There is always something or someone to blame in our struggle for education reform. Sometimes it’s the “bad teachers” who get the blame. Other times it's standardized testing, insufficient funding, or slow-moving bureaucracy. I blame grades.
Grading students, from A to F, has become synonymous with education itself. Report-card day is an American rite of passage. Yet, there's reason to believe the structure of grading students is the biggest culprit in America's long, steady decline in education—SAT reading scores are at a 40-year low, and one recent study ranked the U.S. 17th in education, worse than Poland, Canada, Ireland, South Korea, and Denmark. It's becoming increasingly clear that the rigid and judgmental foundation of modern education is the origin point for many of our worst qualities, making it harder for many to learn because of its negative reinforcement, encouraging those who do well to gradually favor the reward of an A over the discovery of new ways of thinking, and reinforcing harsh class divides that are only getting worse as the economy idles.
A 2002 study at the University of Michigan found that 80 percent
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The most famous example is the Montessori schools, noted for their lack of grades, multiage classes, and extended periods where students can chose their own projects from a selected range of materials. The schools have educated many of today's wealthiest entrepreneurs, including Google's Larry Page and Sergei Brin, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales, business management legend Peter Drucker, and video game icon Will
America has not changed it’s educational system in over two hundred years. For this reason, our students and population are falling further and further behind. Our society has done nothing but move forward, so why hasn’t our learning? Everybody has a story, opinion, or response to education. We need to invest in refining our tools to succeed, to create a better sense of self, and a stronger, more well-rounded nation. The American educational system is hurting students by passing them without merit and relying on standardized tests; however, many are now running back to these hollowed halls to ensure better futures.
In her article, “The Case Against GRADES”, Alfie Kohn discusses the grading system and its faults. She opens her argument with information from an older psychological study that proves the negative impact of the current grading system, and she reinforces this with the proof that “no” research has contradicted this statement. Also, she gives many key reasons including: “Motivation”, “Achievement”, “Quantification”, and “Curriculum”. Kohn supports these topics with other reasearch for why the system is failing the students. She asserts that, “… the absence of grading is a necessary condition for promoting deep thinking and a desire to engage in it.” As support, she offers other solutions and then debunks them by proving that they would not solve
“Making the Grade” by Kurt Wiesenfeld Newsweek magazine, June 27 1996 brings to light an issue that has been glazed over by society for some time, grade inflation. It’s highly disturbing that “we lament that schoolchildren get “kicked upstairs” until they graduate from high school despite being illiterate and mathematically inept, but we seem unconcerned with college graduates whose less blatant deficiencies are far more harmful, if their accreditation exceeds their qualifications”. The issue of grade inflation is not simply an issue of students feeling entitled to higher grades than they have earned, it is a problem that directly impacts our society in a multitude of negative ways. Perhaps the “gold star” mentality started out with the good intentions of creating children with positive self-esteem, however, a direct result is lazy adults with a sense of entitlement for no reason, who lack qualifications to adequately and safely perform their jobs.
According to Carl Singleton, author of the article, “What Our Education System Needs Is More F’s”, many of the problems plaguing the American educational system could be solved if teachers would begin to give failing grades to students who deserve them. He attributes the practice of inappropriate grade assignment on poorly educated teachers, uninvolved parents, and an ineffective administration; in addition, he contends that until educators begin to liberally disperse the grade of F to all of the students who deserve them, no other reform will work. He believes that widespread distribution of F grades will result in teachers, parents, and the educational system, taking responsibility for the failure to educate America’s youth. Examination of Singleton’s article reveals his
I have always valued school and enlarging my intelligence; I receive a sense of pride from earning a decent grade on a paper or on a particular assignment. Alfie Kohn wrote an essay titled “From Degrading to De-grading”; in it he suggests a different view on the current education system. Even though students expect marks and even seem dependent on them, grading should spur on a love of studying not deter it. Grades tend to reduce a student’s inclination for stimulating tasks, and lessen students’ interest in erudition.
In today’s society we feel the need to be graded in order to learn. The topic of the grading system has sparked three essays, by three different authors, about the pros and cons of the grading system. First, Jerry Farber, professor at University of California at San Diego, wrote A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System (333). Next is Steven Vogel, professor at Denison University, who wrote Grades and Money (337). The last two authors in this compilation are Stephen Goode and Timothy W. Maier. They both are journalists for Insight on the News. While each of these authors have their own point of view on the grading system, all three essays talk about how being graded affects learning.
Our education system is failing and in his essay “What Our Education System Needs Is More F’s” Carl Singleton writes that nothing else will right the ship or fix this issue except for his proposed solution which is to simply fail more students. As a matter of fact “by the dozens, hundreds, thousands, even millions” (Singleton 1) is how he describes the failing grades should be distributed. He claims that illegitimately passing students has existed for the past two decades and even implies that it stems further back than that with many teachers in the school system today “who never should have been certified in the first place.”(Singleton 1).
The ability for all children from varying walks of life to receive a well-rounded education in America has become nothing more than a myth. In excerpt “The Essentials of a Good Education”, Diane Ravitch argues the government’s fanatical obsession with data based on test scores has ruined the education system across the country (107). In their eyes, students have faded from their eyes as individual hopefully, creative and full of spirit, and have become statistics on a data sheet, percentages on a pie chart, and numbers calculated to show the intelligence they have from filling out bubbles in a booklet. In order for schools to be able to provide a liberal education, they need the proper funding, which comes from the testing.
Politicians claim that Accountability is needed. Dylan Wiliam wrote that “The logic of accountability is deceptively simple”(110) He goes on to say that “students attending higher quality schools will (by definition) have higher achievement than those attending lower quality schools, so that the differences in quality of schools will result in systematic differences in achievement between schools”(110). Yes indeed accountability is needed. It is needed for those who pay for education (tax payers) and the people who are educated (the students). The institutions that regulate education should be held accountable for the policies they enact as well as the government that approved those actions. “Of the total variance in mathematics achievement of 15-year-olds in the United States in 2004 only 8% was attributable to the actual quality of the education provided by the school, the results in science are similar” (111). This is an indictment of the American school system, it points out that standardized testing is in fact inaccurate and unnecessary.
Since the release of the report by Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in December of 2010 many in the government and community are searching for ways to reform the American education system to give American students the greatest opportunity to succeed. According to the report, American students are not testing as high as other nations in the world (Duncan, 2010). There are many contributing elements that have brought America to her knees in the education system, however, the obsession with standardized testing is found to be one of the most influential downfalls.
When students arrive at university, professors expect them to understand the material to an exceptional standard. The problem is that grade inflation is occurring more regularly in secondary schools and universities across the country and when these students’ marks are sent to universities or colleges, the student may be given multiple scholarships for something that he/she should not have earned. Grade inflation is conceived between both students and teachers, meaning that the students are given higher grades when they have inadequate learning, reading, and verbal skills, while the teachers do not have to grade as many papers as they should in the real curriculum. There have been multiple examinations that have confirmed that grade inflation is very real and still occurs today. Students seem to think that they do not need to put forth much effort in school to do well and grade inflation encourages this thought.
In “How Grading Reform Changed Our School,” author Jeffrey A. Erickson discusses about how it is common in high schools to pass each student by their accumulated average of the entire class period. He described many examples to display the way of grading in high schools such as in behaviors, lessons, and tasks. He talks about the changes that were made and were in effect to achieve a grading average that reflects the student 's’ abilities and knowledge .
Giving students a grade that they have not earned hinders the youth’s future educational success. A number of schools are no longer giving a grade of zero on assignments, tests, and exams completed by students. While other school districts continue to give students the grade that is adequate for the work they have done or have not completed. Giving students the grade that equals their work is designed to show students where they need to improve. Many school boards want to stop giving out zeros for work that hasn’t been turned in and give a grade that rages around the “D” area keeping children from falling behind in their classes. By allowing student to pass through the school system the educational board is raising their graduation and success
Grading System Reform Teachers have always used grades to measure the amount a student has learned. This practice is becoming ineffective. Many students have a wide range of grades, which shows that grades may not show what a student really knows. Therefore, the standard grading system should be replaced. Some reasons why grades should be replaced are bad grades can hinder a child’s performance, grades define who a student is in the classroom, and grades are not an effective way to see if students have learned the material.
By nature, most students are brought up in an academic environment motivated to get A’s and B’s on their report cards. Those grades sometimes don’t thoroughly report how much a student has learned or gained knowledge in each topic. Some instructors throw in factors totally unrelated to learning, when the main objective of academic institutions is to learn. In order to clearly demonstrate how much a student has learned in the classroom, schools should change their current grading system and teach students how to learn.