Grades, part 3 (More discussion)

Hello everyone,

I have received a couple of emails about grade distribution, and I would like to address them. You will notice that, in addressing them, I am swimming in water that I have no business swimming in (i.e., state and district policy; inter-district policies), so you'll have to take my comments with a dose of salt. Still, I think the discussion is worth it, and I enjoy playing at Socratic games, so I'll dive in whether I'm welcome or not.

One person writes:

1. "I have always believed our A's distribution have not been equitable throughout the district but more so the state. It gets worse in continuation schools. It has been a long running discussion regarding a diploma from comprehensive high school compared to a school like Monterey or Ramona. At one point the district was considering giving continuation students a certificate of completion."

I have to confess that the discussion of grades in continuation (and adult) schools is fueled by regular ed. teachers like me who feel that continuation school and adult school dilute our effectiveness. At the same time, it's easy to understand how students, faced with a rigorous curriculum and rigorous teachers in regular day school, might choose to finish courses at adult school or continuation school.

I'm not advocating eliminating either adult schools or continuation schools; they both perform important functions. However, I have heard from many students that they felt no motivation to work in regular classes because they knew that they could finish their requirements in adult school and have it be much easier. Students who go to continuation school usually have severe issues that they're dealing with, and continuation is a place for them to work out their academic problems while simultaneously working out or surviving their other severe problems. They don't often choose to go to continuation school, and the question of the ease of the grading policies is usually more a pleasant discovery than a trend fueled by anecdotal stories of grade inflation. Still, the perception that continuation school is easier than regular school is so widespread that it hurts the effectiveness of a continuation school diploma.

On the other hand, if grades come with a specific label it can clarify the validity of the grade. An A in an MR, honors, or AP class is not the same as an A in a regular class, and that is widely understood outside the school. By the same token, colleges understand that an A from continuation or adult school is not the same as an A from regular school. If the students could be made to understand the weight of that stigma, they might be less inclined to go to adult or continuation school for the easier grades.

2. The same email continues:

"Another issue that bothers me ... at the opposite end are the distributions of F's. How do you justify rigorous teaching if the majority of a teacher's grades are F's, and that same teacher continues to proclaim, 'Teachers are not doing their job in the middle school and our 9th graders don't know basic [content] when they come to us'? "

There are two issues here: one is the issue of distribution of F's, and the other is the prevalent custom of blaming our problems on the teachers that came before us (who blamed their problems on the teachers before them, all the way back to the teachers who blamed their problems on the parents). I'll address distribution later; I want to address blaming first.

I ought to point out--just to give perspective--that the colleges blame students' lack of preparation on high school teachers.

I also ought to point out that we are all correct. There are problems with the educational system, with the American family, and indeed with American culture that make our profession very difficult. There is more than enough blame to spread around.

At the high school level, we have the power to hold students back with our grades, and that power must be exercised with discretion, but it must be exercised nevertheless. At the same time, blaming failure on others doesn't accomplish anything except protect us from accountability.

3. Another person writes:

"Can you address my problem in particular: too many fails? I'm failing easily 45% of my kids because they don't do their work."

This is very common among first semester ninth graders and second semester seniors, and it may be common among the entire gamut of our population. (I commonly had as many as 90% failing my AP classes before they all got their acts together, got over their senioritis, realized that they wouldn't go to UCLA or Yale unless they had a high enough grade, and handed in their make-up work late in the semester.)

About three weeks before the end of the semester, if you start pointing out to them on an individual basis what they need to do to pass, many of them will likely come around. There is a danger that they will scramble to do meaningless extra credit (i.e., clean the classroom instead of write an essay--completely meaningless) or plagiarize work and hope that the weight of last minute makeup will cover the plagiarism. If they do those things, and fail to do the others, you can fail them in good conscience.

We are commonly taught as teachers that when our students fail, it means that we have failed our students. I do not believe that I am individually responsible for every student's failure, though I know deep in my heart that I am sometimes responsible for some students' failures. I personally believe that students must be given the right to choose to fail, but I have a responsibility to make failure as (may I use the word "painful" without sounding corporal?) painful as possible.

I confess that this is a very difficult balancing act. I must provide my students with the possiblity to pass my class, regardless of their current abilities or the past failures of the system; but I must also hold out failure as a real consequence for their failure to do reasonable assignments or make reasonable progress.

A good way to judge whether or not you're accomplishing the proper balance is to ask the students themselves. If a student who fails is able to say honestly, "I was just too lazy to pass your class" (not, "I never understood," or "I don't know what you're talking about"), then you might be on track, regardless of the percentage. If 45% fail, and all of that 45% understand that the failure was theirs and not yours, and they all understand what they should have done but didn't do to pass, then you're probably OK.

You'll still agonize about it, but that's because you're a real teacher.

Jeff Combe