Another thought on converting standards-based grades to traditional letter grades

I had an epiphany this morning.  First, let's establish this assumption about traditional grading: A "C" and up is passing, while a "D" and lower is failing.  In the district I grew up in, students "passed" a course if the had a D or higher.  However, a student with a D has not mastered the material and should have to repeat the class if mastery is a requirement, such as for graduation or a prerequisite.  So why do we have a "D" in the first place?  Honestly, I'm really not sure.  But I don't have to include it in my grading.

In addition, I realized that there doesn't need to be a direct conversion equation from the SBG to percentage grade.  

Thus, I propose a reworked conversion model that I feel is superior to yesterday's post.  It's really only a minor change, but a needed one.  I apologize for redundancy if you did read yesterday's post.  The changes I made are in bold.

• Standards categories:
• Listening (20%)
• Reading (20%)
• Writing (20%)
• Speaking (20%)
• Culture (10%)
• Citizenship (10%).
• SBG scale for assessing individual standards (for math people, these will only be assigned in discreet natural numbers as a 0 is only entered when there is no data turned in to grade at all and decimals defeat the purpose of standards-based grading):
• 4 = Advanced ("A")
• 3 = Proficient ("B")
• 2 = Basic ("C")
• 1 = Below Basic ("F")
• Steps for determining grades
1. Determine scores for each individual standard (specific standards that are clearly described to students)
2. Determine averages for each standard category (these are the Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking, Culture, and Citizenship categories)
3. Determine overal score from weighted formula.
4. Round to the nearest whole number (This will be a 4, 3, 2, or 1)
• This is essentially the same as determining cutoff scores, in which case this would be 3.5+ = "A", 2.5-3.49 = "B", 1.5-2.49 = "C", <1.5 = "F"
5. Assign grade. (A, B, C, F)
• If you must report percentage grades, report them as the minimum required for the letter grade you assign.

That's it!  The actual percentage is arbitrary, though you may have to assign one depending on how your school reports grades.  Either way, in my case an 89% or B+, 85% or B, and 80% or B- are all still "B's" when they go in the grade book and particularly when they are used to calculate GPA.  Thus, if I must, I will report an "A" as 90%, "B" as 80%, "C" as 70%, "and F" as 50%.  I don't wan't to give students the idea of a "high-B" or "low-B" in percentages because there is no such thing.  There is simply proficiency or lack thereof.  I also think this will indirectly deal with the issue of "points-grubbing" students since they earn the grade based solely on proficiency and they are discreetly different levels.  If students or parents are concerned about "borderline" grades, then they simply don't understand the grading system and need a simple explanation of how to interpret the percentage or letter grade (obviously, using a standards-based system will require explanations to all students and their parents from the beginning, and likely duplicated explanations when the grades start rolling out).

You may have to adapt this to your school and use a different percentage cutoffs when you are reporting a percentage grade (again, these are fairly arbitrary and not nearly as important as the qualitative grade itself, but may be required).  In addition, if your school employs a +/- scale AND it affects GPA, you will have to use your moral teacher guide and decide if you want to actually assign use the +/- system when reporting your grade (and assign percentages accordingly) and how you will determine those (if it doesn't affect GPA, the only number that will actually affect your students' future, then a +/- is simply another arbitrary symbol that doesn't matter or mean anything).  If I was in a system where the +/- affected GPA and I decided this was important to include when reporting grades, I would simply avoid rounding in step 4 above and determine the cutoff scores for each letter grade including the +/- scales.  For example, 3.75-4 would be an "A", 3.5-3.749 would be an "A-", 3.25-3.49 would be a "B+", etc.