A Tale of Three Students: Why traditional grading doesn't work

Does this sound familiar?

Mrs. Teach-A-Lot (Mrs. T) is an English teacher.  This year, one of her goals is to teach her students to write a bibliography.  To do so, she has included 4 projects that require bibliographies in her curriculum as well as a few homework assignments and test questions related to bibliographies.

1. Student 1: Peter "Play School" doesn't know how to do a bibliography.  However, he knows that he'll get a good grade as long as he turns in completed work.  His goal is simply to get the work done, but isn't particularly concerned whether he actually understands the concept.  He asks Mrs. T questions in class, uses his notes and textbook, and works with friends.  As long as he gets a good grade, he must know what the teacher wanted to teach him, right?  However, Peter consistently turns in bibiolgraphies that fail to meet Mrs. T's expectations.  On the project rubric, he receives low scores in this area.  However, because he did all the other homework and projects well, he ends up with an A in the class.  Job well done!  Or is it?
2. Student 2: Nancy Know-It-All is a gifted student who usually understands and internalizes concepts in-class.  She doesn't need extra practice to get the information.  Thus, all the extra practice in the form of homework and assignments are simply busy work.  It doesn't make sense to her why she should do the same thing over and over again, or break it down into basic steps that Mrs. T. requires of her students to learn the material.  Therefore, she becomes frustrated with the extra work and simply doesn't do it.  (An alternative to this is the disorganized student that simply looses all their work).  However, she consistently turns in bibliographies that are perfect or nearly-perfect.  At the end of the semester, though, she receives a C due to her failure to turn in homework.  This is fair, of course, since those homework assignments are necessary for a student to learn the concept.  Or is it?
3. Student 3: Walter Work-Hard doesn't learn things as quickly as other.  He has to work on it.  However, he does want to learn and be successful.  At the beginning of the year, his homework and test scores are poor, and his bibliography is dismal.  This is also reflected in other areas of the class.  However, on projects 2 and 3, his bibliography is about average, and he receives a decent score.  Finally, on the last project, Walter really gets it.  The bibliography had very few errors and it isobvious he applied the things he'd learned in class to produce an excellent product.  He receives very high scores on this project and even a "Well done!" comment from Mrs. T.  She's very happy with how far he's come.  Due to his performance throughout the semester, his overall grade in the class is a C.  This isn't surpising since he's always been a "C-student".  C's accurately reflect his achievement in school.  Or do they?

This is the problem with traditional grading.  Grading serves as a means of communication between the teacher of the class and anyone who wants to know how well the student did in the class, whether that be parents, colleges, and especially the students themselves.  They are often interpreted as a representation of what that student knows or their mastery of the subject.  However, did these grades reflect each of these students' mastery of Mrs. T's objectives?

1. In Peter's case, he earned an A even though he never learned an important skill.  However, the A communicates that he is an excellent - even advanced - student and learned everything that the teacher wanted him to.
2. In Nancy's case, she earned a C due to an understandable lack of motivation to do the homework.  Not only did the class fail to challenge her, but her grade communicates that she failed to master the material.
3. In Walter's case, he was punished with a C for learning the material at a different pace than the rest of the class.  While he ultimately mastered the material, his grade communicates that he failed to meet the teacher's objectives, or at most that he only met the objectives at a basic level.  Particularly in this case, this student is the victim of a terrible injustice.  Despite hard work that ultimately results in achievement, he will never be able to show his mastery of a subject simply because he requires a little more time.

This is why I believe in moving to a standards-based grading system.  In standards-based grading, students are evaluated based on what they can do by the deadline as evaluated by standards we set.  Ultimately, our deadline is when grades are due, usually the end of a quarter or semester (based on the subject, the "deadline" may be more fitting at the end of a unit as well).  How would these students' results be different in a standards-based class?  They objective they are measured against is the ability to write an error-free bibliography.  The levels we will use are "Below Basic", "Basic", Proficient", and "Advanced"

1. In Peter's case, he would earn a "Basic" for all of his bibliographies.  Rather than communicating a job well done, he knows that he still needs work to meet this standard.  If he continues to receive "Basic" throughout the semester, it communicates that he never met the standard.
2. In Nancy's case, she would consistently earn "Proficient" and "Advanced".  This communicates that she has mastered the standard and reward her for this.  It would also allower her to focus on anything that is lower than her other scores rather than waste time on items she has mastered.  High-achieving students are challenged by simply receiving "Proficient" in areas that they feel they could received an "Advanced" score, so this will hopefully continue to encourage work in weaker (or just "less strong") areas.
3. In Walter's case, he would receive "Below Basic" on his first bibliography, communicating that he needs improvement to meet expectations. Then, he would receive "Basic" for his next two bibliographies, communicating that he has improved, but there is still a little more to go to be where Mrs. T would like him to be.  Finally, on the final bibliography, Walter would receive a "Proficient", communicating that he has mastered this skill.

So, how does this translate into their final grade?  As explained above, students should only be graded according to what they master by the deadline.  Therefore, only the final evaluation determines the students' final grade.  Thus, Peter would receive a "Basic", Nancy would receive "Advanced", and Walter would receive a "Proficient" - evaluations that communicate much more about their mastery than simply a letter grade.  These could be converted to a numeric score and then averaged with how well students met the other standards, which would result in an overall class score.  Finally, if working in a school where a letter grade is required for the report card, the scores for meeting standards could then be converted into a letter grade.  Though I'm still figuring out how I'd like to do this in my classroom, an "Advanced" score corresponds to an "A", a "Proficient" score correspons with a "B", "Basic" with "C", and "Below Basic" with a D or an F.  However, working out the conversions is a topic for another post.