Grading Practices for
Secondary Schools
2014 New Mexico Assessment Conference
Assessment Best Practices to Drive Instruction
Tom Hierck
@thierck
thierck@gmail.com
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Outcomes/Objectives
Participants will:
-
recognize the need to critically examine established grading practices;
appreciate the complexity of grading;
identify the purposes of grading;
analyze the value of guidelines for grading; and
consider implications of standards-based grading for reporting student
achievement.
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What are the main
purposes of grading?
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Purposes for Grading
• Communicate the achievement status of
students to parents, (students), and others.
• Provide information that students can use
for self-evaluation.
• Select, identify, or group students for certain
educational paths or programs.
• Provide incentives to learn.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of instructional
programs
Guskey, Thomas R. (Editor), Communicating Student Learning:
The 1996 ASCD Yearbook, ASCD, Alexandria, VA, 1996, 17
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“Grades are not inherently bad.
It is their misuse
and
misinterpretation
that is bad.”
Guskey (1993)
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Developments That Make Change in
Grading Systems Imperative
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The growing emphasis on standards and
performance assessments makes current
practices inadequate
Parents and community members are demanding
more and better information about student
learning progress
Advances in technology allow for more efficient
reporting of detailed information on student
learning
There is growing awareness of the gap between
our knowledge base and common practice in
grading
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What are report card grades
based upon . . .
. . . in a typical classroom?
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Typical Grading
Practice Sources

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Policies and practices experienced as students
Personal philosophies of teaching and learning
District-, building-, department-, or grade-level
policies on grading and reporting
What was learned about grading and reporting in
undergraduate and teacher preparation programs
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Typical Sources of
Grading Evidence

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Homework Completion
Homework Quality
Class Participation
Work Habits and
Neatness
Effort
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Attendance
Punctuality of
Assignments
Class Behavior or
Attitude
Progress Made
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Typical Sources of
Grading Evidence



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Major Exams or
Compositions
Class Quizzes
Reports or Projects
Student Portfolios
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Laboratory Projects
Students’ Notebooks or
Journals
Classroom Observations
Oral Presentations
Exhibits of Students’
Work
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Grades are Communicated to…

In the elementary
grades…




Parents
Students
Other teachers
Administrators
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
In middle and high
school…
 College admissions
office
 Scholarship decision
makers
 Potential employers
 Juvenile authorities
 Insurance companies
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Pause + Ponder
Should grading be based
on "growth over time"?
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“the primary purpose of . . . grades . . . (is) to
communicate student achievement
to students, parents, school administrators, postsecondary institutions and employers.“
Bailey, J. and McTighe, J., “Reporting Achievement at the Secondary School Level:
What and How?”, in Thomas R. Guskey, (Ed.) Communicating Student Learning:
ASCD Yearbook 1996, ASCD, Alexandria, VA, 1996, 120
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Reflecting on Your Grading Practices
• What are the principles on which your grading
practices are based?
• What were or are the main influences on your
grading principles and practices?
• How do your grading principles and practices
compare with those of other teachers in your
school?
• Do the grades awarded fairly reflect the results
from which they were derived for each student?
• If you answered "yes," for which students? Why?
• If you answered "no," for which students? Why?
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What do “grades" mean?
Take a few minutes and write several
Descriptors (point form or sentences) that
clearly describe what an A (or 4 or whatever
symbol is top of your grading scale) means
in your grading scheme. (The word or symbol
for per cent MUST NOT appear in your
description.)
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Questions for Establishing
Appropriate Grading Practices
Is it appropriate to factor the student's
...achievement
...intelligence
...level of effort or
...level of attitude
when assigning a grade?
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If all of these are factored into a
grade, all with different weights,
how can we expect the reader
to factor all of those things out and
understand what we meant?
If you think it’s possible,
you are living in a
dream world.
-Stiggins
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Pause + Ponder
When is grading
counterproductive?
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Where Do You Stand?

If a student gets a 100% on a pre-test, he should NOT have to
do any assignments in the unit of study, and instead, he
should do a personal research project related to the general
topic of the unit while other students learn the original
material. He gets an automatic “A” on the final unit test.

Danika is borderline between a C and a B grade. In order to
choose one or the other for the final report card grade, it’s
appropriate for her teacher to consider Danika’s outstanding
attitude, behavior, and high homework completion rate when
determining whether to record the C or the B on the report
card.
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Unidimensionality – A single score on a test represents a single
dimension or trait that has been assessed
Student
1
2
3
Dimension
A
Dimension
B
Total Score
2
10
12
10
2
12
6
6
12
Problem: Most tests use a single score to assess multiple dimensions and
traits. The resulting score is often invalid and useless. -- Marzano,
Classroom Assessment and Grading That Work, page 13
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“No studies support the use of low grades or
marks as punishments. Instead of prompting
greater effort, low grades more often cause
students to withdraw from learning.”
Guskey and Bailey, Developing Grading and Reporting Systems for Student Learning,
Corwin Press, 2001, 34-35
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“There is no reward
in punishment.”
Barth, R., Lessons Learned
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Three practices that deserve attention (because
of) their potentially harmful effects are:
1. averaging scores to determine a grade;
2. the use of zeros; and
3. taking credit away from students or
lowering their grade because of behavioral
infractions.
Adapted from Guskey and Bailey, Developing Grading and
Reporting Systems for Student Learning, Corwin, 2001, 139
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“Averaging falls far short of providing an
accurate description of what students have
learned. . . . If the purpose of grading and
reporting is to provide an accurate
description of what students have learned,
then averaging must be considered
inadequate and inappropriate”.
Guskey, Thomas R. (Editor), Communicating Student Learning: The
1996 ASCD Yearbook, ASCD, Alexandria, VA, 1996, 21
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“Assigning a score of zero to work that is
late, missed, or neglected does not
accurately depict students’ learning. Is
the teacher certain the student has learned
absolutely nothing, or is the zero assigned
to punish students for not displaying
appropriate responsibility?”
Guskey, Thomas R. (Editor), Communicating Student Learning:
The 1996 ASCD Yearbook, ASCD, Alexandria, VA, 1996, 21
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“In effective schools one of the most
consistent practices of successful teachers is
the provision of multiple opportunities to
learn.
The consequence for a student who fails to
meet a standard is not a low grade but rather
the opportunity, indeed the requirement to
resubmit his or her work.”
Reeves, D., “Standards are Not Enough: Essential Transformations for School
Success,” NASSP Bulletin, Dec. 2000, 11
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If we do not allow students to re-do
work, we deny the growth mindset so
vital to student maturation, and we are
declaring to the student:


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This assignment had no legitimate
educational value.
It’s okay if you don’t do this work.
It’s okay if you don’t learn this content or
skill.
None of these is acceptable to the highly
accomplished, professional educator.
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The Effect of Zero
Student A
86
86
86
0
86
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Mean = 68.8%
Does this accurately reflect what
the student knows and can do?
Median = 86%
Mode = 86%
Mean calculated with
50% instead of 0 = 78.8%
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Imagine the Reverse…
A = 100 –
B = 39 –
C = 29 –
D = 19 –
F =9 –
40
30
20
10
0
What if we reversed the proportional
influences of the grades? That “A”
would have a huge, yet undue,
inflationary effect on the overall grade.
Just as we wouldn‘t want an “A” to
have an inaccurate effect, we don’t
want an “F” grade to have such an
undue, deflationary, & inaccurate effect.
Keeping zeroes on a 100-pt. scale is
just as absurd as the scale seen here.
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Time to Change the
Old Paradigm:
Grades are NOT
compensation.
Grades are
communication:
They are an
accurate report
of what
happened.
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Tom Hierck
@thierck
thierck@gmail.com
Thanks for the gift
of your time!
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