The “New” Epidemic– Grading Practices: A Systematic Review of America’S Grading Policy

By Andre’ Mathews

This book is a comprehensive view on the grading practices and policies in American public schools. The content of the book identifies the lack of alignment amongst the Federal, State, and Local Districts and the need to adopt a unified policy. Educational institutions are creating their own versions of grading systems that lack integrity, flawed in design, hinder many students from graduating and or achieving opportunities to become a more productive citizen after high school completion.

Section I:The structure of the book begins with a systemic view of development by identifying the philosophical and theoretical aspects involved in the grading system.

Section II: The authors work then transitions to the structure of the grading system addressing the mathematical aspects of calculating a students grade point average, to the teachers validity of grades.

Section III: This section identifies the parents role and need to understand the grade itself and its effect on the students overall outcome and class ranking.

Section IV: The book ends with a strong analysis of the system, parental rights, examples of educational disasters, and schools quest for new grading systems.

All in all, this book takes a journey throughout the entire educational system identifying a need for change on all levels as it relates to the grading system. The overall message emphasizes the parents need to be cognizant of the importance of being involved and properly motivating, mentoring, monitoring, modeling, and managing their childs educational careers. All stakeholders should walk away with a sense of ownership to the problem and an understanding that the time for change is now.

The ethnic margin is widening and too many students are graduating unmarketable.

A grade is more than a number its a quality of life!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514470640

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Andre’ Mathews.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016903258

ISBN:       Hardcover       978-1-5144-7066-4

                 Softcover         978-1-5144-7065-7

                 eBook               978-1-5144-7064-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 04/27/2016

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CONTENTS

Systems and Consistency Theory Essay

Characteristics of the Systems Theory

Consistency Theory

Paradigms

Introduction

A Philosophical View

Introduction

What is Education?

John Dewey

The Grading System

Holistic Approach

Thoughts from Research

Grading

Grading

The Importance of a Quality Grade Reporting System

The Grade Point Average

Calculating the GPA

Analyzing the Grading System

Assessments

Why Classroom Assessment Matters

Features of Performance Assessment

Conclusion

Student Quality of Work

Grading Practices Gone Wrong

Understanding

the Grading System

How Are Parents to Know if the Grade Received Is a Grade Earned?

Choosing the Right Model

The Tradition Grading Model

The Grading Practices

Weighted Percentage Grading Policy

Analyzing the Results Using a Full Grading Policy

Alternative Grading Practices

The Alternative Grading Scale System

A Review of District Grading Policies

Introduction

Review of a Texas School District

The Texas Grading System

A Quick Glance at the Advance Placement Program

Conclusion

Grading Policy from a Sample School in Wisconsin

A Sample School District in Wisconsin

Analytical Review of the Wisconsin School Grading Policy

Summary

The State of New Hampshire

Conclusion

The Student Transcript

The Student Transcript

Grade Book Review

Grade Books

The Report Card

The Report Card

The CSI Framework Grading System

Building Awareness

Awareness

The Legal Debate over Grading Policies

Introduction

Conclusion

Conclusion: A Summative Review

THE LOCAL SCHOOLS AND GRADES

Understanding

the Grading

System

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What does your school’s grading policy look like?

      What components constitute the overall grade?

            How does the grading system affect your child?

                  Are the grading practices fair?

A Special Thanks

I would like to thank my lovely wife, best friend, partner, and mentor. Her strength, love, and strong will to fight for a quality education for children have truly transformed me.

I would like to thank the young men and young women who persevered from-hardship-to-success stories. Your will to overcome has encouraged me to continue the good fight.

I would like to thank the parents of the students who trusted me with the lives of their children. More importantly, I thank you for believing in me as a leader.

I would like to thank my parents for helping me understand the values of holistic education—the development of mind, body, and soul.

TAKING A LOOK AT EDUCATIONAL THEORIES

SYSTEMS AND CONSISTENCY THEORY ESSAY

Education as a whole is the key to any successful working entity. In order for any system to work, there is a huge dependency on the individual units to successfully work together with working knowledge of the organization’s plan. More importantly, there is a need for all individual parts within the system to work efficiently and interdependently of one another. Historically, contemporary ideas from the systems theory have grown with diversified areas, exemplified by the work of biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, linguist Béla H. Bánáthy, ecological systems with Howard T. Odum, Eugene Odum, and Fritjof Capra, organizational theory and management with individuals such as Peter Senge, interdisciplinary study with areas like human resource development from the work of Richard A. Swanson, and insights from educators such as Debora Hammond and Alfonso Montuori. The systems theory within education involves institutionalized teaching and learning in relation to a curriculum and evaluation process that measures its overall effectiveness. Education, in its general sense, is a form of learning in which knowledge, skills, and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training, research, or simply through self-directed learning (Dewey 1916/1944). Learning, defined, is the acquiring of new, or the modifying of existing, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information (Schacter et al. 2011). Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something, which can include facts, information, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education (Webster’s Dictionary).

A skill is the learned capacity to carry out predetermined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both (in other words, the abilities that one possesses). These basic terms, with an understanding of systems, aid in the need for an effective systematic educational grading policy. As a result, the systems theory and the consistency theory will be the premise of work with a reference to the organizational theory, social justice, and social learning theories.

The systems theory in the field of education is extremely important as it relates to awareness, alignment, implementation, assessment, and adaptation of a working function. In this case, we are speaking of the grading policy. All stakeholders (serving as interdependent working parts) must be efficient in their abilities to fulfill their roles and responsibilities succinctly. The federal government must be able to properly identify the necessary standards and policies that will govern all education for the betterment of all subgroups and society as a whole. The state/local government must be able to evaluate federal policies and interpret them with precision in order to design an effective governance of laws ready for implementation. Districts must personalize the governing regulations into a strategic plan of action that meets the needs of the school and community at large. Schools must be fully comprehensible of all local and federal policies and design a specific action plan for implementation that produces productive graduates ready for transition into society. The community must understand the needs of the local schools and invest their resources accordingly. Parents must also understand the school system and its expectations to assist in the development of values and skills needed for their child’s overall success. Systematically thinking, the overall success of education is heavily dependent on the performance of each element and its ability to work together as well as interdependently (Ackoff 1974).

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CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SYSTEMS THEORY

With education being one of the most critical fields of society, the importance of its effectiveness is just as significant. The overall purpose of this theory is to develop a set of unified principles that integrates the various sciences (natural and social). In an effort to better understand this theory, a careful reflection on the structures and functions of the system must be reviewed.

The systems theory in the presented format must also include metacognition. Metacognition has to do with the active monitoring and regulation of the cognitive processes. It represents the executive control system that many cognitive theorists have included in their theories (e.g., Miller, Newell and Simon, and Schoenfeld). Therefore, the implementation of a grading policy is more complex in implementation than it is in its design. There are so many components and elements that play a major role in the overall efficiency of practice that the governing body must have a very comprehensive knowledge base of the overall process. Theory and practical are two different components of systems with two different worlds of expectations, yet they are interdependent of one another. Systems fail normally due to the lack of completeness and understanding of how the theory depends on the practical for effective outcomes.

CONSISTENCY THEORY

In support of good systems, there must be a primary premise to drive the scope and sequence of work. Education’s primary purpose is to form learning in which knowledge, skills, and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training, research, or simply through self-directed learning (Dewey 1916/1944). When we define knowledge and skills, we correlate such terms with cognition and behavior. These two correlated terms must work hand in hand in order to maximize the overall process of learning. Such interrelated functions lead us to the affective-cognitive consistency theory. This theory must be mastered beyond the basic levels of understanding as each institutional thought thrives to educate and improve society through the learning process.

The affective/cognitive consistency theory assumes that individuals need to have consistency between and among their attitudes and behaviors and will modify one or both to achieve this balance (Zimbardo and Leippe 1991). Affective-cognitive consistency theory also examines the relationship between attitudes and beliefs and posits that individuals are in an unstable state when their attitudes toward an object, event, or person and their knowledge about that object, event, or person is inconsistent (Simonson and Maushak 2001). Another important note about this theory also suggests that the affective component of the attitude system may be changed by providing new information (changing the cognitive component) via a persuasive message. Once the individual has processed the new information, he or she will undergo an attitude change to bring the knowledge and affect into harmony. Processing the message requires that the audience pay attention to and comprehend the message then accept and retain it (Zimbardo and Leippe 1991). The affective-cognitive consistency theory suggests that the affective component of the attitude system may be changed by first changing the cognitive component through providing new information. It does not matter how the new cognition is produced, only that it occurs.

Other supportive theories are social judgment theory and social learning theory. Social judgment theories emphasize the role of prior attitudes in shaping attitude formation and change. They describe attitude as a kind of spectrum with a latitude of acceptance surrounding a current attitude; a new position is more likely to be accepted if it falls within this latitude and less likely to be accepted if it does not (Smith and Ragan 1999). Furthermore, social learning theory also focuses on the development of cognitions related to the expected outcome of behavior.

This theory suggests that an individual learns attitudes by observing the behaviors of others and modeling or imitating them (McDonald and Kielsmeier 1970). The systems theory, with an understanding of the affective/cognitive consistency theory, provides stakeholders a road map to fully understand and implement a comprehensive system without ignoring any major correlating component of the process.

PARADIGMS

Paradigm shifts should be made on the premise of factual data, reports, and statistical analysis resulting from cognitive development or the lack of addressing