

“Because of the way it was implemented, nothing has been standard about it at all. But moves toward equitable grading seem to be rolling out in a patchwork fashion, and not without pushback and confusion. “As schools reopen, there is a desire for normalcy, but we shouldn’t rubber-band back” to outdated practices, Feldman argues.Įquitable grading involves eliminating the 100-point grade scale and not penalizing students for late work and missed assignments if they can demonstrate subject mastery and even if they must retake tests or redo other assessments along the way.įeldman says these assessment practices can help address stubborn achievement gaps and streamline the grading hodgepodge. “Inherited grading practices have always hurt underserved students,” said Joe Feldman, a former teacher and author of Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms. Several models exist, but so-called equitable grading is gaining momentum. Now the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic-remote learning and more failing students-twinned with renewed concerns over equity have many educators taking another look at grading. Reform efforts made over the past two generations-such as the push for portfolio grading that gained traction in the 1980s-largely foundered, as they were viewed as too cumbersome to scale up to large districts and schools. The process is inconsistent at best, inequitable at worst, critics argue.

Guskey calls a “hodgepodge” of measures-quizzes, tests, homework, conduct, participation, extra credit, and more-rather than gauging actual student learning. Generally, grading attempts to distill students’ performance on what education researcher Thomas R.

Today, protocols for handing out grades of A–F on a 100-point scale vary from district to district and classroom to classroom. Letter-based grading became universal in U.S. Grading remains idiosyncratic in most places-largely dependent on rubrics devised by individual teachers and usually rooted in century-old practices, even if they are calibrated using new technologies and software.
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The practice of grading student work has mostly been an afterthought in teacher training and professional development.
