Students Vs. Teachers Perspectives on Standards Based Grading

What is standards based grading?

Standards based grading is a grading system that grades you based on whether you meet certain standards. The different grades are 1, 2, 3, and 4. If you get a 1, that means you have not yet met the standard. If you receive a 2, that means you are approaching the standard. If you earn a 3, that means you are meeting the standard. If you achieve a 4, that means you have exceeded the standard. Going into middle school, I was so excited to finally have letter grades. When I found out that Ross School was trying out Standards Based Grading, I wasn’t sure what to think. Now that I have spent a year getting to know the system, I’ve realized that it is not my favorite. Although it is only my opinion, many middle school students feel the same way. So, I interviewed middle school students as well as teachers to prove this point.

The question I asked the students was: What was your personal experience with this new form of grading this year?

An anonymous 7th Grader says, “I was shook. I think that it’s really bad. My personal experience was, I don’t know, it makes no sense. Now, it’s really hard to get a 4, and it’s really degrading. You can look up a grade converter and it says a 3 is an A- or B+, and sometimes a 3 is all that’s offered, so its not fair.”

An anonymous 6th Grader says, “I do not like standards based grading. It discourages kids by placing them in categories. It’s really hard to earn a 4, yet people are disappointed when they receive a 3. In my opinion, we should go back to the classic letter grades”.

Then I interviewed the teachers on their perspective on the new grading system. I can infer that teachers have to spend a lot more time grading than they did with letter grades. This is because teachers have to check if each student reaches certain standards, instead of giving each student and overall grade simply based on their score. So, I was curious on their opinions.

The first question I asked the teachers was: How does your opinion on standards based grading compare to your opinion on letter grades?

“I think there are plus and minuses with both. I feel letter grades are more familiar, they are what have been used for a long time. It gives you percentages of what you got right and wrong. I feel standards based grades give you a better look at how you are progressing. It gives you a deeper insight to your grade and what you can improve on”.

Mrs. Hager says, “I think its really important for students to be able to see where they need to improve in specific classes, I think it is really powerful for students to see where their strengths are and where their areas for growth are. I think that  when the pressure comes off of what your overall grades are, that is when it becomes most powerful. I think they are not specific enough because they encompass too broad amount of information”.

Overall, I have concluded that the students are not fond of Standards Based Grading, However, the teachers like the new system.