial understanding of some of the simpler details and processes and some of the more complex ideas and processes of the learning goals.
Photo 
Amy Sheridan
Photo
Kim F. Ehrhardt
JANESVILLE — Jimmy will no longer get an "A" in reading. He might get a 3. Or a 4.
A-B-C-D-F is out.
4-3-2-1 is in for elementary school report cards in the Janesville School District.
The grades are the most obvious change, but there's a lot more to it, said officials who expressed optimism for a new system they say could boost student learning and test scores.
At the same time, officials know that it will take time for parents and teachers to accept the changes.
An "A," by the way, is not the same as a 4. And a 1 is not exactly a "D." More on that later.
A card with more
A draft of the third-grade report card provided to The Gazette takes up two sheets of paper. It displays 72 judgments that teachers must make about each student.
A third-grade English teacher, for example, must enter eight grades for different aspects of reading, plus an overall grade. The eight categories are:
-- "Understands and uses content-specific vocabulary."
-- "Determines meaning of text across genres."
-- "Distinguishes own point of view from the narrator, a character or the author."
-- "Reads and comprehends a variety of texts at grade level."
-- "Knows and applies grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words."
-- "Reads grade-level text with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension."
Compare that to reading in last year's third-grade report card:
-- "Word Study"
-- "Comprehension"
-- "Application of reading strategies"
-- "Independent reading"
-- "Work completion."
Last year's report card also included separate grades for spelling and handwriting. Those grading categories have disappeared.
Parent focus
If parents have difficulty understanding the new report card's language, that's what conferences are for, said Kim Ehrhardt, the district's director of curriculum.
Teachers and parents will meet on the first day of school, at the end of October and in February.
The remodeled report cards will help teachers focus on what they need to teach, and they should help parents better understand how they can help their children succeed, Ehrhardt said.
The grading categories come from the standards the state has adopted for its annual tests, so focusing on those standards is expected to improve test scores.
"If you have mastery of these standards we've put on the report card, you're going to do well," Ehrhardt said.
"It's not about, did you do your homework? It's more about, did you understand?" said Amy Sheridan, district assessment coordinator.
Learning standards
The report card is not just something that comes at the end, Sheridan said.
"It engages students in the process of learning because right away, up front, you say, 'Here's what you're going to learn,' and, 'Here's how we'll know if you learned it.' So kids are involved in it. They know every step of the way where they're at," Sheridan said.
The English and math standards come from the "Common Core Standards," a series of learning targets being promoted nationally as a way of improving American students' academic performance.
Common Core Standards for other subject areas still are being developed, Ehrhardt said.
The standards are said to be more rigorous but less wide-ranging than in the past. So the topics students face will be fewer, but they will learn what is truly important for them to know, Ehrhardt said.
"This is about greater attention to mastery rather than rushing through the curriculum," Ehrhardt said.
Ehrhardt said that in the past, "we were teaching too much stuff, and what we lost by teaching too much stuff is not enough mastery."
Why a 3?
The report cards are meant to give parents "meaningful feedback" on how their children are progressing towards mastery, so parents can be "meaningful partners."
"They're the primary educator. The parent always is," Ehrhardt said.
Which brings us back to the 4-3-2-1 grading system.
Explaining the new grades to parents is going to be "the trickiest part," said Sheridan, who already is anticipating the question: "What was so bad with A-B-C-D?"
The easy answer is that the state already requires schools to report grades in 4-3-2-1. It's not that A-B-C-D was bad, but this is better, Sheridan said.
Consider a student who passes all her first-trimester tests with flying colors. That would earn her a 3 because she has demonstrated she knows everything she needs to know in that subject, Ehrhardt said.
In the past, the same student might have gotten an "A." It might have been an "easy A" because she didn't have to work very hard to get it. That's one problem the new system tries to fix.
Students who get 3s should be given more challenging work that helps them understand the material at a deeper level, Ehrhardt said.
If the students succeed with the harder material, that could merit 4s by year's end.
"They shouldn't be experiencing curriculum that in essence they've already mastered. We should challenge them," Ehrhardt said.
The new system answers the criticism—sometimes correct—that school is boring, Ehrhardt said.
"We want to stretch them and challenge them. There will be some people who won't like that initially, but I really thinks it's our ethical responsibility," Ehrhardt said.
Lower grades
Students who get a 1 or a 2 will know where they need to improve. So will their parents and their teachers.
"A 1 would definitely be, you're far away from the target, and we need to do something better and different with that student," Sheridan said.
The system is geared to move students to a higher proficiency level, no matter where they're at, rather than simply awarding an A, B, C or D, Ehrhardt said.
Ehrhardt has heard teachers complain that this sounds like just one more fad in an endless series of educational changes that enter with a bang and then fade away.
This won't go away because the national drive to improve America's global standing and hold schools accountable won't go away, Ehrhardt said.
Number grades actually went into use last year, but the rest of the report card is new this year, officials said.
Fewer 4s anticipated
This year's report cards probably will contain more 3s than last year as teachers put the new system into practice, Ehrhardt said.
If a student is struggling, teachers must respond to the need. Programs already are in place to meet those needs, notably one called Response to Intervention. After-school programs and summer school also will be tasked with moving students forward.
Officials still are working on how schools will handle students whose disabilities hold them back.
The special ed department is working on that question, Ehrhardt said, but even a student with a disability needs to show growth during the year, perhaps moving from a 1 to a 2 over the course of a year.
"We believe all kids can learn, but not on the same day or in the same way," Ehrhardt said.
Apr 24, 2013 at 9:23 p.m.
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What I don't get is if an A is a 4 or a 3 and the descriptions don't make any sense to me
Sep 13, 2012 at 5:27 p.m.
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*eventually the 'real world' is where these students will be headed.*
What, they are going to emigrate? Because America is currently bizarro-world.
Aug 30, 2012 at 9:46 a.m.
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"I have become accustomed to the number of young people completely unable to make change from a 20 dollar bill without the use of a calculator."
How true you are JV93. Next time you go for gas, go over by 2cents. 99.999% of the time the teller (if under 25 which most are) would rather reach into their own pockets to get that penny or 2 vs have to figure out how to make .99 or .98 in change. Do that between 50 and 100 times and it's an easy way to make a buck...at the expense of their stupidity. They obviously never heard the term "a penny saved is a penny earned".
Aug 30, 2012 at 9:41 a.m.
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One more stupid idea to make our children less competetive with the rest of the world. The old system was perfectly fine...and had actual meaning to it
A=Awesome
B=Better than average
C=Average/More effort require
D=Skating by/Dumb
F=FAIL
Can we find another way to get our children to be any less competetive. Lets just give them all A's for effort...that 6th place trophy....the ribbon for trying...
Aug 28, 2012 at 1:45 p.m.
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This grading "system" seems designed to obfuscate students' progress (or lack of it). It's like a fog machine.
Aug 28, 2012 at 11:35 a.m.
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The only concern I would have is that correcting or changing the system at one school system or within one school could affect how a student is percieved externally. While I agree that stretching a childs knowledge based upon ability is a good thing, I now must rely on a teacher to determine which students they decide to advance to more difficult tasks and personal relationships can, do and will factor in. As well as challeneging student A -- thereby lowering their GPA could impact their abilityt o get into a given secondary level school based upon a lack of standardized admitance requirements. So I see good things here, but reserve comments until the results show that challenging students does not impact their advancement negatively as a result of standards not changing at the next level.
Aug 28, 2012 at 10:25 a.m.
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Its a good idea. High schools would benefit as well by changing to a simple % rather than letter scale-as well as dropping class rank (maybe local schools have already done this).
Aug 28, 2012 at 10:07 a.m.
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Next on the chopping block will be cursive writing. After that my guess would be basic arithmetic because all of our machines do that for us. I have become accustomed to the number of young people completely unable to make change from a 20 dollar bill without the use of a calculator.
Aug 28, 2012 at 10:02 a.m.
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Down to four! I'm just waiting until they get down to two different possible grades - (P)retty Good and (N)ot too bad.
I also like that they're reducing any emphasis on spelling. Who neads two lern too spel?
Aug 28, 2012 at 9:28 a.m.
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If I'm understanding this correctly it sounds like what my son's private school does. We get a report card that is about 3 pages & details numerous things. It's very helpful to point out what a child's strengths are & where they need a little help. It's critical that kids get the basics when they are in grade school because if they don't, they get left behind and it sets them up for a difficult time in high school and beyond. This sounds like a great move in a positive direction.
Aug 28, 2012 at 6:59 a.m.
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Bloggers, please read Cepeda's article under "Opinion" on the Gaz site. Another perspective and worth reading.
Aug 28, 2012 at 1:54 a.m.
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Sounds like the school system is moving toward Dan Quayle's paradigm of making all students "above average"...
There was an article not too long ago in the print version of the paper with basically the following philosophy expressed. From: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/t...
"Western parenting is the liberal parenting method of coddling children and shielding them from the natural consequences of their failures in order to protect their self-esteem.
Liberal (Western) parenting starts with the false premise that self-esteem is something a child is born with and which must be protected. The truth is that self-esteem must be earned through self-achievement and that in an environment where failure is not possible, neither is achievement. By attempting to shield their children from the supposedly damaging effects of failure, liberal parents have made it impossible for their children to mature into independent adults. The evidence is all around us today, where we have millions of Americans who are deathly afraid of being responsible for their own lives and who clamor ever louder for a paternal government that will replace their mommies in making all the tough decisions in their lives and taking care of them from cradle to grave in an Orwellian welfare state."
Aug 28, 2012 at 12:51 a.m.
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Alertcitizen, do me a favor and google this term, "law of diminished expectations"
Aug 28, 2012 at 12:45 a.m.
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Germancaveguy and analertcitizen, as I am cleaning vomit off of my keyboard after reading your responses lets reflect on "the real world," your term by the way. In the real world doing 60 percent of your job correct is FAILURE. In the real world your boss does not care about your feelings because his butt is on the line as well and he took a major chance hiring you to begin with. In the real world either you made your quota, won the case, saved your patients life, made money, or you FAILED. Got it? So please, let's dispense with the hair splitting of whether this grading system or that grading system makes our students feel one way or the other and understand that your feel good approach does absolutely ZERO in all caps to prepare little Johnnies and Suzzies for the real world. Please.
Aug 27, 2012 at 9:33 p.m.
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@germancaveguy- Well stated. I've always felt that "failure" is such an arbitrary word. If a student earns, for instance, a 60% grade on a test, doesn't that mean that they have retained 60% of the information given. Pretty good retention in my book.
Aug 27, 2012 at 9:11 p.m.
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This change indicates that the grading process is being adapted to account for the portion of the education process that doesn't typically get measured. Sure, for any student to rise to the challenges presented to them by their teacher, they have achieved an accomplishment. Yet, for those students that excel beyond what is required of them, the previous grading standard fail to recognize them for doing so.
In many ways, this new way of grading also eliminates the failure associated with learning new material. The connotation carried with a 'D' or 'F' gets replaced with an acknowledgement that the student needs to address those areas with a '1' more specifically in some way. It may be that they just need to put more effort into it. Or perhaps they need extra help understanding the subject.
Hopefully the new grading system will get parents, teachers, and especially students to reflect more on the individual nature of learning. Sure, students are taught in a group setting. Yet, life and learning is all about progression. To be successful, more often than not, people need to apply themselves actively to the task at hand.
For a student to receive a '1', they are being told they need to do more work. When a student receives a 'F', they are told they failed. Sometimes in life, people take a failure as a challenge to be overcome. Yet, more often than not, they see failure as simply an opportunity to reassess there abilities and focus on things they are better at.
The distinction may be subtle. But in making that distinction, students will be less likely to get discouraged from trying to overcome their difficulties. Also, those that do well will begin to grasp the distinction between 'good' and 'great'.
Either way you look at it, this new grading systems seems to base achievement in a more similar fashion to the 'real world' And that is a good thing. Because eventually the 'real world' is where these students will be headed.
Aug 27, 2012 at 7:11 p.m.
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It sounds like a great idea and certainly gives parents much more in-depth information about their children's progress.
Aug 27, 2012 at 7:05 p.m.
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Oh, I doubt the school district will worry much about how well the parents acclimate to this new grading system. Public school districts are well known for how little they worry about what parents think.
Aug 27, 2012 at 6:41 p.m.
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The biggest problem in implementing this will be parents who have a hard time with this since all they knew was A-B-C-D-F when they were in school.
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