The Controversy Of Abolishing The Grades System

Grades and number scores have been the system for centuries, but critics and experts debate that a new system should be put into place, where teacher comments will track a kid’s progress in school. Instead of a vague number or letter score, students and parents will get detailed descriptions from the teacher. There are many sides to this story, and experts are debating over which system should be used. I think that grades shouldn’t be abolished, because they are easy and simple, measure the progress of students, and give students motivation.

Grades are clear-cut and straight-forward, while teacher comments can be general and confusing. With grades, parents will know at a glance how well a student did on a particular subject. A raise from a B on one test to an A on another symbolises an improvement. With teacher comments, however, students and parents may not know what is going on. There is just not the same consistency as grades, and other factors such as bias may affect the comments. Even the definition of “teacher comments” may be too general. For example, how would a teacher grade a math test using comments only? And in addition to grades, doesn't the teacher comment on your work as well? Keeping the current system and erasing confusion is the way to go.

How will we differentiate students of different skill levels? If a private school or a special honors class is looking at whether a student should be accepted or not, how will they decide if there is nothing in the student’s record of what grade of GPA they have? How will we even measure if one has reached full academic achievement or hasn’t learned anything at all? Some might say that the school can just look at the student’s teacher comments, but this is neither as informative or as formal as a letter or number