Leadership Team Meeting

Standard: RI 5:1

Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text explicitly says and when drawing inferences from the text.

Standard: RI 5:6

Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the points of view they represent.

Standards Based Grading

Teachers turn things in late all the time, as do workers in every profession. The idea that “You can’t get away with turning work in late in the real world, mister” isn’t true.

- Wormeli, 2006

No studies support the use of low grades or marks as punishments. Instead of prompting greater effort, low grades more often cause students to withdraw from learning.

- Guskey & Bailey, 2001

Educators must abandon the average, or arithmetic mean, as the predominant measurement of student achievement.

- Reeves, 2000Example:

91,91,91,91,91,91,71,50,91,91Total = 849, Mean = 84.9, Final grade = C

A zero has an underserved and devastating influence, so much so that no matter what the student does, the grade distorts the final grade as a true indicator of mastery. Mathematically and ethically this is unacceptable.

- Wormeli, 2006

The key questions is, “What information provides the most accurate depiction of students’ learning at this time?” In nearly all cases, the answer is “the most current information.”

- Guskey, 1996aReference chart for an example.

We must constantly remind ourselves that the ultimate purpose of evaluation is to enable students to evaluate themselves. Educators may have bee practicing this skill to the exclusion of learners; we need to shift part of that responsibility to students. Fostering students’ ability to direct and redirect themselves must be a major goal…or what is education for?

- Costa, 1991

“Students see their schoolwork as a game they play for grades.”

- Winger, 2005

“Of all the things we do as teachers, few have the potential for creating more problems and miscommunication than grading.”

- Stiggins, 2004

We say we want them all to learn: We don’t say we want them to learn fast or the first time. If some students have to work harder and take longer before they demonstrate proficiency, so be it. In the final analysis, if they demonstrate proficiency, we give them the grade that reflects it.

- DuFour, 2007

Additional “bonus” assignments or tasks provided for the purpose of “boosting” grades are not appropriate as they distort the proper assessment of a student’s knowledge, skill, and understanding in relation to the learning outcomes for that course.