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From Moving To A Standards-Based Report Card

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This article discusses four main challenges that can arise from moving towards a standards-based report card. The first challenge is clarifying the purpose of the report card to make sure all involved do not mistake this change as a new fad and that parents understand the purpose of the report card. They recommend that parents be included on the report card committee. The second challenge is differentiating the grading criteria. This means that as teachers establish grading based upon product, progress, and process, Guskey and Jung recommend that teachers “separate grades or marks for achievement from those for homework, effort, work habits, or learning progress” (p. 2). The third challenge is moving from letter grades to standards. The …show more content…

I could see a solid divide developing between teachers that understand standards-based grading and the group that can only comprehend the traditional grading scale. As a teacher, I would need a great deal of resources and reasoning as to why the change would benefit the students. As a parent, I understand that traditional scale and to me that scale has meaning. I can understand how my child is doing based on a letter grade because that is what I got as scores. Not saying it is right or wrong but that is how I think. Now, as a principal moving towards standards –based grading, I have to develop a plan to persuade those types of thinkers into believing that standards-based grading will benefit students and help them grow in their …show more content…

These are the areas that I need to make sure are shored up and ready to roll out before unveiling this idea to the stakeholders. The first challenge makes perfect sense in that you need to make sure that moving this way makes sense and has a purpose and that purpose better have something to do with improving the student’s education. All stakeholders need to be represented in the planning stages so that they can help rally the community as the standards-based grading goes to the community. The differentiating of criteria challenge will probably take some time as you will need to find ways and material to properly show teachers how to grade standards as well as take into account the other areas of grading that can be in the classroom. Guskey and Jung state that “teachers must specifically describe how they plan to evaluate student’s achievement, effort, work habits, and progress, and then communicate these plans directly to students and parents”

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