Fearless Grading: How to Improve Achievement, Discipline, and Culture through Accurate and Fair Grading

By Douglas Reeves

When grades are accurate and fair, students and teachers will see immediate improvements in academic performance, student behavior, and attendance.
But when schools cling to toxic grading practices that are demonstrably inaccurate and unfair, then failures persist.
Douglas Reeves, the author of more than forty books and 100 articles on leadership and education, believes the choice is clear – and in this book, he argues for grading systems and feedback that have an immediate and positive impact on the performance of students, teachers, and leaders.
Get answers to questions such as:
What are grading policies about beyond student performance?
How can grading policies help teachers collaborate to improve student outcomes?
Why do grading policies among teachers vary so much?
The author observes that in the context of grading, you will routinely see classes in which student backgrounds are the same, but one class has a 50% failure rate and another class in the same grade and same subject has a 10% failure rate. Almost always, the difference is not in the performance of the students but in the grading policies of the teachers.
Join the author and explore how to improve achievement, discipline, and culture through Fearless Grading.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: May 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665742436

Douglas Reeves

Dr. Douglas Reeves is the author of more than 40 books and 100 articles on leadership and education. He was twice named to the Harvard University Distinguished Authors Series and several other national and international awards for his contributions to education. Doug is the founder of Creative Leadership Solutions and the nonprofit Equity and Excellence Institute, serving schools and educational systems in fifty states and more than 40 countries.

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Copyright © 2023 Douglas Reeves

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of nonfiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4245-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4244-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4243-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023907043

Archway Publishing rev. date: 10/23/2023

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: How Fearless Grading And Feedback Drive Student Performance

Chapter 1: Lead With Values

Chapter 2: The Evidence For Grading Reform

Chapter 3: Essentials Of Effective Grading Practices

Chapter 4: How Grading Reform Helps Teachers

Chapter 5: Avoid Unnecessary Fights

Chapter 6: Inside-Out Change

Chapter 7: Dealing With Resistance

Chapter 8: How Grading Reform Helps High-Achieving Students

Chapter 9: Gaining Parent And Community Support

Chapter 10: Fixing Electronic Grading Systems

Chapter 11: The Risks Of Change And The Risks Of Failing To Change

Chapter 12: Effective Practice

Chapter 13: The Role Of School And District Leaders

Appendices

About the Author

References

For my amazing colleagues at Creative Leadership Solutions

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The scholarship in grading reform is led by a true giant in our field, Professor Tom Guskey of the University of Kentucky. His ability to combine rigorous research, insightful analysis, and gentle humor into what can be an emotional discussion of grading policy is a model for us all. I also wish to acknowledge the contributions to the research and writing in grading made by Susan Brookhart, Joe Feldman, Bob Marzano, Ken O’Connor, and Rick Wormeli. Careful readers of these authors will note places where we agree and where we differ. My goal in these pages is to take a complex topic often fraught with emotionally charged rhetoric and find common ground so that schools can cross the bridge from theory to practice. I have also attempted to render the subject of grading reform more simple, more practical, and easier to adopt from the individual classroom to district-wide policies. This would not be the first time I have paved the road to hell with good intentions, and I recognize that some readers will take issue with the arguments and evidence in these pages. I am grateful for all careful readers, including those who disagree with me. I hope that they will direct their ire at me and not my friends, whom I have acknowledged.

My primary debts are to the readers who have been kind enough to read my work and offer helpful feedback, challenge, and support. For this volume, I especially appreciate the review of the manuscript by The Marsh Writers Collaborative (www.MarshWriters.org) and the thoughtful suggestions from Dr. Stafford Cohen, Jessika Sage-Shields, and Lisa Ng. My colleagues at Creative Leadership Solutions are a constant source of evidence, field experience, challenging ideas, and personal encouragement. They include Allyson Apsey, Michelle Cleveland, Washington Collado, Lori Cook, Alan Crawford, Karisa DeSantis, Howard Fields, Kate Anderson Foley, Emily Freeland, Rachael George, Pam Gildersleeve-Hernandez, Amanda Gomez, Jessica Gomez, Cedrick Gray, Neil Gupta, Nicole Johnson, Jessyca Lucero-Flores, Kim Marshall, Jonelle Massey, Ann McCarty Perez, Peter Ondish, Christine Smith, Melissa Stephanski, Bill Sternberg, Majalise Tolan, Dru Tomlin, Greg VanHorn, Pam VanHorn, Jo Verver-Peters, and Michael Wasta.

The chapters on teacher observation and evaluation were profoundly influenced by the work of Kim Marshall, whose pioneering work as a leader and author has influenced a generation of teachers and school administrators. Kim’s work proves that teacher evaluation need not be a toxic and adversarial process but can provide explicit and differentiated coaching for improved teacher effectiveness.

The chapters on leadership evaluation were informed by scholars and leaders far afield from education. In particular, I am indebted to my brother, Major General (ret.) Steve Reeves, and the following senior educational leaders who have profoundly influenced my work on assessing educational leaders. They include Ana Applegate, Lisa Elliott, the late Dick Elmore, Edwin Gomez, Chip Kimball, Thom Lockaby, Dale Marsden, John Simpson, Aaron Spence, Scott Thomas, and Harold Vollkommer.

Regarding any good ideas you may find in these pages, I happily share credit with those listed above. For the inevitable errors and failures in clarity, I alone bear responsibility.

Douglas Reeves

Boston, Massachusetts

INTRODUCTION: HOW FEARLESS GRADING AND FEEDBACK DRIVE STUDENT PERFORMANCE

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Grading is only one form of feedback. It is therefore essential to put grading policy in the context of feedback. The purpose of feedback is not merely to render an evaluation; it also should provide information that will improve student performance. We know what effective feedback looks like. Watch a student—whose parents and teachers swear that the child is incapable of focus and concentration—play a video game for hours on end. With every hand movement the student receives feedback and immediately responds to that feedback in order to improve performance. Watch a great music teacher who provides feedback to students with every breath, and the casual observer without musical training can hear students improve in a matter of minutes. Watch a great athletic coach who might think of fifty ways to improve the performance of a student but withholds that torrent of advice in order to give clear and specific feedback, and see the students improve their performance within the space of a single practice session. In sum, it is not that we do not know what good feedback is, but rather that we fail to transfer these observations into effective grading policies and classroom practices.

WHAT IS FEARLESS FEEDBACK?

Ask your colleagues about the best and most constructive feedback they have ever received—as a student, teacher, leader, or on a job outside of education. The answers to this question are consistent. We want feedback that is fair. The same performance should get the same feedback, they say. We want feedback that is accurate—no ambiguities—just give it to us straight, they add. We want feedback that is specific—let us know how to get better, they conclude. And we want feedback that is timely. Let me know the feedback in time for me to use it to improve. Fearless feedback, therefore, is fair, accurate, specific, and timely. In this book we will use the acronym FAST to remind readers of the imperatives for fair, accurate, specific, and timely feedback. If that is what adults expect when they are receiving feedback, then we have a moral obligation to apply the same criteria to the feedback and grading we provide to students.

Unfortunately, the feedback that we give to students and teachers is often inconsistent, inaccurate, ambiguous, and late. For school leaders, the situation is even worse, with many leaders failing to receive any sort of systematic feedback until the end of the year or, in the case of senior leaders, the end of their contract. As baseball great Mickey Mantle once said to a UPI reporter in 1978, If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. To put a fine point on it, when we give feedback that is delivered long after it’s too late for the student, teacher, or leader to act on that feedback, we are performing the educational equivalent of an autopsy. It may be an interesting and complex procedure, but the patient on whom the autopsy is performed is unlikely to improve.

This book argues for grading systems and feedback that have an immediate and positive impact on the performance of students, teachers, and leaders. Grading policies are not merely about student performance but about what teachers and leaders do. If there are high failure rates on report cards, that is not just a student issue. That is a clarion call for a reflection on teaching practices and leadership decisions. When great teachers work in collaborative teams, they routinely ask one another, How is it that ninety percent of your students succeeded in our last test on fractions and decimals? What are you doing that can help the rest of us? There is no embarrassment about asking for help nor is there any sin of pride in sharing effective practices. It’s just what great professionals do. In the context of grading, I routinely see classes in which student backgrounds are the same, but one class has a 50% failure rate and another class in the same grade and same subject has a 10% failure rate. Effective teacher teams and educational leaders ask why this is so. It’s not an accusation—just an inquiry. Almost always, the difference is not in the performance of the students but in the grading policies of the teachers.

What makes feedback fearless? When students and adults are fearful, they cannot learn. If students fear making mistakes, they remain silent and disengaged (Reeves, Frey, & Fisher, 2022). When there is a fearless environment, then it is safe to make mistakes and receive feedback on those mistakes, secure in the knowledge that mistakes are never a source of shame, embarrassment, or humiliation. Observe toddlers learning to walk. They fall down, run into walls, and invariably pick themselves up and persist with enthusiasm as their parents cheer every step. Can you imagine a high-school algebra class in which mistakes were never criticized but regarded as a step toward learning? How about the middle school English class in which the first drafts of an essay, like the toddler’s first steps, were regarded as steps toward success rather than encountering a sea of red ink? Or consider the new teacher, staying one page ahead of students in the curriculum guide, cussed out by a parent the previous evening, scared to death of an administrative walk-through, and devastated with every critical remark. Compare that to teachers who, after every observation, worked collaboratively with observers to identify what worked well and what can be changed the next day. Or consider the building and district administrator for whom every governing board meeting and public comment period is not an opportunity for objective feedback on organizational goals but for unpredictable criticism or affirmation that is more related to the local rumor mill than to the previously agreed-upon school and district goals.

Let us return to the student playing the video game. If the rules for feedback, success, and failure changed with every iteration of the game, what do you think students would do? Readers who have pulled playground duty, as your author has, have heard the plaintive cry, That’s not fair! And what do students do when they think a game is unfair? They stop playing the game. That is precisely what students are doing who leave school, and what teachers and administrators do who are exiting the profession. The national crises in education include record drop-out rates, teacher attrition, and administrator turnover—and much of these actions are related to toxic and ineffective feedback.

FEARLESS FEEDBACK FOR STUDENTS

If you want to improve student resilience and perseverance; to give them skills and habits that will serve them well in college and in the world of work; to reduce failure and drop-outs; to improve discipline, behavior, and classroom climate and culture; and to see faculty morale soar—then you have come to the right place. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the path to achieving these results is one of the most controversial issues in education: grading reform. Despite the benefits that stem from improved grading practices, I have seen one effort after another fail, with faculties deeply divided in controversies, parents enraged, and superintendents fired by dissatisfied school boards—all because grading reforms were poorly implemented. This book is a pathway to avoiding these difficulties and implementing grading reform without the heartache, controversy, disruption, and tears that too often accompany such improvements in educational policy and practice.

Of all of the things that classroom educators do to encourage—and discourage—student learning, the manner in which they grade students can have some of the most powerful incentives for better performance as well as some of the most pernicious disincentives that lead to persistent student failure. As a profession, we do not lack knowledge or evidence on what to do. After more than a century of research on effective grading practices (Brookhart, et. al., 2016), many grading policies continue to be based on either the personal experiences of the classroom teacher about what grading policies motivated them, the intuition of administrators and policy makers about what seems fair, and the demands of parents who yearn for the good old days of their school experience that produced perfectly fine results. We persist, for example, in using grading as an effective tool to punish students for work that is late or fails to meet the expectations of the teacher. However, if low grades were an effective punishment, one would think that students would eventually get the message and turn in work that is perfect and on time. I know of no teacher on the planet who makes that claim. It is like the classic scene from the Groucho Marx movie in which Groucho complains to his physician, Doctor, it hurts when I do this! he explains as he puts his arm into an uncomfortable position. The doctor replies, Then stop doing that! Although no teacher, parent, administrator, or board member gains from demonstrably ineffective grading practices, schools nevertheless cling to failed policies.

Grading reformers of the 21st century are quick to point out the flaws of traditional grading systems, but they too often provide cures that are worse than the disease. Reformers, with the best of intentions, have created report cards of byzantine complexity that parents neither use nor understand. They have created fear among parents, especially parents of secondary-school students, that their children will be ineligible for scholarships and unable to succeed in their college applications because the transcripts, grade-point-averages, and academic honors will be taken away. Moreover, critics see many grading reforms as merely a device by school leaders to lower standards, coddle recalcitrant students, and make lazy and incompetent students feel good without achieving true proficiency. Teachers feel threatened and attacked by many of these reformers. As one teacher explained to me, I used to be treated as a professional, teaching the content that I thought was most appropriate and in the manner that I knew worked best for my students. Standards took away my ability to teach what I thought was most important, and intrusive classroom observations took away my discretion to teach in the manner I knew was best for my students. Grading was the only professional discretion I had left.

The concerns that classroom educators have about grading reform are not merely about the loss of personal power, but also about the persistent demands for them to do more in the same amount of time. Because time is a zero-sum game—every hour devoted to administrative tasks such as data entry into an electronic grading system is an hour not devoted to providing direct support to students or collaborating with colleagues—these professionals are understandably reluctant to engage in grading reform practices in which they are