Is this project a good idea?

[PoPPeR]

Howdy, i'm in the home stretch of my high school career right now (2nd semester of senior year has started!), and I have one final big project left to do. We're supposed to ask a question that we're interested in, then do a project that relates somewhat to that question. Being a high school student who has experienced extreme academic pressure mainly because of my race (asian) from everyone from teachers to parents to my friends, I wanted to do something on judging academic intelligence. For my question, I wanted to ask, "Are standardized tests fair, or accurate ways of measuring academic intelligence?" I'm pretty sure I could find a whole lot of information on that. Every country uses standardized tests, and I think I already know the answer. While it's not perfect, it's the best thing we have so far.

Now my project is the part I need your guys's input on. I was thinking of building a whole new national grading system, from the ground up, which would apply to all public schools. It pisses me off when I get a 88 or 89% in a class, but in the eyes of the public i'm viewed the same as someone who got a 80% because both our report cards shows a B. I've heard from friends that in Canada they use percentages, but i'm not sure how the grading system works in other public schools across the U.S., and in public schools. Or in other countries besides the United States and Canada.

So my questions, if anyone can answer them...
1) Are there any laws regulating how schools have to determine grades? Or is it the state education board, and is there any place i could find information, possibly the actaul "rules" themselves?

2) How do other countries grade.

3) Is it basically up to the school to determine how it wants to grade?

4) What system do you think is better, Academic Letters or Percentages?

5) Is my project realistic, ie. could I find enough information to attempt to build a better system?

Thanks for all your help

 

[Scarpozzi]

1. Most school boards choose their own scale, but there are standards they have to follow. Education is state-funded with some federal backing.
2. My understanding is that they use standardized testing in most other countries and many base on percentile of the group as a whole.
3. Basically, yes. The key is that the standardized tests usually show how successful that school did on teaching the students. That is how they can level the playing field between schools. Test everyone from every school the same way.
4. Percentages are better unless you're talking about an extremely LARGE number of subjects. Then, it's easier to assign letters to each large group based on their percentages. (current grading system) Having letters represent ranges makes it easy to represent the percentages.
5. Your project is a very good idea. However, you have one major problem. Many colleges rely on GPA as a standard to provide scholarships and college admittance. This is going to cause many problems because many computer systems/forms are relying on a GPA in a format simlar to 3.4, 4.0, etc. If you can't match something that can run parallel to the current system while school systems switch, you're going to have too much resistance and no one will implement the new system. Education can't stop to upgrade it's reporting system....