"Grading Scales" (Subtitle: "How I Have Been a Bad Teacher for the Last Ten Years")

I have always tried to practice fair grading in my class. True story: my junior year in college, I wrote a paper for my government class. Now I didn't have much going for me when it came to taking tests, and since most classes had three grades (mid term, research paper, final exam) it was imperative that I did well on the res. pap. Luckily, that was my strong suit.

Well, without getting into party line specifics (those of you who know me know my political stances) I wrote a comparison/contrast paper on capitalism v. socialism. My professor just happened to have the complete opposite viewpoint, so when I recieved my paper back, the grade written on the first page was a C. I don't make C's on papers, so I freaked. Never mind what I said after I read the only comments he wrote on the page: "You're wrong."

That was it! Nothing about lack of support, unity issues, GUM (grammar, usage, and mechanics.) The C was based totally on his opinion on the topic. I am not a confrontational man, but I stayed after class to talk to him. He asserted himself, gave me his swayed viewpoint, and didn't allow me to counter. I learned a lesson that day.

First I found out that I had better study hard for the final exam, but that's irrelevant here. I vowed from that point forward that when I became a teacher, that my grading practices would be based on a fair, objective rubric that allowed for opinions that differed from my own, as long as the opinion was well-written and adequately supported. From what I have seen, most K-12 teachers follow this fair practice because they are taught how to teach while in college (yes, college professors need only a master's degree in their specialized field and no training in pedagological practices.)

I always thought I was a fair teacher until I went to another "boring" teacher in-service today and had my socks blown off.

Here's the idea: giving a zero for a missed assignment on a 100 point scale is a time-tested, widely used practice which is very wrong. The instructor, Rick Wormeli, said that in his classes, any student who doesn't turn in a paper gets a 60%. I about threw up when he said this. But then he gave his logic and I suddenly felt very stupid. Maybe you will too.

Flip the scale around. If 0-59 represents an F, would it be a good practice to flip it around and make 40-100 an A? In my class, 90 is an A, 80 is a B, 70 is a C, and 60 is a D. Anything below 60% if flunking. His point was, why assign ten different levels of A, B, C, and D, but 59 different levels of F? How is that fair?

If a student gets a zero on one assignment, then makes five 100%'s in a row, the average comes out to 83%. 0 plus 100 plus 100 plus 100 plus 100 plus 100 equals 83%? Seems that the student 5 times out of 6 is making a perfect score. How can I justify giving the student a B for such mastery? This is indeed an unfair grading practice.

But I didn't buy into giving a student who was lazy and didn't do the assignment a 60%. That is also unfair to the student who tried and earned a 50%! That will only make the one who tried not do any more assignments and make a 60% each time. That isn't motivational, and I am all about motivation in the classroom.

Therefore I have created a scale which I am going to pitch to my high school on Monday. I think this is much more fair, because it keeps each letter grade within a decade of percentages. It goes as follows:

Old Grade New Grade
0% 50%
10% 51%
15% 52%
20% 53%
25% 54%
30% 55%
35% 56%
40% 57%
45% 58%
50% 59%
55% 60%

After that, 90, 80, 70, 60 would stay the same.

Now wouldn't you have loved to have this grading scale when you were in high school? Feel free to weigh in, and wish me luck on Monday as I try to convince a group of people who have never come to a full consensus on anything!