Matt Townsley, co-author of Making Grades Matter, says assessment that emphasizes mastery of skills communicates learning to students and their parents in ways that traditional grading does not. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Waterbury, Conn., superintendent Verna Ruffin noticed early on during the pandemic that students had taken on some demanding and necessary roles outside of their academic responsibilities. They were serving as caregivers and money earners for their families.

During the economic and social upheaval brought on by the coronavirus, the 18,000-student Waterbury schools made temporary changes in their grading policies last spring because of the inequities associated with the brisk transition to online learning. Water-bury, along with other districts nationwide, quickly adopted “do no harm” grading practices such as freezing existing grades and providing students with the option of pass/fail grades.

When students resumed school last fall in fully remote, hybrid or in-person settings, many schools returned to their previous grading practices. Once national and regional news media shared stories of widespread failures among students in the fall and winter, some schools decided again to reevaluate their grading practices.

Supportive Measures

In Waterbury, Ruffin worked with her board of education to address the concerns over failing grades during the fall term. The board opted to alter its grading scale so the lowest percentage a student could receive is a 50, similar to “no zero” policies some grading experts have advocated previously to overcome a zero grade’s disproportionate mathematical effect on averages.

The pandemic has continued to place students in challenging situations to provide for their families. Penalizing them for not turning in assignments in the midst of such hardship did not align with Waterbury’s mission of “inspiring every student to be successful in and beyond school.”

Whether a student received a zero or a grade of 50 on an assignment wasn’t important. It meant they were failing and in need of additional support. By identifying these struggling students, Waterbury committed to providing additional resources and interventions to help meet their needs.

Feeling a need to play catchup for learning loss last spring and responding to decreased instructional time and unique student situations this school year, school districts are considering a number of changes to their grading and assessment practices during the uncertainty of the pandemic. Waterbury Public Schools is just one example.

Less Is More

Prior to the onset of the pandemic, the 39,000-student Adams County School District 12 near Denver, Colo., emphasized quality grading practices. Yet educators still were not fully prepared for the severe disruptions to their instructional delivery model that limited face time with students.

Even so, while the amount of content teachers in District 12 are covering has declined in the current year, an emphasis on students’ understanding of the most important standards has increased. In the past, teachers were expected to teach and assess students on a lengthy list of state standards. With less instructional time, district leadership empowered principals and classroom teachers to focus on fewer standards, particularly those that will be most helpful as students advance to future grade levels and coursework.

Beau Foubert, executive director of curriculum and instruction in District 12, believes the less is more mentality provides teachers with capacity to focus on where students are at in their understanding of key standards, so that remedial and enrichment opportunities can be provided on a more targeted and individualized level.

At the end of a reporting period, for instance, the elementary and middle school students’ overall progress toward grade-level standards and expectations is communicated using the descriptors “Does not meet,” “Approaching,” “Meets the standard” and “Advanced understanding.” By zeroing in on the most important standards and communicating students’ level of learning, parents and the following year’s teachers are more aware of areas in need of further development and areas of strength.

A Learning Basis

One of the norms at the Van Meter Schools, a 900-student district in central Iowa, is that what students learn matters most, so students are allowed multiple opportunities to demonstrate learning in various ways.

With students in face-to-face, hybrid and fully remote settings, superintendent Deron Durflinger says teachers believe that flexibility is more important now than ever before. Living out their mission to “personalize learning for each student’s success, today and tomorrow,” he says, teachers are providing flexibility with how students demonstrate learning.

For example, band and choir teachers are permitting students to demonstrate learning through recorded lessons submitted online. Students in physical education class are sharing their learning through an educational athletic training software application. A personal finance class uses an online curriculum permitting students to demonstrate learning at their own pace.

In addition, Van Meter teachers recognize that flexibility is needed for students regarding when they learn. Teachers regularly extend deadlines for submission of learning within each reporting period, based on individual circumstances. Committing to the idea that students learn at different rates, the school also has incorporated a flex time at the beginning and end of the school day, which includes teacher-led interventions and small-group mentoring.

Sample Traditional Grade Book Versus Standards-Based Grade Book

 

Traditional Grade Book
Assignment	Score
Worksheet 1.1	5 /10
Worksheet 1.2	9 /10
Quiz 1.1-1.2	20 /24
Chapter 1 Test	86 /100

 

Standards-Based Grade Book
Standard	Level of Learning
Multiply and divide fractions	4 /Proficient
Multiple-digit division	1 /Beginning
Understand absolute values	3 /Progressing
Solve problems by graphing in a coordinate plane	2 /Developing

An Incomplete Option

Iowa’s Des Moines Public Schools, with more than 32,000 students, has temporarily suspended the use of the letter grade F and is using Incomplete in its place in all of its secondary schools.

Noelle Nelson, executive director of teaching and learning, indicated that in conversations with educators in the district, it was abundantly clear students were experiencing more barriers to accessing learning than ever before. The shift from F to Incomplete for the current school year enabled them to live out their belief that all students deserve high expectations and clear communication about their learning.

Communication to teachers and stakeholders included the following about this temporary change:

»A designation of Incomplete will be used for any course failure.

»Students who receive an Incomplete will be given opportunities to re-engage and complete their learning.

»A statement will be included in transcripts to indicate the unique circumstances in which the course was taken.

Des Moines also is considering summer programming and an extension of windows for students to submit evidence of learning.

Standards-Based Grades

All four of these school districts believe the pandemic has provided an opportunity to better understand the importance of grades to communicate learning rather than earning. As schools experience the benefits of temporary grading shifts influenced by the public health crisis, now is the time for school leaders to overhaul their grading practices on a more permanent basis.

One practice encompassing many of these temporary shifts is called standards-based grading, or SBG, in which schools emphasize mastery of skills over point accumulation. In SBG, work habits such as submitting assignments on time and class participation are re-ported separately. This permits students and parents to gain a transparent understanding of the child’s areas for improvement and success.

In addition, students are provided multiple opportunities to demonstrate understanding. Using flexible deadlines within the reporting period as some schools are emphasizing during the pandemic, students complete teacher-prescribed corrective action plans in order to gain another opportunity to demonstrate their learning on course standards.

Finally, grade books and report cards communicate students’ current levels of learning based upon standards. In lieu of a culminating math assessment reported as “Unit 5 Test” in the grade book, which limits demonstration of learning to a test but not a project or presentation, schools should consider using a 1-4 integer scale with corresponding descriptors of learning. For example, students might receive a 4 in the grade book reflecting proficiency of “multiply and divide fractions,” a math learning standard. By assessing and then communicating the most important standards in the grade book, teachers will be in a better position to respond to the individual needs of learners.

District leaders considering standards-based grading should be aware that this practice is gaining traction in several states. A January 2021 report by the Wyoming Department of Education describes a majority of elementary schools that have started to implement (58 percent) or already fully implemented (38 percent) SBG.

However, SBG is more in its infancy at the secondary level with a little more than half of the middle grades starting to implement (53 percent) or fully implementing (10 percent) and less than half of high schools starting to implement (5 percent) or fully implementing (30 percent). Similarly, a December 2020 report of Iowa secondary schools indicates 28 percent of secondary schools are fully implementing SBG and an additional 39 percent had a plan in place to implement SBG within the next five years.

Permanent Change

Whether the modifications to grading practices are temporary or permanent, students and their parents in Waterbury, Adams County, Van Meter and Des Moines are benefitting. Astute district leaders should study these benefits to make more permanent changes such as standards-based grading. Doing so acknowledges the growing inequities in public schools that will outlast the pandemic.

MATT TOWNSLEY is an assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Twitter: @mctownsley. He is a co-author of Making Grades Matter: Standards-based Grading in a Secondary PLC at Work (Solution Tree, 2020).