In June, I agreed to work with a group of community tutors who would help students in English. I believed that the assignment involved advising the tutors so that they could help struggling students be better prepared for next year’s classes. When I later discovered that one aspect of this summer program was to alter grades that students earned in the past academic year, based on their work with the volunteer tutors, I respectfully informed Vashon High School Principal Susan Hanson that I could not in good conscience participate in that effort. I believe it is neither educationally valid nor ethical for a student’s grade to be changed after a class has ended, based on work done primarily with a volunteer tutor. Here’s why.
I am fortunate to work with an outstanding group of professional educators. We think very carefully about our grading policies. As a staff, we engage in formal and informal conversations with each other about whether our grades reasonably reflect both the overall curriculum goals and the relative importance of any given assignment. We grapple as educators with how to design grading policies that appropriately recognize students for a range of essential skills and an understanding of content. Ideally, we want our grading policies to also encourage the habits of mind that will help our students continue to succeed as they progress in their education.
The curriculum goals for each class are based on Washington state standards. Our students have consistently performed well on state assessments (the WASL and HSPE), with approximately 95 percent passing them year after year after year in both reading and writing. In the Humanities Department at VHS, we constantly strive to improve our instruction to bring that final 5 percent over the finishing line. We work throughout the year to prepare students for these state-mandated tests. But more importantly we strive to create meaningful assessments that accurately measure and reflect students’ achievement of these core learning goals and life skills.
I suppose that’s a roundabout way of saying that we are professionals with a clear record of achievement, a commitment to ongoing improvement and a thoughtful approach to determining student grades.
It may help to clarify what a letter grade communicates in one of our classes. It is not a measure of an individual’s potential, personality or innate intelligence. The student earns a grade during a specified timeframe for a range of work that usually includes several major assignments designed to measure achievement of essential reading or writing skills. Behaviors such as extra effort, curiosity, attention and cooperation in small groups certainly affect a student’s grade, but each teacher sets a grading policy designed primarily to reflect student achievement of the essential curriculum goals.
While letter grades are certainly not perfect, it’s the system we currently use. We take very seriously our responsibility to develop grading policies that are both meaningful and fair. The final grade balances a number of factors, including quizzes and tests, homework, class discussions, collaborative group projects, creative writing, academic essays and other demonstrations of student learning.
Ultimately, our grading policies benefit all our students. The University of Washington tracks how closely a student’s GPA at the university compares with their high school GPA. Students from high schools that have only a small disparity in GPA from high school to the university get a preferential bonus when they apply for admission. Our graduates see only a very slight drop in GPA from high school to the university. In fact, over a recent four-year period, VHS ranked ninth overall and in the top four public high schools in Washington state.
We take a degree of professional pride in the idea that our grades are not inflated and that our students benefit from the high standards we set for them. If we start allowing grade changes after the fact, determined by individuals who are well-meaning but not professional educators, how long can we expect that benefit — provided to every VHS student who applies to the University of Washington — to continue?
— Stephen Floyd teaches English and theater arts at Vashon High School.
