Middle school in Iowa looks to nix letter grades?

[ShawnD1]

When I was in school, optional classes often didn't have actual grades. For things like math it has a percentage score then for music it just has a pass or fail.

 

[Munky]

My school and college used A-F... What's all this cryptic nonsense

 

[nageov3t]

My school and college used A-F... What's all this cryptic nonsense

A-F is cryptic nonsense itself.

my school used 0% - 100%, I can't really see a reason to do it any other way.

 

[Munky]

A-F is cryptic nonsense itself.

my school used 0% - 100%, I can't really see a reason to do it any other way.

We used both and everyone knew A means 90%+ and F means 59% or less. Who the hell knows what "Good" or "Very Good" or "Satisfactory" means.

 

[Baasha]

meh.. American schoolchildren have it too easy.

If I didn't get my ass kicked by my dad when the report cards were mailed to my parents directly from the school, I assumed I did well!

If I got slapped, I didn't. End of story. There's no better grading system than your parents who give you a proper thrashing when needed.

 

[Baasha]

My school and college used A-F... What's all this cryptic nonsense

Don't you get it? It's to make sure the dumb kids don't feel stupid. It's the "everyone is a winner" canard.

 

[werepossum]

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 Worth the wait.

 

[piasabird]

So what makes a child want to excel?

 

[cwjerome]

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.

How is this any different from an A-F metric, or any other similar system?

If a report card is to tell what the student knows, grades are basically useless. If a student gets a C in math, what does that really say other than when you average his scores it landed between 70-79%? What did he do well with? What did he struggle with? Oh and what about those zeros that crushed a final grade, skewing the average. Do those zeros show what he has learned or are we mixing responsibility/accountability with work?

The best thing to do is define the specific standards you are teaching and then score the student on his work in relation to the standard. Did he meet it, exceed it, fall below it, or fall far below it? Use whatever system you want to convey the score but tie it to standards, not a generalized grade of who knows what, so it actually means something.

 

[Munky]

Don't you get it? It's to make sure the dumb kids don't feel stupid. It's the "everyone is a winner" canard.

That sounds about right. Heaven forbid you hurt little Timmy's feelings if you show that he's as dumb as a brick.