Standards Based Grading

I was against standards based grading for the longest time; in fact, it was so long that it was only taking my Winter 2016 class of English 493 that changed my mind. I heard all the flack that the tests caught and was super surprised that there were actually people that were for something that caused teachers in Atlanta, Georgia to alter their students' test scores to make them appear better than they were. Why would we want that for our schools? For our students?

Those teachers made a poor choice but that should not reflect poorly on the actual benefits of standards based grading. While I am not at all for coddling students (I'm not saying throw them to the wolves, but I am saying that after high school, they'll need to be ready to be told "you need to do better."), I am for standards based grading. If we set up a national standard for our students to achieve before they enter the real world, they'll be much more adequately prepared to handle what comes their way. A zero on an assignment to most students is just that: a zero. It doesn't help them prepare for the next exam; now the student is just worried about doing better on the next exam to make up for that zero. The stress I remember feeling in high school was awful; I don't want my students to go through that. I want them to see the marks on their paper and know what they can do to fix the marks and what resources they have available to them. We're not teachers to cut down students who might have outside factors contributing to their lack of studying; we're teachers to build up every student that comes through our classroom door.

This post is running a tad bit long, but let me discuss one of my favorite movies. Stand and Deliver was a properly made movie based on a true story about teaching. Jaime Escalante was so good at what he did, when his students - almost all from working-class Hispanic families - passed the AP Calculus exam with flying colors after being confined to the "dumb" math classes, the Educational Testing Service demanded the students retake the exam. Jaime believed so much in his students that he continued to prepare them until they were told to retake the exam with only a day's notice. The students went on to pass the exam - most with 4s and 5s. If we're not prepared to believe in our students, to believe that they can go from the bottom to top with our assistance, then we don't deserve to be teachers. Sometimes we might be the only ones who believe in our students.