Use these discussion points to start a conversation about grading.
• Grades should reflect achievement of intended learning outcomes—whether the school is using a conventional, subject-based report card or a report card that represents these intended learning outcomes as standards.
• The primary audiences for the message conveyed in grades are students and their parents; grading policies should aim to give them useful, timely, actionable information. Teachers, administrators, and other educators are secondary audiences.
• Grades should reflect a particular student’s individual achievement. Group and cooperative skills are important, but they should be reflected elsewhere, not in an individual’s academic grade.
• Grading policies should be set up to support student motivation to learn. A student should never reach a place where there is no point doing any more work because failure is inevitable” (p. 14).
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Based on studies, it depends on who and how the message was delivered, and sometimes it depended on who delivered the message. School districts who presented this information as an opportunity has had the most success. For secondary schools, it was critically important to explain the purpose and why this approach was needed. "Educators will be much more receptive to new ideas—even those that challenge their own opinions—that come from colleagues who understand where they stand and why” (Brookhart, 2011, p. 14). Brookhart (2011) implied that if districts or schools attempted to keep the purpose of moving to a standard-based approach a secret it would prevent teachers from supporting it. There would also be many hurdles and obstacles that districts would have to overcome to move the conversation