Middle school in Iowa looks to nix letter grades?

[Bateluer]

http://www.whotv.com/news/who-story-waukee-grading-changes-020911,0,4034649.story

Its still under review, nothing finalized yet. So, I'll weigh in my two cents. This is idiotic. Say a student earns a 50% on a test, thats failing. That paper should be stamped with a nice red F. This 'status' system sounds like an overcomplicated cluster to me. 6 different statuses for each subject, the parents are going to need a lawyer to figure out if their child is passing or failing.

Parents were able to let the Waukee school board heard know how they feel about proposed changes to the grading system at a Tuesday night meeting.

Under the proposal, letter grades would be eliminated and students would be given a status on a dozen different aspects of a subject. The school board says the plan would allow upper level students to move ahead faster and better identify students who are struggling.

At the meeting, parents on both sides of the issue made their cases.

"For my employees there are promotions based on the rankings. Sometimes keeping their job depends on where they fall and their rank, their grade, per se. So I don't know if going to the standard base reporting is teaching my child what the real world is going to look like once they get past the middle school," said one parent.

"What a standard based reporting system does is allow a level of clarity through the use of rubrics, being able to talk to our students about what they know, not what they know currently, but what they still need to know to progress to that next level," another parent said.

The school board will hold two more hearings on the proposed grading changes before making a decision in March.

 

[Vette73]

Late to the game. Lots of school don;t have letter grades.

My nieces/nephew go to elementary school in NC and don;t get them.
Oh and you don't need special things to know what kids are doing well and not. The ones that look mad and get F's are slow and the ones that get As and fall asleep move them up.

 

[Bateluer]

My nieces/nephew go to elementary school in NC and don;t get them.

Could you describe the system they use?

 

[Drako]

Could you describe the system they use?

It's the "Everyone Gets a Trophy" system

 

[chucky2]

Until they get a system where the parents put their kids education at an active priority, whatever they do will not work or suck harder.

The End.

 

[bmaverick]

The last time I got letter grades was in 2nd until getting into HS. HS is letter and gpa. This really makes you work harder for the grades. Go class of 2011.

 

[Bowfinger]

http://www.whotv.com/news/who-story-waukee-grading-changes-020911,0,4034649.story

Its still under review, nothing finalized yet. So, I'll weigh in my two cents. This is idiotic. Say a student earns a 50% on a test, thats failing. That paper should be stamped with a nice red F. This 'status' system sounds like an overcomplicated cluster to me. 6 different statuses for each subject, the parents are going to need a lawyer to figure out if their child is passing or failing.

For anyone waiting to hear me rail against liberals, here you go. Waukee is a yuppie suburb full of superficial airheads who love boneheaded stuff like this. "Gee, we don't want my little Johnny to feel bad about the fact he spends his day screwing off instead of listening to the teacher." Of course when little Johnny gets home, he plops down in front of his PS3 or the blu-ray player connected to the 46" flat panel in his bedroom. His self-indulgent parents are far too busy to actually spend time with him, teach him values, make sure he's doing his schoolwork.

Certainly the "liberals" aren't the only reason our public education sucks, but they're a big part of it.

 

[Vette73]

Could you describe the system they use?

I can;t remember but it is a letter grade but not A, B, C, etc... but some weird thing and unless you have the decoder ring will never know.

I asked one if she was getting A's and she just gave me a weird look. She then tried to explain it but it was weird and she was not 100%.

 

[Bateluer]

I can;t remember but it is a letter grade but not A, B, C, etc... but some weird thing and unless you have the decoder ring will never know.

I asked one if she was getting A's and she just gave me a weird look. She then tried to explain it but it was weird and she was not 100%.

So you do need a lawyer to decode it?

 

[irishScott]

Until 6th grade we were on a completely different system:

N = Not Satisfactory
S = Satisfactory
E = Excellent
O = Outstanding

I can see such a system expanding to middle school with reasonable results.

 

[nageov3t]

letter grades and even the 4.0 scale always seemed kind of retarded to me.

all grades in my high school were just the raw X/100 percentage, with anything under 75% being considered a failure.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

For anyone waiting to hear me rail against liberals, here you go. Waukee is a yuppie suburb full of superficial airheads who love boneheaded stuff like this. "Gee, we don't want my little Johnny to feel bad about the fact he spends his day screwing off instead of listening to the teacher." Of course when little Johnny gets home, he plops down in front of his PS3 or the blu-ray player connected to the 46" flat panel in his bedroom. His self-indulgent parents are far too busy to actually spend time with him, teach him values, make sure he's doing his schoolwork.

Certainly the "liberals" aren't the only reason our public education sucks, but they're a big part of it.

lol, true waukee is as you describe. My daughter plays youth sports and we always dreaded going near that place due to the arrogance and sense of entitlement they display.

 

[Cheesetogo]

Until 6th grade we were on a completely different system:

N = Not Satisfactory
S = Satisfactory
E = Excellent
O = Outstanding

I can see such a system expanding to middle school with reasonable results.

I had that too. It's pretty much the same thing as the standard system though.

I would be curious to see how they design the new system. It's possible that they could come up with something decent.

 

[Zebo]

Sucks for them because life gives grades. Aka income, prisons, relationships, etc.

 

[drebo]

It's all more of the same...the pussification of America. No one ever fails and no one ever loses and no one can ever be "left behind".

It's bullshit.

Schools need to be getting tougher and more focused, not softer and diluted.

 

[themillak]

Through elementary school we were "graded" iirc on everything including performance and attitude basically.
E- Excelent
VG- very good
G- good
S- Satisfactory
U- unsatisfactory

I suppose it could switch over to A-F but good means good and C gets interpreted as average or puts in just enough effort or whatever. By high school we'd switched over to pure numbers and we were on our own to calculate a GPA or letter grades.

the program I'm in now has students from all over the world and they leave the grades as numbers and tell us our ranking in relation to the other classes. There's not really a pass/fail number as much as a move forward/get kicked out area, and fail with a capital F is somewhere ranging between 50 and 65 and subjective based on what country you came from.

 

[waggy]

Until 6th grade we were on a completely different system:

N = Not Satisfactory
S = Satisfactory
E = Excellent
O = Outstanding

I can see such a system expanding to middle school with reasonable results.

for how long before people start saying the kids are "not satisfactory" that hurts there feelings and makes them feel not wanted wich leads to them acting out or worse suicide. so they decide to scrap that system.

really its a joke.

bah i need some coffee.

 

[fskimospy]

Guys, it's middle school. The entire purpose of middle school is to adequately prepare kids for high school. Personally to me it seems like breaking down a subject into its component parts is a much better way of telling parents what is going on.

What if your kid is good at writing, but poor at reading comprehension? It sounds like in this system the parents will get a report that says that says 'writing is good, reading needs work', as opposed to just getting a 'D'. Seems like an improvement to me. We all know that middle school grades are irrelevant anyway, so who gives a shit how they are formulated?

Funny that people think somehow just seeing a report with a 'D' for the entire subject of English is easier to understand than a report that breaks it down.

 

[Bowfinger]

Guys, it's middle school. The entire purpose of middle school is to adequately prepare kids for high school. Personally to me it seems like breaking down a subject into its component parts is a much better way of telling parents what is going on.

What if your kid is good at writing, but poor at reading comprehension? It sounds like in this system the parents will get a report that says that says 'writing is good, reading needs work', as opposed to just getting a 'D'. Seems like an improvement to me. We all know that middle school grades are irrelevant anyway, so who gives a shit how they are formulated?

Funny that people think somehow just seeing a report with a 'D' for the entire subject of English is easier to understand than a report that breaks it down.

Two separate issues. Breaking subjects into more granular parts is fine. Those parts could still be assigned letter grades. It's the whole feel good, don't want to hold kids (and parents) accountable for performance that's the issue. Standard letter grades are a much better way to prepare middle school age youth for high school, college, and the cold cruel world they'll someday enter.

 

[fskimospy]

Two separate issues. Breaking subjects into more granular parts is fine. Those parts could still be assigned letter grades. It's the whole feel good, don't want to hold kids (and parents) accountable for performance that's the issue. Standard letter grades are a much better way to prepare middle school age youth for high school, college, and the cold cruel world they'll someday enter.

Meh, a distinction without a difference to me, and the article doesn't even list what the list of statuses would be. Your objection appears to be based upon the assumption that this change is meant to shield kids from the consequences of failure, and that's an awfully large leap from the linked article.

I fail to see how giving a kid a 'D' vs. rating his knowledge as 'poor' would be any different, and I certainly don't know what metric you are using to say that somehow letter grades would be superior for that purpose.

 

[classy]

The school board says the plan would allow upper level students to move ahead faster and better identify students who are struggling.

I thought an A or B identified upper level students and Ds and Fs identified struggling students.

 

[fskimospy]

I thought an A or B identified upper level students and Ds and Fs identified struggling students.

And if you read the article you would see that they wish to use these metrics to determine exactly what areas a student might excel in, and exactly what areas the student might be doing poorly in, instead of a general measure like "english", which is actually comprised of a number of things.

 

[Anarchist420]

letter grades and even the 4.0 scale always seemed kind of retarded to me

+1. Letter grades and the 4.0 scale are too inaccurate. They should have a percentage average.

Including - and + in the 4.0 scale helps a little bit, but it's still not 100% accurate.

 

[Jiggz]

I can;t remember but it is a letter grade but not A, B, C, etc... but some weird thing and unless you have the decoder ring will never know.

I asked one if she was getting A's and she just gave me a weird look. She then tried to explain it but it was weird and she was not 100%.

Sure it's not F-U-C-K, i.e., F=Failed; U=Upper Class; C=Center of Class; K=Kiss Azz

 

[Bowfinger]

Meh, a distinction without a difference to me, and the article doesn't even list what the list of statuses would be. Your objection appears to be based upon the assumption that this change is meant to shield kids from the consequences of failure, and that's an awfully large leap from the linked article.

I live in the area. It's been a big topic on the local news for the last two or three days. The "assumption" is based on interview comments by two Waukee School officials.

Here's a link with more detailed information: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/ar...ew-way-grade-Standards-replace-letters-Waukee

I fail to see how giving a kid a 'D' vs. rating his knowledge as 'poor' would be any different, and I certainly don't know what metric you are using to say that somehow letter grades would be superior for that purpose.

Their proposal no longer give grades to rate performance. Instead, they would provide "statuses": "beginning," "developing," "secure" or "exceeds." Isn't that sweet?

I think it's a great idea to offer parents a more detailed assessment of their children's strengths and weaknesses. Many schools across the country are doing that now. Just don't remove accountability by using fluffy, feel-good "statuses" instead of grades. As the Register article notes:

Most schools nationally do use a combination of traditional and standards-based grades, according to Reeves, which allows parents to still associate a letter grade with their child's performance while seeing what specific concepts they are struggling to grasp. And that leads to increased achievement, he said.

(Emphasis mine.) There's no reason schools can't do both.