When A Nation at Risk was published in 1983, the authors opined that schools in the United States were mediocre and therefore, “threatens our very future and Nation as a people”(http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/findings.html). The publication caused a reverberative effect on educational reform. Subsequently, legislation and educational programming were instituted, aimed at correcting the assertion that America’s schools were failing to educate its students and keep pace educationally with other industrialized nations. The U.S. Department of Education (2008) reported that a primary element of concern addressed in A Nation at Risk was the need for educational standards in the core areas of English, math, social studies and science (p. 3).
According to Guskey and Bailey (2010), the first release of a set of educational standards occurred in 1989 from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Soon thereafter, the National Council for the Social Studies (1994), National Academy of Science (1996), National Council of Teachers of English (1996), and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (1996) established standards in their disciplines (p. 14). Moreover, in “Standards, Assessment, and Accountability,” Shepard et al. (2009) stated that standards-based education and grading have been topics for over 30 years, gaining a permanent place in educational pedagogy with the authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1994 as well as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001. Shepard’s report included a survey conducted in 2002 of educational policy makers that revealed standards “were acknowledged as central framework guiding state educational policy” (p. 1).
For over twenty-five years, educational standards for learning have been at the forefront of education reform (U.S Department of Education, 2008; Guskey and Bailey, 2010). According to Guskey and Bailey (2010), standards answer the questions about what students should learn, be able to do, and be able to create (p. 13-14). Reporting grades in a standards-based format, particularly at the secondary school level, however, has not kept pace with standards-based educational reform in the development of standards-based grading systems (Guskey, 2009a; Heflebower, Hoegh, & Warrick, 2014). Guskey and Bailey (2010) affirmed, “While just about everyone today agrees that report cards need improvement and that grades should be based on clear standards for student learning, rarely do they agree on what those report cards should contain or how they should be constructed” (p. 1) .
Guskey, T.R. (2009a). Bound by Tradition: Teachers’ View of Critical Grading and Reporting Issues. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. Guskey, T. R., & Bailey, J. M. (2010). Developing Standards-Based Report Cards. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Heflebower, T., Hoegh, J.K., & Warrick, P. (2014). School Leader’s Guide to Standards-Based Grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research. Shepard, L., et al. (2009). Standards, Assessment, and Accountability. Manuscript submitted for publication. U.S. Department of Education (2008). A Nation Accountable: Twenty-five Years After A Nation at Risk. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/accountable/index.html
The primary purpose of grading as defined by District Policy 618 is to communicate the academic achievement status of each student to the students, their families, and post-secondary institutions. Additional purposes for grading may include providing information to students for self-evaluation, teachers for planning and modification of instruction, and to schools for evaluating the effectiveness of instructional programs. (ISD 423 Policy 618)
In order to avoid ambiguity and to keep the purpose of grading clear, grades for academics and grades for behavior should be reported separately.
Grading is to provide accurate information of each student's academic knowledge, abilities, and skills not only to affirm proficiency but also to promote continued growth and learning of knowledge and skills yet to be attained.
Educational researchers (Heflebower, T., Hoegh, J.K., & Warrick, P., 2014; Nagel, D., 2015; Marzano, 2010) have referenced the definition of standards-based grading by Wiggins (1993, 1996) as either standard-referenced grading or standards-based grading. The definitions are at times used interchangeably by educators. Standards are specific descriptions of “what students are to know and be able to do as a result of their experiences in school…describe particular elements of content…what specific knowledge students are expected to acquire…and describe levels of performance in relation to that knowledge” (Guskey & Bailey, 2010, pp. 43-44).
According to Wiggins (1993, 1996), in a standards-referenced grading system, a teacher provides feedback and appraisal of a student’s performance based on a set of standards. The student neither advances to a subsequent standard nor relearns the previous standard based on the evaluation. The student continues to the next level of learning regardless of how he or she performed. In a standards-based grading system, the teacher provides feedback and appraisal of a student’s performance based on a set of standards, and the student may advance to a more challenging standard of learning or, if necessary, relearn the unlearned standard based on the teacher’s feedback (as cited in Marzano, 2010, p. 18).
Marzano (2010) recommended, “Understanding the distinctions between standards-based and standards-referenced systems helps schools and districts design a grading system that meets their needs” (p. 19). Marzano concluded that with a district’s use of a standards-referenced system or standards-based system, teachers provide an evaluative grade of student performance based on standards.
As cited in Marzano and Kendall (1996a), Mark Durm (1993) explained that the history of traditional grading involved the teacher providing a grade of A, B, C, D, or F based on a calculated average of the student’s performance on assignments. This grading system was founded in 1897 at Mount Holyoke College and was a modified version of the Harvard University system which began in 1877 and involved the subdivision of grades into six categories called divisions (p. 14).
As described by Marzano (2010) in a standards-based or standards-referenced grading system, the teacher provides students with a summative score based on learning goals. Teachers do not provide a comprehensive grade for a subject (such as an A or B in a traditional grading system); rather, the teacher reports whether or not the student achieved proficiency (the school district creates a scale defining what proficiency means) in each learning goal or standard (pp. 112-120).
Carr and Farr (2000) described teachers’ assessment of a student’s performance based on the district’s standards of learning and then provided the student a proficiency mark of advanced, proficient, partial, or minimum based on the student’s achievement of the standard (p. 191). Other examples of proficiency marks a district may employ include “exceed standard; meets standard; approaching standard; below standard” or “extending, acquiring, emerging, pre-emergent” or “distinguished; proficient, apprentice, novice” (Guskey, 2010). O'Connor (2009) suggested that whatever descriptional words districts choose to use as marks they include clear definitions as to their meaning (p. 73).
In the National Education Goals Panel’s (1993) report Promises to Keep: Creating High Standards for American Students, the authors used the term “performance standard,” which Marzano (2010) reported was “popularized” following the publication of the National Education Goals Panel report (p. 17). The panel defined performance standard as “how good is good enough” in reference to the level of proficiency a student performed on a standard of learning. The panel further defined this major concept in standards-based grading:
…they are the indices of quality that specify how adept or competent a student demonstration must be. A performance standard indicates both the nature of the evidence (such as an essay, mathematical proof, scientific experiment, project, exam, or combination of these) required to demonstrate that the content standard has been met and the quality of student performance that will be deemed acceptable (that merits a passing or "A" grade). The Technical Planning Group believes that performance standards are essential to gauging whether content standards are met (p. ii).
Hanover Research (2011) compiled common characteristics for a standards-based grading system that provided a comprehensive theoretical framework of a standards-based grading system:
Students are graded either entirely or almost entirely on how well they progress toward learning objectives.
Standards-based systems measure only a student’s most recent level of mastery over the course material.
In order to avoid distorting students’ grades away from their actual level of proficiency, standards-based grading only incorporates summative assessments such as tests or essays, not formative assessments like homework.
Information from formative assessments can be used to provide valuable feedback to both the student and their parents.
Students can redo summative assessments until they have demonstrated proficiency.
Many standards-based systems use rubrics. Rubrics define the specific learning criteria against which teachers will compare a student’s proficiency level.
Standards-based grading systems often use a scale different from A, B, C, D, and F to record students’ grades on report cards. One common scale is 4, 3, 2, and 1. The scores provided in a standards-based system correspond to performance standards. (p. 5).
Guskey (1994, 2010) established three categories for teachers to provide meaningful, clear, criterion-referenced grading: Product, process, and progress. Guskey (2009b) defined product grading as evaluation of student achievement in relation to an expected outcome through products such as final tests, projects, and culminating assessments; process as grading how students learned through quizzes, homework, participation, and attendance; and progress as grading on how students improved or grew over time (p. 18).
Guskey (2006) further explained his recommendation that teachers report on each area separately to avoid misinterpretation of the meaning of the grade:
Interpreting grades thus becomes exceptionally challenging, not only for parents but also for administrators, community members, and even the students themselves. A grade of A, for example, may mean that the students knew what was intended before instruction began (product), did not learn as well as expected but tried very hard (process), or simply made significant improvement (progress) (p. 672).
According to the statement above, separation of product, process, and progress grades allows teachers to provide more meaningful information about students’ achievement of academic standards than a single letter grade for the entire class.
Resource for review:
What is the Difference Between Standards-Based Grading (or Reporting) and Competency-Based Education
Frequently Asked Questions about Minnesota's K-12 Academic Standards
Teachers and schools are to teach a number of standards each year. Although teachers are obligated to teach all standards, given the number of standards and the number of days in a school year in which to teach the standards, not all may practically and efficiently be taught by teachers and mastered by students. Hefelbower et al (2014) provide criteria in order for educators to determine which standards should be priority:
Endurance—Knowledge and skills that will last beyond a class period or course.
Leverage—Knowledge and skills that cross over into many domains of learning.
Readiness—Knowledge and skills important to subsequent content or courses.
Teacher Judgment—Knowledge of content area and ability to identify more- and less-important content.
Student opportunity to learn content that will be assessed (p. 18).