Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > May > 10 > Entry
When an A = just par for the course
Wow, I read a great education blog post this morning that I found through this week’s Carnival of Education, being hosted over at Hunblog. (The carnival is a weekly collection of the best education blog posts of the week, normally hosted by The Education Wonks. I’m included in this week’s carnival for my post about the testing industry’s inability to handle the NCLB workload.)
The post was at Huffenglish, a blog by teacher Dana Huff, and it includes an education blogosphere rarity — the voice of an actual student!
Huff tries to be a tough but fair grader and she wants an A to really mean “excellent,” not just “meets expectations,” as it has come to mean in many classrooms. It’s a noble goal that nearly everyone — students, parents and teachers — agrees with in theory.
But 10th grader Anthony Ferraro argues that it is not practical for a single teacher to grade on a tougher scale than the rest of the teaching universe. Ferraro says this harms the students in the eyes of colleges, who expect straight As and for whom a B is a major red flag and a C is an outright deal-breaker.
Huff counters that colleges have other measures, like test scores, class rank, activities, etc., they can and do use to judge the total student, and that one grade in one class is not that devastating.
It’s an interesting debate and tough problem. What’s an individual teacher to do?
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Comments
By Dana Huff
May 16, 2006 10:37 PM | Link to this
Thanks for linking that post. I appreciate it!By NYC Educator
May 13, 2006 11:38 AM | Link to this
You know, reading my comment, I’m almost certain I wrote several paragraphs. Why doesn’t the software here acknowledge paragraph markers? I’d be embarrassed if my writing students saw a comment like that.By Mary
May 10, 2006 10:08 PM | Link to this
I think the recognition systems, college admissions games, and scholarship games help drive the grade inflation and education style. Students are led to compete with one another instead of with themselves to learn as much as possible. The Alverno College approach old prof mentions might be one of the solutions.By NYC Educator
May 10, 2006 10:06 PM | Link to this
There are also quite a few A students who plagiarize papers off the net, who are blessed with teachers too indifferent or lazy to check on them. There are, furthermore, many A college students who don’t manage to pass basic competency tests. Sometimes they fail them dozens of times. Many of these folks end up teaching right here in New York City. Personally, I don’t think we’re doing anyone any favors by hiring them. More importantly, the teachers who granted them As in high school and college were not, ultimately, helping their students. We all need to be challenged. Easy grades reinforce the preposterous notion that we need not work to achieve things or better ourselves.By Meghan
May 10, 2006 12:42 PM | Link to this
As a 3rd year teacher in a rural school district north of Dayton, one of the parts of my job that I would like to improve is the assessment of students. Sometimes, I feel that I grade too easy, and most of my students pass. At this present time, there is no guideline for teachers to follow, they have to do what they think is fair. I think however, some teachers stick to grading easy because if students pass, then they are doing their job. However, if they grade tougher, then students’ grades will not be as good, and then it will look bad on the teacher’s part. I think there should be a happy medium, and teachers should focus on challenging students, and giving them grades based on mastery of the subject, not just on part of their lax in grading.By Oldprof
May 10, 2006 12:06 PM | Link to this
An individual teacher ought to set fair standards, communicate them, and sustain them. Tough enough on its own, but look at all the factors that make it harder. Administrators often would rather mollify the helicopter parent than defend teacher standards. Tenure in college depends on student evaluations (and us professors understand that student evals correlate to expected grade in the course). Maybe the best solution is from Alverno College and other similar institutions: eliminate grades altogether, certify achievement of discrete skills and knowledge instead.