Overcoming the F.E.A.R. of No Grades

Marc Scott

Despite teachers identifying grading as one of the most frustrating parts of the job and decades of research demonstrating a need for reform, there is still much resistance from educators, leaders, and policymakers to the idea of substantive changes for grades. Through conversations with parents concerned about their children's rank among peers and with teachers about what is fair for students' learning, I have noticed that the objections are usually based not on pedagogy, but on emotion. More precisely: good old-fashioned fear.

This fear is not only something I observe in others, but also a big part of my educator journey. I started my career thinking grades were objective and accurate indicators of student achievement. As I have been exposed to more research, I have realized that my grading practices gave students very little quality feedback on how to improve their performance, were often highly subjective, and favored some students over others based on nonacademic factors.

Though the need for change became obvious to me, I struggled with having no language to clearly articulate the problem or a viable solution to my colleagues. It did not get any easier when I became an administrator. Whether at the classroom or schoolwide level, it is necessary to have a plan for communicating to stakeholders about why the work is important.

What may surprise most teachers and school leaders is that the primary obstacle to an accurate report of student progress lies in the entrenched practice of percentage grading, or the 100-point scale. History shows that this "invention" was not for academic purposes, but simply built on a need for institutions to efficiently rank their learners. We have been ranking human beings ever since, using grades that are often unfair and inaccurate.

There are four key truths important to overcoming the F.E.A.R. of going gradeless.

(F)eedback: Grades Don't Encourage Improvement

Many educators still equate grades with feedback. In reality, students are more likely to actually ignore any concrete feedback once they see a grade on an assessment. We can actually inhibit learning as we give traditional grades.

In their book Advancing Formative Assessment in Every Classroom, authors Connie Moss and Susan Brookhart (2019) champion "feedback that feeds forward." They argue that effective feedback advances the cause of learning.

For feedback to be effective, it must be tangible (or directly related to the work), specific, timely, and actionable. It is virtually impossible for a grade to meet these criteria. Instead, the grade often distracts the learner from feedback that might actually have bearing on their learning.

(E)quity: Grades Don't Level the Playing Field

A consistent force behind much of the inequity in our schools is in the way we grade. I was one of those teachers who used to say to my students, "I don't give grades, you earn grades." What I did not realize were the inherent biases built into the traditional grading methods, placing some students at an advantage over others. Grading is always subjective. Every teacher is going to place emphasis on different criteria or respond to students based on their own worldviews and experiences. By not figuring out new methods of grading, we hurt programs and practices aimed at improving equity, according to Joe Feldman, the author of Grading for Equity (2019).

(A)ccuracy: Grades Don't Really Tell Us What Students Know

The change to a more mathematically sound scale, such as a four- or five-point scale, would go a long way in increasing the reliability of grades. First, it restores mathematical sensibility by eliminating the disproportionate weight of failing grades, especially zeros, in the traditional 100-point scale. Second, teachers can describe what qualitatively sets one level of performance apart from another. Even if your district or campus policy won't allow you to go gradeless completely, you can still promote a greater transfer of ownership of learning using this adjusted scale, which equips students to identify where they are in their progress compared to a clear criteria and to be able to do something about it.

Besides the scales we use, we attempt to "help" students with alternative grading practices that only serve to make matters worse. Completion grading (which doesn't measure accuracy of the work), extra credit, and accounting for nonacademic factors (e.g., behavior in class, participation, meeting deadlines) are just a few. Combined with the subjective differences from one teacher to the next, all of these methods distort student achievement data. Going gradeless helps to keep the focus on the learning itself and eliminates the need for completion grades and extra credit, which are detriments to real-life preparation.

(R)eal World: Grades Don't Prepare Students for Real Life

"You don't get re-dos in the real world!" Truth be told, this myth has done a great deal of damage to the learning environment for many students. In each of the 15 different jobs I have had in my life, making mistakes and learning from failures were valuable parts of the experience. Instead of being punished or fired, I had opportunities to re-do tasks and improve over time.

Consider our own profession. Educators who take more than one attempt to pass a certification exam are not distinguished in any way from those who pass on the first try. A similar approach is part of the MCAT, LSAT, and CPA exams; a driver's license test; and many other assessments. They can all be taken multiple times for full credit. The evidence of the most recent attempt replaces prior evidence completely.

Even with high-stakes occupations, such as surgeons, airline pilots, law enforcement, and others where human lives are on the line, people have situations where they fail before they succeed. In labs, flight simulators, and all kinds of places where the stakes are low before they are high, individuals practice and make mistakes—over and over! They receive feedback and try again. This is the learning process. The real world does not eliminate re-dos; it encourages them. Isn't it somewhat arrogant to refuse the same opportunities for school-age children?

By keeping the message about these four factors in front of your students, parents, and administration, everyone can overcome the F.E.A.R. of going gradeless.

References

Feldman, J. (2019). Grading for equity. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin.

Jensen, E. (n.d.). The best learning motivator EVER! Retrieved July 10, 2019. from www.jensenlearning.com/news/the-best-learning-motivator-ever/brain-based-learning.

Moss, C., and Brookhart, S. (2019). Advancing formative assessment in every classroom: A guide for instructional leaders (2nd Ed.). Alexandria, Va.: ASCD. 

Marc Scott is an assistant principal at Cedar Valley Middle School in Austin, Texas.

ASCD Express, Vol. 14, No. 31. Copyright 2019 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.