students. The transition also is occurring in nearby Jordan School District, which educates students in the southwest part of the Salt Lake Valley. Jordan School District Administrator of Middle Schools Michael Anderson said he’s “excited to give more meaning to our grading system. It’s part of the trend to get to the heart of school and learning and education.” While he said middle school and high school levels haven’t changed their letter grades, with PBG, they are able to provide an “accurate reflection of what students know and are able to do.” “With standard-based grading, extra credit, effort or not getting work down isn’t the focus; it’s assessments,” he said. “We’re changing report cards from a grading game to a learning game.” He said the assessments will reveal what standards students miss and will help teachers determine if the question was poor or if it’s an area that needs to be retaught. He said homework is used for students to practice what is taught to be ready to take the assessments.
“O
ur report cards now will have value where the traditional letter grade report cards haven’t been making the grade when it comes to measuring student progress and achievement.” — Granite School District Assistant Superintendent Linda Mariotti
“Kids can retake assessments, but only after homework is done, so they have a chance to learn the material,” he said. “The 4-3-2-1 score with proficiencies will show if students know or can show proficiency and can demonstrate and apply it. This will give more meaning to the A to F letter grade on current report cards and allow the student to know why they may have a B in a class and know he or she needs to show proficiencies in certain standards to improve. Standard-based grading empowers the students to know where they are learning and what gaps they have.” Anderson said that since letter grades are “universal” with colleges worldwide, Jordan has remained with letters, but “has put more meaning into those letters” at the high school level. Elementary students are on the numeral system. “Our teachers and administrators have worked their guts out for better education and standards of learning for our kids,” he said. “Standard-based grading takes the guesswork out of report cards.” Oquirrh Elementary PTA President Beth LeFevre appreciates that.
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“The report cards are trying to explain it more and there’s no guessing that one assignment can bring down a grade,” she said. “It gives parents a better idea of what a child needs to work on, but I’d still like to see more explanation with the scores and see the percentage of where they’re at. If I don’t understand something, or want more detail, I don’t wait for the school to contact me. I just go to the teacher.” Both Granite and Jordan districts have online report cards so students and parents can review students’ learning — as does Murray School District. Murray School District students receive the common letter grades. “All Murray City School District schools use a traditional letter grade report card that measures completion,” said Scott Bushnell, Murray District assistant superintendent. “The MCSD report card is issued quarterly and gives a snapshot of a student’s academic, citizenship and attendance status at that time.” However, Murray District educators have looked into the pros and cons of standard-based grading. “We are focusing by grade levels and subject areas, across schools, working on agreement of standards and levels of proficiency. We are currently working within the traditional grading format and communicating with students and parents on how a student is performing. In English/language arts, math and science, we have begun to monitor the progress of students with respect to grade-level standards. This progress monitoring has been beneficial in helping students and parents understand standards mastery. This process began in elementary schools and is now being used in secondary schools as well,” he said. Canyons School District made the transition to PBG with elementary schools in 2013–14 and tweaked it with parent and teacher input for the following school year. “We feel parents have a better understanding of their child’s progress with our report card reflecting ‘mastered’ or ‘not yet mastered’ a standard rather than passing or failing,” Canyons Spokeswoman Kirsten Stewart said. “The idea is not to penalize the student, but to learn the material and retake the tests to demonstrate the mastery of the standard. One of the benefits of standards-based grading is it helps to convey that mistakes can be made and not getting 100 percent is part of the learning process.” While the standard-based grading system is in place in elementary schools, Stewart said there is discussion about placing it in the secondary schools although “there is no established deadline.” “It doesn’t have to be a score, but the letter grade can be based on those standards,” she said, adding teachers have more than 90 hours annually of instructional training to help assess student learning and achievement. “We feel standard-based grading is a nice balance to communicate to parents that their child is learning and learning skills that they will use through their lives.” l
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