For high schools to become student-centered schools with cultures of hope for students, we must ensure that grades students earn are reflective of their learning. Several steps can be taken to ensure that your school's grading practices provide hope for students to succeed.
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1. Have teachers examine their electronic grade books and indicate if each grade entered is reflective of student learning or compliance. Examples of compliance or behavior grades are extra credit points, points for bringing boxes of kleenex, homework graded for completion, participation points, and any other grades given not directly tied to student diagnostic, formative or summative assessment.
In addition, examine building and district behavior policies that affect student performance by not allowing full credit for work missed for truancy, in-school or out-of-school suspension. We cannot ask teachers to improve grading practices if we as administrators still support policies that penalize learning for behavior choices.
2. Engage teachers in professional development regarding eliminating zeroes as a grading practice. A number of educational leaders, including Richard Stiggins, detail the extreme adverse effect of zeroes on students' grades, leading to a loss of hope.
In building a culture of hope that focuses on improving student learning, eliminating zeroes as a grading practice is imperative. We all have dealt with those students who because of ineffective grading practices and zeroes fail a quarter, semester or year early in the term with little or no recourse to pass the course. A loss of hope and student disengagement from the learning process ensues.
3. Teachers should work in grade level, same-subject, or vertical teams to develop common assessments, teach benchmarks or learning targets in the same scope and sequence, and engage in student learning data analysis. This ensures common, best grading practices rather than individual teacher decisions leading to reliable and valid learning data.
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4. Provide professional development for staff on successful intervention strategies. Rick Wormeli's Fair Isn't Always Equal is an excellent resource. Same-subject or vertical collaborative teams should develop common intervention strategies to intervene for any or all students who have not learned the curriculum's benchmarks or learning targets.
Systemic intervention by the school should stem from a collaboratively-developed pyramid of intervention. The entire school community should be committed to enhancing student learning. If a student becomes increasingly academically unsuccessful, the student moves up the pyramid.
Individual teachers and teaching teams should develop and implement common intervention strategies for re-takes and re-dos to allow students multiple learning opportunities. As Richard DuFour and Robert Eaker stated, we should create schools where learning is the constant instead of time.
Students then earn grades that are indicative of learning through multiple trials and varied assessments.
5. Monitor student grades frequently. We examined all student grades in our high school every 4.5 weeks and analyzed them by individual students, individual teachers, same-subject teams, and grade level. Students failing more than one class were immediately referred to their guidance counselor and the School Success Team process. Trends in individual teacher or subject data led to collaboration with our staff and further data analysis.
Teachers notified guidance of students who needed extra time and support for learning and gave these students Gold Cards that mandated intervention. Guidance counselors met by each Gold Card student alphabetically and reviewed with them opportunities available for them to receive intervention. Students then completed their Gold Card by having teachers who provided academic support sign their card and returned it to the teacher who assigned the card.
Students who received Gold Cards also lost student privileges, including late arrival, early release, coming and going during exam week, and/or driving and parking privileges until their grades improved. Parents, students, and staff understood that we were a school committed to ensuring student learning.
Engaging in purposeful, mindful grading practices can transform your high school into a school of hope for students.
Sources:
DuFour, R and Eaker, R (1988). Professional learning communities at work. Bloomington, IN:National Educational Service.
Stiggins, Richard (2004). Classroom assessment for student learning: Doing it right, Using it well. Portland, OR: Assessment Training Institute.
Wormeli, Rick (2006) Fair isn't always equal. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.
