posted
So Montgomery County Public Schools has adopted a new grading policy that raised eyebrows among many of us students... If I find a link to outline it better, I'll post it, but here's the rundown.
Things are now being graded on a 4-point scale, where A = 4, B = 3, and so forth. This new scale is used on schoolwork, and is how grades will be recorded on report cards (so it's not straight A's anymore, it's straight 4's.)
Secondly, the grading scale has changed to this:
88-100% = A 63-87% = B 38-62% = C 12-37% = D
Logically, this percentage scale makes sense: Even though B is a 3, 3/4 is still 75% which falls right in the middle of that range, and so forth... despite that, the knowledge that one can get a C for a 40% still boggles the mind.
So I'm wondering: do any other public school systems use this sort of grading policy? And, more importantly, does it work?
posted
Ya My public school switched to that just as i was graduating about three years ago
The High school that i am iin now uses the same system but our report cards are in good ol' percentages Posts: 42 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Whoa. In my day (I'm way too young to be saying crap like that) an A was 94+%, etc. Anything below 65% or so was an F. I wonder, is the work going to be scaled accordingly, or is this an effort to artificially boost GPAs?
Posts: 609 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Grading scales are completely arbitrary anyway. Basicly the teacher is going to give as many A's B's etc. as they feel like, no matter what. I've been in classes where 40% was a C, because the test was so hard that half the class scored below that.
I'm wondering if those are supposed to be percentile guidelines? You know, like the top 12% of kids in a class get A's. That's how it is in here, in grad school. The actual score doesn't matter, what matters is now many of your classmates scored above or below you.
[ September 23, 2004, 03:19 PM: Message edited by: Vera ]
Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
our school was 90 80 70 60 anything 59 or below was failing. Our GPA was based on a 4 point scale, A being 4 and so on, but the grades were also recorded on the report card, so if you got straight a's you had a 4.0, and all people with 4.0s (at graduation) are validictorian canidates. I think that was pretty standard.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
The four point scale is garbage. The system proposed by your district seems to reflect both a lack of understanding of math and grades, and an attempt to water down most grades. It's true, more traditional grading scales are slanted in such a way that you need to score well above 50% to get even a C, but this is done on purpose, to reflect the level of mastery we are seeking. 50% mastery of a topic is not adequate; 63% mastery is not "good."
I believe that no matter what your expectations are for your students, you are generally right.
But Vera is right, teachers will do what they need to to make the grades meaningful. Although it will be hard to do so with a system in which answering less than helf of the questions correctly is enough for a C. If it were me, I would make everything harder to compensate.
posted
My high school was 93 A, 85 B, 78 C, 70 D, and anything lower was an F. But every school I've taught at uses the ten point scale, and I'm perfectly satisfied with that.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
HC, it will boost GPAs of students who are currently habitually C, D, or F students, will have no effect on B students, and bring down A students.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Heh, these are some of the things we were wonderign about; one thing I wanted to make clear though:
As I said, 4 is A, 3 is B and so forth. Since 3/4 = B = 75%, and 2/4 = C = 50%, and so forth, the new grading scale makes some mathematical sense... but it still seems kinda weird.
It is a percentage, but the new percent scale only applies when things are averaged. If you took a multiple choice test with 100 questions and got an 80, that would use the old scale (80% = B) which would then become a 3. All these 4 point scale grades would then be compiled to get your total (5 assignments: 4, 3, 3, 2, 4 average to a 3-point-something), which would be rounded and put on your report card.
--j_k
[ September 23, 2004, 03:35 PM: Message edited by: James Tiberius Kirk ]
Posts: 3617 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
That's just idiotic. A new B encompasses all of what used to be covered by Bs, Cs, and Ds?
Jose said it right. We should expect 90+% understanding of the work covered -- making 38-62% the "average" makes grades meaningless. Every student but the absolute bottom of the food chain can't really do worse than straight Bs.
Who thought this system up...?
[This post has been edited at the request of Hatrack citizens to get rid of "pointless blasphemy." It was a good call. Profanity is not appropriate in Hatrack River.]
posted
Okay, maybe there's some connection I'm not making here. When I was in High School, my grade percentages were almost always between 87 and 96%, which came out to roughly a B+/A- average. Under this grading scale, I would be getting nearly straight As (4s). I guess I don't understand how it's bringing down the A students, or is it because their A/4 means a bit less now?
Posts: 609 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:It is a percentage, but the new percent scale only applies when things are averaged. If you took a multiple choice test with 100 questions and got an 80, that would use the old scale (80% = B) which would then become a 3. All these 4 point scale grades would then be compiled to get your total (5 assignments: 4, 3, 3, 2, 4 average to a 3-point-something)
Oh. This was not clear.
Then this is not as heinous.
Just mathematically ignorant. They should average the ORIGINAL scores, because this will give an acurate picture of the central tendency of a student's scores. Converting the scores and then averaging that conversion, especially if a variety of original scores convert into the same numbers, makes the mean less meaningful (er, so to speak).
We have individual teachers around here who do something like this. What can you say? At least it's not district policy.
Oh, and it still screws A students and helps F students. An F and an A (a 0 and a 4) average out to a C. A 25 and a 95, for instance, average out to a 60, which is barely a D.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Happy, it puts you--an A-/B+ student in the same category with the A student from yesteryear. To be Valedectorian is much easier now.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Okay, I understand the reasoning now. Still, I'm not sure it will make such a big difference since the scale is so seriously widened. It seems to me if you pay attention it would be fairly difficult to get less than a 3 on this scale.
Posts: 609 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
HC, it screws the A students becase the A range is smaller than the other ranges.
It screws them more now with this clarification j_K gave us, because only perfection will average out to an A. Suppose you get a 100 and an 88. Old system, this averages into 94, a solid A that won't easily be brought down by later grades. New system, this is a 3 and a 4. 3 and 4 average into 3.5, or 87.5%. According to j_k, this is still an A, but just barely.Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
No, what Dan is saying is NOT what I'm saying. I'm not saying it will devaluate A's. It will devaluate B's. It will reduce the number of A's.
Try my experiment with three or four grades and you'll see. When I have time, I'll post and do it, but I have students coming.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Where'd you go to school Dag? Don't see that scale much. In fact I've never seen it anywhere but Fairfax Co. VA.
Posts: 609 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
breyerchic, Allegra was explaining her history grade to me and it sounded similar to the stuff JTK was saying except instead of using numbers they left it as letters. Do you go to the same school?
AJ
lol, being homeschooled does have some advantages, including the fact that I manufactured my entire high school transcript on our home computer, I debated whether I should give myself a 4.0 or a 5.0 like they do out in CA when you take honors classes, but that was my hardest decision.
posted
Aj, I went to the same school Allegra does if that's what you mean. But not JTB. Oh and they changed GPA a little for my senior year, but I don't really remember that.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Ours is pretty standard. My history grade is a teacher thing not a school thing. For us it is all normal as far as the letter grades but the GPA is weird. In an honors class you can get up to a 4.5. In an AP class you can get up to a 5.0. Also + and - count. An A may be a 4.0 but an A- is a 3.7
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I can just see the School Board meeting where this came up.
Irate Parent: "We need schools that can turn out more A students and less failures!!!!!!!"
A school board administrator scratches his head for a moment and then says, "Okay, you got it! Wait till you see the next report cards!"
Sadly, I've sat through enough school board meetings to know that sometimes things like that just happen. Especially these days when magical test scores are taking more precedence than learning for many state and local school boards.
The scores are getting better, but are the kids learning any more (anymore)?
Posts: 472 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Well, all the teachers have to do is teach calculus in pre-algebra, so that in order to get even twelve percent of the answers right you have to know all that the class is really supposed to teach.
But seriously, who came up with this nonsense? Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Irate Parent: "We need schools that can turn out more A students and less failures!!!!!!!"
The example I promised earlier:
Three quizzes:
98%
88%
87%
. Numerical average: 91 (A) Four point average: 10/3 out of 4, or 83%, a B . Trust me, I've looked at four-point scales since I was in SGA in college and it was proposed, fifteen years ago. I also am quite closely acquainted with grading scales from a professional level. This scheme inflates grades on the whole, but it does not increase the number of A's. It decreases it. . Grading scales which differentiate between + and - grades hurt A students even more. (They also hurt C- or D- students, depending on which is considered the minimum grade at your school, because if a D- is normally considered a minimum passing grade, under a four-point +/- scale, a D- will no longer be a passing grade. (Likewise if C- is normally the minimum grade; it will no longer be passing.) . EDIT because I keep finding that, after inserting a list in posts, extra returns are ignored.
posted
At my school, 94-100% meant an A, 85-93% meant a B, 75-84% meant a C, 65-74% meant a D, and anything less than that was an F. In my ninth grade math class, I had a 93% average (my teacher always had us calculate our grades so we could see where they were coming from), and I recieved a B+ for the year. And everyone knocks DC Public Schools. Posts: 2149 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
We were in the 93/85/77/70 group (A/B/C/D minimums) and it was fine. GPAs were calculated normally - we had none of this weighted grade garbage. Colleges generally require the 4-point scale anyhow, so it really only matters in class rank (which is actually where it screwed me - none of our 4.0 students at graduation had taken as many advanced/AP classes as most of us who'd gotten one B and were ranked tied for ninth).
That said, this new grading scale is crap.
Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
The grading at the top edge of the range seems fine to me; it's the near-impossibility of Fs that confuses me. If 12 out of 100 is a passing grade, something's wrong.
posted
Tom, I can respect you wanting to make there be fewer A's, but the problem with this system is that it is that it is mathematically inaccurate. Converting scores, using a conversion that is not "one-to-one," and then applying a measure of central tendency, is inaccurate. And so, while it does create fewer A's, it does create some odd inconsistencies, such as not giving A's to people who would have had them, but giving them to students who would have had B's.
For example:
Student 1 (my example from above):
quote:Three quizzes:
98% 88% 87%
Numerical average: 91 (A) Four point average: 10/3 out of 4, or 83%, a B
HOWEVER:
Student 2's quizzes:
90
90
80
Numerical average: 87% (B) Four point average: 11/3 out of 4, or 92%, an A (and not even a low one at that!) Now student 1 arguably outperformed student 2. S/he scored higher on two of the three quizzes, and, if they are all the same length, student 1 answered more questions correctly overall. However this system gives student 1 a B and student 2 an A because it doesn't accurately represent their individual grades (and all the variation possible among A's and among B's). The numbers being averaged are meaningless, phony numbers.
It's bad math, and freaking school systems should not be using bad math to calculate grades. The system should be opposed on that basis, if nothing else.
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