The Meaning of Grades

The Wake County Board of Education recently considered instituting a minimum grade of 50 (out of 100) for assignments that students failed to turn in, and limiting the penalty for work turned in late to 10% of the grade. They were concerned about the practice of teachers giving zeros for missing assignments and taking significant points off of late assignments. Wake County Public Schools is the largest school district in North Carolina, so this policy change would affect a lot of students. Some of the teachers in the county didn’t like the idea of the Board dictating their grading procedures, so the Board has dropped the idea of a mandate and has switched to making these ideas their “suggestions." While I understand and sympathize with the teachers’ discomfort with such specific grading requirements from the Board, I share the Board’s concerns when it comes to grading.

I am totally opposed to giving students zeros. I am also opposed to automatically subtracting points for late work. Allow me to explain.

I believe that, as teachers, we should be concerned with helping all of our students learn what we are trying to teach them. I don’t believe we should be concerned with making sure that they all learn it at the same speed. We know that people are individuals and learn at individual rates, in individual ways, and require individual supports at times. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, we insist on assigning grades to everything and we base our education system on the assumption that all students require one year or one semester to master whatever content we decide to throw at them. Does anyone else see a disconnect there?

First of all, grades are unnecessary and dehumanizing. No, that is not an exaggeration. We can determine whether a student has learned what we wanted him to learn without assigning an A, B, C, D, or F to him. We can simply say “Yes” or “No.” Why do we insist on this obsession with categorizing people, ordering them from best to worst, over and over again? We don’t need grade point averages or class rankings, either. We can eliminate the whole idea of the high-school class valedictorian without causing any harm to the well-being of anyone. Some school districts have already done this, and their students are doing just fine. In fact, I’m guessing it would help us all much more than it would hurt us to stop grading everything. It would put the focus where it ought to be — on the learning, on the skills, on whether students can do things with what they know.

When a student gets a zero, whether because he does a very poor job on an assignment or because he doesn’t do an assignment, what purpose does it serve? If the student’s grade for the course is based on cumulative points or weighted points, which most grades are, a zero can create a situation where, no matter how well he performs on every task remaining in that course, he will be unable to earn a grade that accurately reflects his level of knowledge and skill. Teachers who use 100-point grading scales should never give grades lower than 50, logically speaking. After all, the difference between an A and a B is 10 points. The same holds true for the difference between a B and a C, and between a C and a D. It is nothing more than excessive punishment when a teacher gives a student a zero for a missed assignment. Douglas Reeves wrote an excellent explanation of this in his article The Case Against the Zero.

Regarding penalties for late work, I can only ask again, why? What is the purpose in taking points off of a grade because the student turned it in late? What does this accomplish, other than punishment? If a grade is meant to communicate something about a student’s skills and knowledge, what does it communicate when you lower the grade for tardiness? That he learned too slowly? That, no matter what his work actually showed, he only learned, at most, 90% of what he needed to learn? The most common argument I hear from teachers about this issue is that they are using the late penalties to teach students the importance of respecting deadlines and of responsibility. To which I always want to reply, “Do you meet every deadline you’re given? When you’re late turning something in to your principal, are you penalized 10% of your salary? Or, are your evaluation ratings dropped by 10%?” Just because banks and libraries charge late fees doesn’t mean we have to do it, too. As educators, we should be more reasonable than that.

If grades are supposed to communicate accurate information about how well the students mastered the content, then that’s all they should be about. And, if grades don’t actually communicate accurate information about how well the students have mastered the content, because we have lowered the grades for late or missing assignments, then we need to stop giving them at all. This is where it becomes obvious that, although most teachers are trying to educate their students, a few of them are more interested in wielding power and doling out punishments than they are in pedagogy. They cling to the ideas of the zero and late penalties because they grew up with them and because they like having that power. They will claim it’s about integrity and life lessons, but it’s really just about power and hierarchy. The way our schools are structured only reinforces these dysfunctional power relationships and it is up to us, as the adults in the room, to be the voices of reason. We need to refocus the entire endeavor on the students and their learning, not on ranking and punishing them. 

It's a Family Affair

I don’t normally do this kind of thing, but I am moved to express my gratitude for my sisters. I'm thinking about what I would say to them if I knew it wouldn't make me burst into tears. This is why I don't say these things out loud - fear of crying in front of people. Anyway, I'm going to take advantage of technology and post here things I'd like them to know.

My sisters have been one of the major influences in my life. When I think back on my childhood, I first think of my sisters, not my parents. They were always much more prominent in my life than either my father or my mother and they, in many ways, raised me. I learned more from them than from anyone else.

Annie

Annie is the sister who always took care of me, taught me to have a sense of humor, and made me love silly British humor (think Monty Python). She inspired me to think about things like politics and social policy from a very young age. She was always the epitome of "cool" to me. None of the other 5th graders in my school had t-shirts with the NORML logo on them! It was never easy to find privacy in our house and there wasn't a lot of individual attention available. But Annie would take me with her when she went out on errands so it was just us, and she would let me sit with her and her friends when they were hanging out at our house. She was such a role model for me that I never looked anywhere else for examples of how to be a woman. Annie is the voice inside my head that stokes my ambition and makes me work hard. She also taught me to have fun and to find humor, even in very trying circumstances. She's a model of forgiveness and love and hope. She showed me how to be both openly emotional and strong, and I will forever be grateful to her.

Maggie

Maggie is the sister who, in many ways, is still a mystery to me. She taught me to read, one of my greatest pleasures in life, and wore me out on long walks. She is usually the first sister I mention when people ask me about my family because I'm so impressed by the major mid-life career changes she has made. Through her example, she showed me how to engage in intellectual and personal exploration. As a child, I always thought of Maggie as perfect, the ideal. She was always being pursued by boys and seemed to just know things about life. This made her seem distant from me, since I was swimming in imperfections and, being 5 years younger, knew next to nothing about life. But, just when I would be feeling like I would never understand her, she would reach out and connect with me. I could never predict what would make her laugh, and Maggie laughing is a pleasure to see. She’s a very serious person, but her smile transforms her face. I will always be grateful for her.

Katie

Katie is the sister I played with, fought with, and stuck to throughout most of my life. I guess sharing a bed with someone for 12 years creates a bond. She's opinionated, active, and thoroughly engaged in her life. She's the person who reminded me that I should bake cookies with my kids, carve pumpkins with them, eat meals with them, take them to festivals and shows, and make sure they had the resources they needed to pursue their passions. (Yes, I needed reminding of all of that.) Katie has made me a better parent than I would have been without her influence. I haven't always appreciated her as much as I should have and we've had some wicked arguments. But I know the ways that she has shaped me. She has been the force that has pulled me out of my own head and into the world, and I will be eternally grateful for her.

My sisters are so important to me that I named my children after them. That’s about the highest praise I can offer. So, as Thanksgiving approaches, I’m stating publicly that I am grateful for my sisters. 

Party in NC!

The Republican Party in North Carolina has control over both houses of the General Assembly for the first time since 1896. Add to that a Republican Governor, and now you've got a real clambake! Unfortunately, many of the clams being baked are the students and schools. 


Here's what these fellows have been up to:

• The Excellent Public Schools Act of 2012 (SL 2012-142): this law eliminates "social promotion," meaning that 3rd graders who can't pass the End-of-Grade (EOG) Reading test either have to enroll in "Summer Reading Camp" (we used to call this summer school) or be retained in the 3rd grade. There are some good cause exemptions, but not many. This stupid law flies in the face of years of research showing that HOLDING KIDS BACK DOESN'T WORK!* This law also requires that schools be graded on a scale of A to F based, almost entirely, on students' test scores. There is also the Excellent Public Schools Act of 2013, which is currently making its way through the legislature. It seeks to institute merit pay for teachers (which didn't make it through the 2012 version), would require the State Board of Education to issue performance reports and report cards on schools of education in NC (with "rewards and sanctions"), and would eliminate "career status" (NC's version of tenure) for teachers. NC is a "right-to-work" state, so career status is pretty much the only job protection teachers have.
• HB 146, which passed the House and is currently in the Senate, would require schools to teach students cursive writing and memorization of multiplication tables. This one just makes me laugh.
• HB 162, which passed its first reading in the House, would lengthen the replacement cycle of school buses to once every 250,000 miles. Because safety comes first.
• HB 944, which passed its first reading in the House, would create "opportunity scholarships" for poor students to attend private schools.  In other words, vouchers.
• HB 269, which passed the House and passed its first reading in the Senate, would create special education scholarship grants for students with disabilities to attend private schools.  In other words, vouchers.
• HB 144, which passed its first reading in the House back in February, would grant income tax credits for children who are homeschooled.
• HB 218, which passed its first reading in the House in March, would prohibit "illegal aliens" from attending NC community colleges and universities, even if they paid in cash, I'm assuming.

This legislature has also lifted the cap on charter schools in the state and seeks to create a separate board of education for charter schools, apart from the State Board of Education. 

This is a very hard time to be an advocate for public schools anywhere in the US, but I believe the NC General Assembly is trying to outdo all the other states in displaying its disdain for our work and for the children of the state. People of NC, is this what you want for your children?



*See: 

• http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/dps/pdfs/dp116798.pdf
• Peterson, L., & Hughes, J. N. (2011). Differences between retained and promoted children in educational services received prior to and after retention year. Psychology in the Schools, 48, 156-165
• http://www.nasponline.org/about_nasp/positionpapers/whitepaper_graderetentionandsocialpromotion.pdf
• Moser, S. E., West, S. G., & Hughes, J. N. (2012). Trajectories of math and reading achievement in low-achieving children in elementary school: Effects of early and later retention in grade. Journal of Educational Psychology

Integrity, schmintegrity!

I guess I can't do two positive posts in a row right now because there are several things I need to get off my chest today, the primary one being the complete and utter lack of regard that Congressmen seem to have for the people they "represent."  

WTF is going on?!? Polls, which politicians seem to only pay attention to when they support them, show overwhelming support for expanding background checks on gun purchases to include guns bought at gun shows and on line. This makes sense, particularly given that the Aurora shooter bought his supplies on line.  But, apparently, what we, the people, want is irrelevant. Clearly, it's much more important to our Congressmen that they retain their own power and money, which the NRA has been able to guarantee for them in the past. When I first became principal in my small town in North Carolina, I was given the advice, "Don't upset the DAR." I guess Congressmen must be given the advice, "Don't upset the NRA." But, when you have been hired to do something as important as directing the education of a town's young people, you cannot be swayed by special interest groups whose desires are contrary to what is educationally sound and in the best interests of the students. The same principle ought to apply to Congressmen. Where is their integrity?

Another thing that's been bothering me is the cheating on state tests that has happened since NCLB and Race to the Top were implemented. Earlier this month, dozens of employees and former employees of the Atlanta Public Schools were indicted under the RICO Act because they cheated on the state tests. The cheating was widespread and the system of rewards and punishments tied to students' test scores that the Superintendent implemented contributed to it. There have been documented incidents of cheating in schools in other states and there have been suspicions and allegations of cheating in even more. This will continue as long as teachers, principals, and superintendents are evaluated based on students' test scores. You could say that these educators don't have any integrity, and I wouldn't argue with you. But, let's not ignore the fact that the entire system of evaluating our schools lacks integrity, too. 

If you follow Diane Ravitch, you know her opinion as to why our schools are being subject to these senseless "accountability systems." Regardless of whether it's due to money, power, or prejudice, the pressure on educators for their students to score well on tests is insanely high and has done significant damage to our students and to our schools. We have only begun to reveal the ugliness that these laws have created. One of the most famous supporters of using test scores to reward and punish educators is Michelle Rhee, the former Chancellor of the D.C. Public Schools. Some people have been saying for several years that there was cheating  going on during her reign, but, to date, no one has been charged with any crimes. However, you should read this report if you want to know more about it.

When I've been frustrated by the attitudes and actions of the school board of my district, I have been heard to say, "We reap what we sow.  These people are graduates of our schools." I'm worried that we will all be forced to reap what our Congressmen and the Department of Education have sown. I am far from perfect, and I have made my share of mistakes, both personally and professionally. At times, I have lost my focus on what was best for students. But - and this is what I think is lacking in our Congressmen - I listened when someone told me that I needed to step back and re-think my position.

There's Beauty Everywhere!

If you ever have cause to visit Charlotte, I strongly recommend that you take the time to go to Wing Haven Gardens and Bird Sanctuary. Although it covers only 3.5 acres of land, Wing Haven manages to have a rose garden, a children's garden, an herb garden, 3 pools, 3 ponds, a fireplace, a woodland area, multiple fountains, and too many plants for me to list here. The designers of Wing Haven, Elizabeth and Edwin Clarkson, wanted to attract songbirds when they built their house, in the 1920s. Over time, they attracted a variety of wildlife and did everything they could to nurture their little biome, including taking injured animals into their home until they were well enough to live outdoors.

The entirety of Wing Haven is still attached to the Clarksons' home. What began as their private garden eventually became a place for bird lovers to visit and for elementary-school students to learn about the relationship between plants and birds. This is what is most charming about Wing Haven: it is still located in a residential neighborhood in the middle of Charlotte. On our recent trip, we had to pay close attention because there aren't big signs or billboards leading you there. It sneaks up on you quietly, looking like any other house on the street. To enter the gardens, we had to first enter the Clarksons' home (preserved as it was when they lived there) where a volunteer greeted us, asked us to share our name and address and to pay the $6 entrance fee, and gave us a brief history of Wing Haven. We were then led to the Education Building where a 20-minute video about the Clarksons and Wing Haven was showing in a perpetual loop. After the video, we went outside and entered the gardens through a gate. 

What I saw from the outside did not prepare me for the beauty and serenity of the gardens, themselves. I could hear very little of Charlotte inside the gardens and I forgot where I was, until the path led me up to one of the brick walls over which I could see a neighbor's house. All throughout the gardens, there are marble blocks with quotations carved into them placed among the brick paving stones. There are also several statues of religious figures and some plaques with quotes from the Bible. I loved the scents and the colors, but my favorite part was the sounds of the birds.

My daughter, who had been protesting this outing, became more interested as we walked along the paths and eventually said that it was, "sort of cool." She particularly enjoyed the chipmunks, one of whom let us get very close as it filled its cheeks with seeds from a platter on the ground. This is another unique thing about Wing Haven -- the wildlife is fed. Apparently, the birds eventually became so accustomed to the Clarksons that they would perch on their fingers and eat from cups they held in their hands.

When we lived in Illinois, we visited the Chicago Botanic Garden regularly and I spent some very happy days there with our older daughter, during our summer vacations. But after having visited Wing Haven, I think I prefer something smaller, more intimate. Or, maybe I'm just getting old and thinking how nice it would be to have a lush garden in my own backyard, where I could become familiar with the birds and chipmunks. The whole experience has made me wistful.

L'Ecole des Femmes

Have you read any Molière? He was a 17th century French playwright and, truly, a genius.  I adore Molière. His plays had some of the best social commentary and satire that you will ever encounter. Parts of his plays can make me laugh out loud, although I have a pretty low threshold.  
L'Ecole des Femmes (The School for Wives) is the story of a middle-aged man named Arnolphe who has a 17-year-old ward named Agnes. Agnes has been living in a nunnery since the age of 4, with Arnolphe paying all her bills and calling all the shots in terms of her education. Basically, he has insisted that the nuns not teacher anything that could "lead her astray." He is grooming her to be his wife and he wants her to be so unworldly that she wouldn't even think about cheating on him. He is super-paranoid about being cuckolded. But, of course, the joke's on him because, when he finally moves Agnes to one of his houses, she meets a young man and falls in love with him. All that work and he still doesn't have a wife!

I bring this up because, in recognition of International Women's Day, Human Rights Watch has published a report on child marriage, a practice in which girls under the age of 18 are basically sold to older men as brides. These marriages are common in some countries in Asia and Africa, particularly in the rural regions. Apparently, it can be as easy as going to a girl's father and saying, "Hey!  I'll give you 20 cows for your daughter." If the girl resists, as any sensible girl would, it's likely she'll be beaten by her family or raped by the guy with the cows, the idea being that, once she's lost her virginity, she'll have to stay with the man who took it from her.

Where do I even begin in my reaction to this practice? Well, I begin with a comparison to L'Ecole des Femmes, of course! It seems to me a middle-aged man wanting to buy a teenaged bride is quite like Arnolphe wanting to marry his 17-year-old ward. Any man who would want a girl for his wife is probably looking for the same things as Arnolphe -- someone virginal, sheltered, unworldly, meagerly educated (if at all), grateful for my wealth. Do these countries need their own Molières to help them see how foolish and short-sighted this is? 

Apparently, although I doubt even that would make much of a dent. It saddens me that, in countries where this is happening, there are generally laws against it that go unenforced. So, somewhere along the way, the leaders of these countries acknowledged that this was not a good practice and passed laws against it, but they haven't had the guts to insist that the laws be enforced. In the meantime, girls in these countries remain uneducated (only 39% of elementary-school students are female; only 30% of secondary students), abused, and dealt with (by their own parents!) as if they were livestock. Maybe we should work on staging productions of Lysistrata in these places.

Oh, The Humanity!

Maybe it's because I grew up in the 70s and my teachers had been in college in the 60s, but I've got some issues with our expectations of our teachers and schools right now. I'm not talking about the curriculum, although that would certainly be a good discussion. And, I'm not trying to say that we expect too much of our teachers and schools, even though we do. What I'm talking about is the pressure on teachers to focus relentlessly on academic achievement and closing the achievement gap, with little, if any, regard for the development of the individual student. This is particularly true in schools with high poverty rates. Yes, academic achievement is extremely important, and I agree that we have an unacceptably unequal situation in our public schools today. It's shameful that a country with our wealth and resources has allowed children in poverty to languish. It's horrific that we have allowed schools that serve children in poverty to accept significantly lower academic skills from them. I recognize all the reasons we have created this pressure on our teachers and schools to spend all their time and energy on covering the curriculum, getting higher achievement out of their students, and getting more of them to enroll in college. But what has the cost been? Because, there's always a cost.

I believe that the cost has been (bear with me, please) our humanity. OK, that's a sweeping and dramatic statement, but stop and think for a moment. I did not grow up in affluence. Until high school, I attended schools in a lower-middle-class/working-class neighborhood. My fellow students were white, black, Latino, and Asian. Most spoke English as their first language, but not all. In other words, my teachers were asked to work with the same demographic then that most teachers work with now. Yet, because of how the school and curriculum were structured, and because they were not being evaluated on how we performed on a test, they took the time to connect with each one of us. There were no high-stakes tests and no value-added evaluations. They made us feel valuable. They slowed down when we needed them to slow down and they asked us what we liked and what we wanted to be when we grew up. I personally witnessed several instances of my teachers stopping to talk one-on-one with a classmate about something entirely separate from the lesson. I can remember several instances when one of my teachers pulled me aside and talked with me about what was going on in my life and in my head. I felt loved.

My point is, do our schools today have the "luxury" of encouraging teachers to really get to know their students? Are those relationships valued? Gilbert Highet spends a significant amount of time in his book, The Art of Teaching, explaining the importance of the relationship between the teacher and the student. I worry that we have ventured so far from that realization, the realization that children need to know that their teachers care about them and that their personal development is truly important to them, that we are creating a situation we never intended to create. What will the long-term impact of this be on these students and, therefore, on our society? Will they ever feel fulfilled? Will they ever mature into the steady, responsible, happy people we will need them to be? How deeply will they care about their fellow human beings? Will they be capable of empathy?  

I hope I'm over-reacting, I really do. But I've got questions. Everyone who works in schools today has heard the "Rigor, relevance, and relationships," mantra. They're the Holy Trinity of education, or at least that's how some think of them. But how much attention have we paid to the third part of that group? In schools with high poverty/low achievement, how much attention have we been allowed to pay to that third one? We get so wrapped up in getting kids up to grade level or up to proficiency that we don't spend time on the truly important elements of childhood. We can't. The pressure is too great. 

In my opinion, we have so badly skewed the educational process that it is distorting our view of children. When did the goals of education become test scores? I want it to be about helping children develop into capable young people who understand themselves and the world, at least to a certain extent, and who have an idea of what will make them happy in life. I don't care how they score on standardized tests. If we want to "close the achievement gap," we should demand that our government take steps to greatly reduce the number of children living in poverty. Changing the dynamic between teachers and students isn't going to "close the achievement gap." It's going to exacerbate it.

The Festering Sore We Call Humanity

I've been sick lately, so this may be nothing more than the emotional wrecking ball that accompanies the flu, but I despair for our species.  If I see one more stray dog wandering along the highway or walking through a town looking for affection, I'm going to have an emotional breakdown.  Seriously, what is wrong with us?  How can we be this low, this bad, that we don't even take care of our pets?

I think you can learn all you need to know about someone if you observe the way he treats those who are the most vulnerable.  Someone who takes in a dog, then treats the dog badly, cannot be trusted.  Someone who hits a child or deprives a child of food or health care cannot be trusted.  Someone who sees a person being hurt by others and does nothing to stop it cannot be trusted.  The people with the most power are obligated to help those who are the most vulnerable.  If they don't, the rest of us are obligated to step in.  But how often does that happen?

On New Year's Day, as trite as it is, I was thinking about the future and trying to find reasons to be optimistic.  I was actually thinking about my own personal goals and how to achieve them, but eventually I expanded my reflection to include all of humanity and our relationships with each other and with other species.  I've spent my entire adult life working in and for public schools and I think I've just about reached the limit of my patience with them.  Let me rephrase that: I don't know if I can continue working in public schools if we're going to follow policies that force us to do things we know are wrong.  Anyone who knows me can tell you that I've been saying things like this for several years and that I've threatened to change careers more than once.  I can usually talk myself out of it or find reasons for hope that allow me to continue.  But this time, it might be different.

I feel like I'm living through the Dark Ages of Education, when everyone has forgotten everything he used to know about how children learn and grow.  This is absolutely personal for me, because I have devoted myself to education and I am currently at the mercy of bad public policies.  Anyone with a child in public schools right now knows what I'm talking about.  It's worse in some states and in some communities, but it's tough everywhere these days.  And how did we get to this point?  Where did we go so badly off the rails?  Well, I'm guessing it was when we decided to let the unlicensed people do the driving.

Honestly, I don't know if I'm up to the challenge of fighting for education anymore.  But it isn't just education that has me feeling so despondent.  It's the fact that we have so many people living in poverty in such a wealthy country, and the fact that we have shootings in public places for no apparent reason.  It's the way that we are so good at ignoring sorrow and suffering when it's right in front of us, but can express outrage over being charged a higher tax.  I'm as guilty as everyone else, but I want to do better.  It might seem small, but I want to start with dogs.  I understand dogs and can give them what they need.  The rest of it is just too overwhelming right now, but I can help dogs.  At the very least, I can help the dogs I see that need help.  I know it's not enough to do "the very least," but that's where I'm going to start.  People are just too tricky for me these days.