Analysis Of How Grading Reform Changed Our School, By Jeffery Erickson

In “How Grading Reform Changed Our School,” author Jeffery Erickson, the assistant principal of Minnetonka High School in Minnesota, discusses why and how he and his colleagues changed the way students received their grades. Erickson’s main argument in his essay is, “What should go into a grade?” His answer to this is that a student’s grade is solely reflected based on what a student knows and his or her ability to perform. Erickson opens up his essay by giving a scenario from a personal experience of when his daughter took swimming lessons. It was a challenge for his daughter to master the class, but in the end she finally passed on the last day. He goes on by saying how unethical it would be if his daughter did not pass the class based

In the practice of inflating, many teachers would reward their students with extra credit when there was no work being put forward for them to even receive extra credit; such as, bringing in permission slips, canned food for food drives, tissue boxes, and so on. He explains that this process demeans the purpose of grades and is not truly reflecting the student’s performance. As for deflating, these were factors that misrepresented a student’s grades based on behavioral infractions, unexcused absences, missing work, or averaging. He then goes on by providing two examples in the use of deflating grades. For instance, how a student had her final grade averaged together at the end of the semester, but it did not reflect her true performance in the class at all due to averaging. Also how some teachers deducted grades from students because of the use of cell phones during

This is done now through the process of having a two assessment category- formative and summative. Both of these categories are used to determine the student’s quarter and semester grade. The summative category would be based on four common assessments, and one of these must be a performance task. As for formative assessments, this would show students the progress that they have made in mastering the material that would appear during the summative exam. He continues by saying that the school has realized that they can no longer control student’s grades based on behavioral infractions. This can be done instead with classroom management and student engagement strategies. For example, if a student is skipping class, then the student receives a phone call the same day. Then a staff member will get in contact with the student, and determine why the student was absent and then issue a detention for his or her unexcused class absence. He also mentions how the school has changed the way teachers grade homework. The teachers no longer grade homework based on completion but now on accuracy, and the following day the teachers give quizzes based on the assigned homework from the previous night to guarantee that the students fully understand the concept before taking the summative