Should Letter Grades System Be Abolished?

Should the Letter Grades System be Abolished?

Ever get a bad grade on a test or assignment and think your life is over? Why does school become so stressful when all we worry about is percentages and letters on a report card? Consequently, what most educators don't realize is that many students focus more on their grades than learning and engaging in school. Students are constantly under tremendous amounts of stress due to worrying about their grades. Traditional letter grades also create an unhealthy learning environment and increase competition between students. The current generation of students is being taught that a letter on their report card will determine their long-term success, but in reality, the letter grade system has no accurate

Daily Maeroff, the senior staff columnist of the Pitts school newspaper, writes in the article “Abolish the letter grades” which claims that letter grades take away from students' strength and weakness, breeds academic dishonesty, and creates an unhealthy learning environment. The author supports these claims by arguing that “One of the most significant downfalls of the letter-grade system is that it actively works against students with learning disabilities, developmental disorders, and mental illnesses. Because letter grades do not measure effort or grit effectively, the students that may take longer to learn certain skills and ideas or learn them in different ways are left behind.” (Maeroff 4). Nevertheless, Maeroff is insisting that no two students are alike, some work at different paces, some learn with little instruction and some learn with tremendous amounts of instruction. Basing schoolwork off of a scale isn't realistic because how does it measure if a student is skilled in the subject or if they struggle with it? Getting a good grade on a test. could mean some things. It could mean that students cheated, it could also mean that they put in alot of effort, or it could mean that they guessed. Unlike Haper claimed in her article above, Maeroff emphasizes that “Theoretically, this is how grades should behave — they should give an accurate, unbiased, standardized measurement of how well a student performs”. (Maeroff 2). Traditional letter grades create inconsistency, and dishonesty and are not a reliable source to measure success. Maeroff adds that “the letter-based grading system is not the only grading system out there” and he explains that the “Narrative grade system is a comments-based grading system in which teachers write an assessment of a student’s strengths and weaknesses. This form of grading is constructive, and based on the idea of a growth