Grading "Rules of Thumb"

The Problem: Grade Inflation. All of us give grades as teachers. Students have a tendency to see them as the purpose or the “end” of their studying, but as teachers, we should view grades as the “means”. We use grades as carrots, really, to inspire the kids to learn. They are powerful motivators if we use them well, making A’s truly representative of superior achievement, making F’s the “earned” grade for students who are not working, and reclaiming the “B” as a grade indicative of above average achievement or effort.

There are many theories as to why our educational system is wanting, and perhaps there’s an element of truth in all of these theories. One contributing factor, for sure, is grade inflation. If obtaining good grades is easy, then it’s obvious that there is less motivation to work hard. In the self-reporting section of the ACT test, Alabama students intending to go to college report an average high school cumulative average of 3.1. At the same time, the average ACT score is 20.2, or .7 points below the national average. Most grading scales would claim that a “B” is “above average”, but the fact of the matter is a B is now the average grade, and perhaps even more alarming, the “A” is the mostly commonly given of all grades in our nation’s high schools.

What’s true of the high schools is true for our colleges. One university professor I know, so disturbed by the grade inflation at his school, wrote an open letter to the university, suggesting, tongue in cheek, that the grades of B through F be eliminated entirely from the grading scale, and replaced with A+++, A++ , A+ and A, with an A being the lowest passing grade!

Rules of Thumb: If then, this is the environment in which we work, what are some reasonable “rules of thumb” we ought to consider when awarding grades to students? By “rules of thumb”, of course, I don’t mean rules which are inviolable, as every class is unique, and some more talented than others. However, I would argue the following guidelines are about the right balance for high school teachers:

1) First, the grade of an “A” ought to be for superior achievement alone. A’s ought to be reserved for the purpose of stretching our most intelligent students. To be blunt, average ability kids, even those who work very hard, should not generally be able to “earn” an A, as the level of thought and sophistication required to earn an A is beyond their intellectual ability.

There will be some teachers who balk at this, claiming it smacks of intellectual snobbery or elitism. Shouldn’t every child, unless impaired by some learning disorder, perhaps, be able to earn an A? My answer is simply “No”. Here’s why: If you show me a class where the average ability student is able to earn an A through effort, I will show you a class where the top students, frankly, aren’t challenged intellectually. Over the long term, we do a tremendous disservice to these students, who are never challenged to work at their potential.

2) A “B”, on the other hand, ought to be representative of EITHER “above average achievement” or “above average effort”. An average ability child who works very hard ought to be able to earn a B and a bright student who works on an average level ought to be able to receive a B.

A “B” needs to be reclaimed as a good grade, not the average one. Students of average ability who graduate from our high schools with cumulative GPA’s around a 3.0 ought to be recognized as solid citizens and extolled as hard workers. If the student is very smart but doesn’t work particularly hard, it’s possible to demonstrate “above average” performance. Similarly, an average student can earn a B through sheer, consistent effort.

3) A “C” should be an indication that students have learned what is “minimum and essential” in the class.

Put in a different way, a student who receives a grade of “C” in an Algebra I class should have the minimal tools to be successful in Algebra II. No, the student doesn’t have a superior grasp of the material, or even an above average one, but they know the basics.

4) A “D” grade should be rarely given, except as a semester/trimester/yearly average.

If in fact the C represents what is minimal and essential, then what does a “D” really mean? If a student hasn’t learned what is minimal within a specified grading period, he or she should generally fail.

I can think of one exception: when a teacher has an extremely weak student who is working very hard. Because the student is weak, they may not be able to complete work at the “C” level. But because they are working hard, it’s inappropriate to fail them. That’s when I would give a student a D. It tells the student that hard work matters.

Schools that adopt this “D” policy can honestly say to its weakest students and their families that “If the student works hard, he or she will not fail”. That’s a powerful statement for weak students--their ability to pass all core classes in the school is in their hands. Coupled with better grades in P.E. and lighter electives, it's possible for these kids to be successful.

5) An “F” should be given for students who don’t do homework or don’t work in class.

We are reluctant to give F’s because, we say, we are afraid of hurting kids’ self esteem. This is nonsense. The worst lesson we can teach our kids is they can get away without doing what is required of them. Frankly, in any random mix of kids, we probably should have a percentage of F’s in our grades, at least initially, because there will always be a couple of students who will test to see if it really matters if they do homework. It should! In many school systems, despite teachers' rhetoric to the contrary, it doesn't, because those same teachers are unwilling to fail the student.

A typical grading distribution: What, then, would a school’s grading distribution look like if it adopted these principles? That depends on the school and the students within that school! For a school like ours, which is an archdiocesan school that accepts students from the highest to lowest abilities, yet which has an average ACT score of 23.1, I suggest that the following distributions would be the norm for early in the year:

A’s (10-20% in core classes)
B’s (30-40% in core classes)
C’s (30-40% in core classes)
D’s (5-10% in core classes)
F’s (10-20% in core classes)

The average GPA in those core classes would be close to a 2.5 Once other classes, like P.E. and some electives are added in, the GPA might be in the neighborhood of 2.7 –2.8, or a B- average.

As the year progressed, and as students understood that not doing homework yielded a failing grade, I would expect the percentage of F’s to go down, with most of those grades becoming C’s or better.

An anticipated objection: Would a school that graded this stringently hurt their students’ chances of getting a scholarship? If grade inflation is the norm, won't it hurt our students to grade in a manner inconsistent with the norm?

It is hard to convince parents, but the truthful answer is “no”. Here’s why: Colleges understand that grades are inflated around the country. They also understand that different schools have different standards, such that a 4.0 in one school is in no way equal to a 4.0 in a different school. Even further, a GPA within the SAME school may mean something very different—for example, as in the case of two students, one of whom takes an honors curriculum, and the other who takes the easiest classes available. Faced with these myriad problems in comparing GPA’s, most schools base scholarship (and admission) criteria on nationally standardized tests. The ACT and SAT are the great “gate-keepers” for our colleges because they are equalizers in the assessment of abilities.

But aren’t some scholarships contingent on certain test scores AND GPA’s? Yes, but read these criteria closely. For prestigious universities, the typical scholarship criteria would be something like “32+ on the ACT and 3.5+ G.P.A. The reality is that the 3.5 GPA is not a particularly high standard (in most high schools, fully ¼ of the student body would have a 3.5+). But the 32 eliminates just about everybody except the most elite of students. In other words, the GPA's as stand alone criteria really don't matter that much--test scores do.

What some universities have begun to do is pay much more attention to class rank, which in most schools is a combination of GPA and difficulty of courses taken. But because that is an internal number, where students are measured against each other but not relative to other schools, the student is not penalized if the school "grades hard". In addition, schools look at other factors, like involvement in extra-curriculars, leadership positions held, service rendered to others, unusual responsibilities--all of which are grade neutral.

In reality, far from hurting students, if a high school insists that students from the freshman year forward must demonstrate truly superior work for an “A”, that stretching will actually HELP students for college admissions and scholarships, because it will yield higher test scores.

I promise! As an anecdotal story, my oldest son graduated from our high school last May. His GPA was a 3.7— good, but not great. However, his mother and I insisted he take every AP course and honors course our school offered, and his teachers were stingy with the A. The result? He did well on the SAT test, and because of that, was not only accepted to Notre Dame, but received a generous scholarship.

Grades are carrots, and little more. Let’s use them to stretch our kids as far as we can.

Handling Students with Learning Disabilities

Practical advice on what the family/student and teacher/school can do:

"L.D." or "learning disabled" is a generic term that can apply to a wide variety of problems that are neurological in origin and which impair learning. It is helpful for teachers to remember that many learning disabled children, though often unsuccessful academically, are usually of average to above average ability (Albert Einstein, shown here, is a famous dyslexic, as is Thomas Edison, Pablo Picasso, Alexander Graham Bell, and entertainers Tom Cruise, Whoopi Goldberg and Jay Leno).

The following discusses some common L.D. types and what we should do as teachers:

1. "A.D.D" or "A.D.H.D" (Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) The most commonly diagnosed of all L.D. problems, both refer, as the name implies, to difficulties with attention spans in students. In the first case, students are predominantly inattentive. IN the second case, they are inattentive and hyperactive, which often creates real problems in the classroom.
Signs of possible A.D.D :

• easily distractible, with even the slightest things. Has difficulty refocusing once distracted
• has difficulty completing tasks, often shifting from one task to the other
• disorganization (keeping track of assignments, directions, often loses books, pencils)
• note taking and handwriting is poor
• often "phases out"/appears to daydream often

Signs of possible A.D.H.D:

• all of the above, but also:
• often blurts out answers, reacts before thinking
• engages in much activity, often accomplishing little
• can't remain in seat, often fiddles with things, distracts his classmates
• is volatile in personality, becomes both defiant on some occasions, apathetic in others
• is sensitive to criticism due to low self confidence, feels he or she is "dumb" or "bad"

Handling the A.D.D./A.D.H.D. child in the classroom:

Successful handling of children with attention deficit is usually a partnership between doctor, families, and the teacher. From the medical side, several drugs have been found to significantly help these students; the most frequently prescribed are Ritalin and Dexedrin. The effect of these drugs on A.D.D. children is usually pronounced, helping them concentrate better, and calming them down. Individual children require different dosages to maximize effectiveness, and often parents will solicit the teacher's help in analyzing behavior relative to dosages, and we should be supportive of these efforts. The most frequent problem with medical therapy is that students often forget to take their medicine on a timely basis. Other problems include taking medicine in the morning that has lost its effectiveness by the afternoon (though there are now time released pills that are helpful) and the understandable reluctance on both parents and students' parts to become totally reliant on medication, which leads to frequent adjusting of dosages.

The other side of treatment involves behavior modification on the part of the family and teachers.

The family and child can do the following:

1) Given the problems he or she has organizing, the child should keep an assignment pad for homework and upcoming events.
2) The family should establish inviolable routines in the household for when homework should be done, where it should be done, how much time it should take.
Homework should be done in a place free from noise and distractions.
3) The family should keep close tabs on their child's progress.
4) The family should remember that A.D.D. is an explanation, it is not a crutch or an "excuse". We ought to help families understand that the same amount and level of work is expected for their children; at the same time, we are willing to give assistance and make reasonable accommodations to help them achieve this work. We can cripple ADD children permanently by making excuses for them, requiring less of them or grading them differently. However, they will need us to do more to help them achieve these standards, and we ought to be willing to give it.

The teacher can do the following:

1) Establish routines in the classroom. When homework is assigned at random times in class, for example, it is predictable that A.D.D. kids will have a hard time keeping track of things.
2) A.D.D. kids should be made to sit in the front of the room, where they will be less distracted by other students. Being in the proximity of the teacher often helps them listen better. The teacher can give quiet, gentle correction when needed.
3) Writing assignments /directions on the board for students to copy is preferable. Give only one task at a time.
4) A variety of classroom activities during a block of class time is essential. Long lectures invite problems. That is simply good teaching, even apart from handling A.D.D. students!
5) Keep more frequent tabs on A.D.D. kids. Contact their parents more often--not just for bad news! Remember that parents of A.D.H.D. kids are often embattled. Positive phone calls would be deeply appreciated and likely cause great positive momentum in your class with their child.
6) Be patient with them. They may often need you to repeat instructions. They may miss things. Teachers can hold up expectations, even as they indicate they care for their students' welfare. Don't mistake an "I don't care attitude" for the real thing. This is often a defense mechanism for their felt inadequacy.
7) During test and quizzes, background noise, music, talking, laughing are terrible for most A.D.D. children. They have problems filtering out these distractions. A well ordered classroom is the best gift we can give ALL of our students.
8) Use graphic organizers when possible in having students complete reading and writing assignments—this helps in the organization of thoughts and in their attentiveness to detail. For a listing of all types of graphic organizers, go here: http://www.knights.pvt.k12.al.us/teachers/tools.html
9) Because of distractibility and organizational skills, students often work slower. Allowing students to come back after class to finish an essay or extended time for tests should be allowed when possible.
10) There are many other techniques and accommodations an experienced teacher may use to help his or her student with attention deficit disorders. You can find other suggestions on the internet, such as here.

2. Dyslexia
Dyslexia is perhaps the second most common learning disability. There are, as with other learning difficulties, more severe and less severe cases. Signs of dyslexia are usually that the student, who is otherwise a normal to strong student, may spell terribly. Letters are inverted ("b vs. d"), syllables are often off ("aminal" instead of animal) and often their reading is disjointed, skipping words, pausing at the wrong place, etc.

There are different types of this problem, but generally, we can help these students by doing the following:

• We should anticipate that when students are "under the gun" writing timed essays or taking tests, that there will be frequent misspellings. There are two ways of handling this: The first way is to minimalize the impact of spelling on grading. The second way, preferred, is to give the student additional time to "proofread" his or her work after school, after class, etc. with the dictionary in hand. We can insist on better spelling when time is less a factor (as the case when work is done at home), but it should not be a grade determining factor when work cannot be checked for accuracy.
• We should be careful when asking these students to read in class. They are often very embarrassed by their slow reading.
• There are several excellent sites for assisting teachers in helping dyslexic students, such as here.

Discipline in Catholic High Schools, part III

Handling Day to Day Discipline Issues as Principal

In my first article, I discussed what I believe must be the underlying philosophical difference between Catholic and secular schools regarding discipline. In the second article, I tried to apply this philosophy to the “hard cases” a principal might face—namely, those serious enough for the principal to consider expulsion—and spelled out two general circumstances where expulsion was warranted. Thankfully, most of the occasions of discipline we handle in Catholic schools are not of this nature! Rather, most of the disciplinary issues we face are routine: a sophomore girl that cannot keep quiet in class, a senior boy who skips school for a day, a freshman who lets his anger get the best of him and says something inappropriate to the teacher. How do a school and a principal handle these type things efficiently? That will be the focus of this article.

We should begin by establishing a basic point: It is the responsibility of every adult in the building to create an “adult-like” environment in our school. A long time educator once told me he could size up the quality of a school within a minute of walking down the hallway: Was it an adolescent environment or an adult one? If you listen carefully to the conversations, watch the interactions of students, observe how teachers and students relate to one another, it’s not hard to determine. But the obvious point here is that one principal, no matter how influential, cannot singly create an adult environment. He or she cannot be everywhere, and so it depends on the faculty and staff of the school to insist on adult behavior through-out the campus—not just in their own classrooms, but in the bathrooms, in the hallways, in the gym and around the fields for athletic events. Teachers and staff who are unwilling to insist on adult, Christian behavior in their presence, where-ever they find themselves on campus, simply have no place in our Catholic schools, because they reject our most fundamental reason to exist: to help students become the kind of people God wants them to be.

Having everyone take responsibility is easier said than done! There is a tendency within any system, whether we’re talking about corporate America or a school, for subordinates to pass their problems up the ladder without handling them on their own. If you’ve been a principal for a while, you’ve no doubt experienced this tendency first hand, as teachers too often send children to the office for matters of discipline without having done anything to remedy the situation at their level first. This is poison! For one, it undercuts the teacher’s authority in the eyes of the students. Students read the teacher (correctly) that that they do not need to pay much attention to what he is asking them to do, except up until the point that he becomes so frustrated that he may send them to the principal. Second, it trivializes the role of the principal, because when the principal rightfully assesses the incident doesn’t merit “lowering the boom”, and thereby doesn’t lower it, the principal begins to lose a “mystique” that is appropriate and helpful. I define this desired mystique as part fear and part unfamiliarity. Seeing Johnny every other day as a freshman because Johnny is a chatterer isn’t going to bode well for the principal’s effectiveness in handling Johnny if he ever begins to do things seriously wrong in his later years of high school!

So I believe it’s important, in the day to day running of the school, to have a clear understanding with faculty and staff as to what constitutes an “offense” that should be handled by them and what is appropriately handled by the principal. Here’s the truth: 95% of the incidents in our school should be initially handled by the teacher. How? Following the tradition of the sisters of Loretto who founded our school, we believe that time after school works, provided teachers insist the time is kept. I tell every teacher to decide on a day during the week to give “time”, and when students are late for class, or talking too much in class, or chewing gum, or out of uniform, they should be given 15 or 30 minutes of after school time on this day. If they miss this time, I encourage teachers to call parents and double the time for next week. Teens will test the teacher to make sure he is keeping track of things carefully, or to gauge if missing time really matters. For teachers who develop the reputation that it does matter, students become reasonably compliant, and the teacher is well on his way to establishing an orderly environment in his class room.

But what of the case, as often happens in a typical high school, when a student has been talking, the teacher has given time, and the student continues to be disruptive of the classroom environment? That’s when, I believe, it’s appropriate to send a child to the office. The teacher has taken steps to address the problem first, but the student persists in inappropriate behavior which makes it impossible for other students to learn. At our school, we make those students “sign in” to the principal’s office.

What next? First, the teacher who referred the child to the office must fill out a “behavioral referral form” at their next available opportunity. This is so when the principal addresses the issue, he or she has the adult perspective as to what happened. The form also asks the teacher to explain what steps he took prior to the office referral. Also, this form, once the principal has acted, gets sent home to the parent.

I don’t recommend that the principal gets into the mode of handling each and every disciplinary incident as they occur. The immediate crisis—the fact that the classroom was rendered un-teachable by the student’s behavior—has been averted by moving the student to the office. One of the biggest obstacles facing a principal is that his time is not his own. If he is held hostage to responding on the spot to every incident in his school, he is unable to plan, keep appointments, visit classrooms and complete other important duties. So in our school, when a student gets sent to the office, he or she usually sits quietly in the office for the remainder of the period. I deal with it later, after I have received the written referral from the teacher, and I usually handle a couple of incidents at a time.

What do I do with these referrals once I act on them? I always first talk to the student and ask him for his version of events. I want the student to tell the truth and own his actions. The general thrust of my talk is “Being an adult doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes. It means accepting responsibility for the mistakes you make and being willing to pay the consequences”. After we have established the facts, I typically give anywhere from one to two hours of time on Saturday morning at 7 a.m. (I set up Saturday detentions once/month). I then record the incident in a d-base and send a copy of the behavior referral form to his parents, which includes the consequence I imposed. Once the “time” is served, the incident is over.

Usually, only when a student begins to develop a pattern of office referrals would I begin to “up the ante” to suspensions, and if the problem persists, to consider expulsion. (There are those rare cases, of course, where the action itself requires an immediate suspension, but these are relatively rare.) I have no set formula for how many referrals one needs before the ante is upped. Much of it depends on my assessment of the child, his maturity level, the length of the intervals between incidents, his willingness to own his behavior and the role his parents play or don’t play in resolving the behavioral problem.

A final note: Based on the number of disciplinary incidents, the principal will have a pretty good idea of which teachers are having consistent problems with their students. Where patterns emerge, there is room for work with these teachers. I have written elsewhere on ideas that teachers may employ for improving the overall environment of their rooms, and I would recommend these ideas to these teachers.

How a Catholic school handles discipline is perhaps the best test of our school’s mission and ministry. I have tried over the last three articles to outline the philosophical basis for discipline in Catholic schools, the handling of “hard cases” that may lead to expulsion, and the day to day processing of routine incidences within a high school. I invite your response and feedback!