Infinite Campus - Limited Grading Software?

When a “60″ Isn’t a “60″, But a “1″

March 11, 2010 | 1:31 pm

Back in August 2009, the City Schools of Decatur adopted a new grading policy (see Action Item C), which would increase the use of International Baccalaureate assessment for learning in Decatur’s school district.

The new methodology contains many components, including a new, vast evaluation method, which assesses a student’s performance on a wide variety of tasks (compositions, essays, research, presentations, etc.), teacher assessments (observation, selected response, collected response, etc) – and the use IB rubrics, anecdotal records,  models and checklists to evaluate student achievement, among others.

However, one piece of this vast puzzle of acronyms and educational buzzwords has received a majority of the attention in the halls of Decatur High School.

Among the key changes adopted with this new grading policy is what might best be described as a shortening of the grading system.  Instead of having an 100-point scale at their disposal, teachers are now asked to grade on a 7-point scale.  Adapting that to the old 100-point scale, student grade possibilities go from 0-100 to 60-100.

And while this grading scale has been in place at Renfroe Middle School for the past 3 1/2 years and is being used at many other schools across Georgia and nationwide, it was newly adopted at Decatur High School this past fall. The change sparked concern among some DHS students, including the editorial board of Decatur High’s news-magazine Carpe Diem.

In an editorial entitled “New policies don’t make the grade“, Jessica Norton writes…

Here’s the issue — creating a cut-off for failing grades removes any incentive for greater mastery. Even if we’re still going to fail a test, knowing that we could earn a 15 gives us more incentive to study – we can improve that score to a 50 or 60 by achieving a greater degree of mastery. By forbidding zeros, the administration has effectively removed our fear of failure.

But has the 0-100 scale ever made sense?  In a research paper provided to Decatur Metro by CSD entitled “The Case Against Zero“, Douglas Reeves, the founder of The Center for Performance Assessment, explains the basic problem with the 0 to 100 scale…

“…the common use of the zero today is based not on a four-point scale, but on a one hundred point scale.  This defies logic and mathematical accuracy.  On a 100-point scale, the interval between numerical and letter grades is typically 10 points, with the break points at 90, 80, 70, and so on.  But when the grade of zero is applied to a 100-point scale, the interval between the D and F is not 10 points but 60 points….To insist on the use of a zero on a 100-point scale is to assert that work that is not turned in deserves a penalty that is many times more severe than that assessed for work that is done wretchedly and is worth a D.”

And it’s not like something similar to a 7 point scale is all that unheard of outside of IB philosophy.  Consider college GPAs: 0.0 – 4.0.  Counting each half-point as a point results in a 9-point scale.  With a GPA there is no 60 point range of failure, just a 0.0.

But all of these mathematical arguments don’t mean the students’ concerns are without merit.

If there is a problem, it seems to be with using the new 7-point grading scale in conjunction with the old 60-100 range.  Doing so may give students – and perhaps their parents – the perception that a 60 is not a 0, but an old D-. Still a terrible grade, but not quite as terrible.  This gets back to Carpe Diem’s concern that students have lost the “fear of failure” with the new scale.

Such a problem might have quickly been remedied by completely revamping the student grading system and using a completely new 7-point scale.

Unfortunately, CSD says it is limited in what it can do with its current grading software.  According to Nahmias and Snider, “we would love to adopt the IB 1 to 7 grading scale rather than try to adapt best practices in grading to an antiquated 0 to 100 scale, but the technology is not at our disposal right now.”  Assistant Superintendent Thomas van Soleon reports that CSD has “asked for a “feature change” for our student info system, Infinite Campus”, but “[we] don’t have a lot of pull.”

And so, until the day when CSD can upgrade their software and students begin receiving “6s” on a paper instead of a “85s”, students and their parents must remain keenly aware that a “60″ is no longer their father’s “60″.

Link: http://www.decaturmetro.com/2010/03/11/when-a-60-isnt-a-60-but-a-1/