A student receives a C in math. What does this C tell us? Is all his work mediocre, or does he do well on homework but fall short on tests? Does he test well, but fail to turn in his homework on time? Is he strong on algebra but weak on geometry, or vice versa? Under the A-B-C-D-F grading system, these nuances vanish into a single letter.
Beginning this quarter, Mt. Eccles Elementary School math students will no longer receive letter grades. Instead, each student’s performance will be evaluated in four or five areas. First graders, for instance, will be evaluated in geometry, operations and algebraic thinking, number and operations in base 10, and measurements and data.
Each of these areas will then be broken down into several specific measures of skill. First graders’ knowledge of measurement and data, for instance, will be evaluated according to their ability to tell time to the hour and half hour, and to identify coins and their values. Students’ abilities will be evaluated as either “emerging,” “developing,” “proficient” or “advanced.” Though this system will require more work from teachers, it will produce an assessment more informative than a letter grade.
“This is really going to let people understand what their child is able to do, with regards to math,” Principal Gayle Groff said. “Now, parents are going to be able to see specifically what skills their student has some strength in and where they’re still working: so much more information, and so much more accurate information, than you can give when you’re tying everything to a single letter grade.”
Parents will see the new grading system in effect when report cards are distributed toward the end of October. An explanatory meeting for parents will be held beforehand, Groff said.
As well as helping parents understand their children’s academic performance, a more granular grading system gives teachers a clear way to see where their classes, as a whole, require improvement. If many students in a teacher’s class are doing poorly calculating fractions, for instance, that teacher can devote extra time to fractions each day.
The new grading method was developed by Mt. Eccles staff, drawing inspiration from other schools. Groff chose to revise math grading first because math lends itself to a clear-cut assessment of students’ skills, she said. Incorporating feedback from teachers and parents, Groff hopes to move on to literacy-related subjects next. Designing a new evaluation system for a subject like English will be more challenging than for math, she said.
“It’s a lot of work, but we think it’s going to pay great rewards,” Groff said. “This system is more analytical. It’s something we can work with to improve our instruction and improve kids’ learning, whereas a letter grade doesn’t give us any information that’s helpful.”
Beginning with the 2019-2020 school year, Mt. Eccles will retire its honor roll system, which relies on letter grades. The school will recognize outstanding students with monthly character awards, Groff said.
