Posted on 03/12/2008 9:35:45 PM PDT by Tired of Taxes
Adams County District 50 gets rid of grade levels
ADAMS COUNTY - One Colorado school district is going to shake things up by getting rid of grades.
The move includes traditional letter grades and grade levels.
The Adams County School District 50 school board approved a new system that lets students progress at their own pace.
Students will need to master 10 skill levels to graduate. They could end up graduating earlier, or later than fellow classmates. It just depends upon how long they need in order to master the skills.
District administrators says the new system will focus on students' competence, rather than achievement for grades.
There are other school districts across the country that have adopted this type of system.
The district says it will put an explainer on transcripts for students applying to college, since the students will not have grade point averages or class rankings.
The district plans to start the new system for kindergarten through eighth students in 2009 and high school students in 2010.
Not a homeschool article, but a nice idea (imho) that some school districts are adopting.
Who runs the public schools ping list?
I mean they never shut up about them.
I'm all for new ideas in education, because a lot these freaking people are a waste of space.
I like this idea.
I have also thought this would be a better way- make sure a student masters a skill before moving to the next level. I would also think this would cause some students to excel, since they could see that they could finish sooner if they put out the effort. Many schools now discourage skipping grades and graduating early so bright students may feel trapped and lose interest.
I worked my ass off in school. All 18 years.
YMMV
When I was in grade school, this is how math was handled in the fifth and sixth grades. A good approach, if students are adequately motivated.
I worked my ass off in school also, but I sure got really tired of waiting for part of the class to “get it” so we could move on. I actually quit high school, got my GED and went to college because I felt trapped in high school. I think some students will excel under this type of system, when the traditional one my have held them back. I know some will not move forward- but some won’t move forward no matter how the system works so what is the difference?
If you would like to be on or off this list, please ping Amelia, Gabz, or SoftballMominVa
If the end result is children who are literate and educated, striving for knowledge versus grades, then wonderful.
But if the underlying reason for this is so that little Jimmy doesn’t have to experience failure when he fails, then not so great.
Time will tell.
The district says it will put an explainer on transcripts for students applying to college, since the students will not have grade point averages or class rankings.
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Just forget about applying to college because it’s aint gonna happen.
Some people are very motivated to press forward at a rapid pace. Holding them back while the rest of the class "catches up" is counter productive. I don't know how many of my high school classmates who graduated early continued at that pace. At least they had the option.
Well, there’s always the possibility of taking the SAT and ACT to bolster your educational resume. I took the SAT to bolster my home school grades (which were all As, but it never hurts to have some assurance when dealing with the educational system). Ended up getting two scholarships.
This idea seems to have some merit. It would probably work for those who are able to learn more quickly than others; they’ll languish less and have more time to do other things.
Yup! This is how I homeschooled and it worked really well. I'm *thrilled* about this!
This is a stupid idea.
It may be sound in principle (replacing grade levels with skill levels that students work through at their own pace). But fundamentally you are relying on the same group of teachers who have been failing in their task to administer the new system. I see this being worse, not better.
INTREP
but this is not about home school.
this is apparently another touchy feely public school that is opposed to objective evaluations and tests. Don’t want to hurt the kid’s self esteeeeeem
Yes, it is a fine idea to take grades out of schools.
Who needs them anyway, comerade?
A Demented idea.
If they had this when I was in school, I would have graduated high school at the age of 12.
Which are graded.
There's a lot to be said about practice in taking graded tests. Many kids choke on these big tests because it's do or die. Having experience in test taking helps manage the stress.
I have my doubts about this working for the simple reason that it's a new educational experiment and so far as I've seen, all these innovative approaches, or experiments, in teaching usually end up backfiring. They turn out to be abysmal failures and the ones who suffer are the kids being experimented on.
Basically, they're just trading one system for another and the kids still have to show competency to move on. They're being graded anyway, just not with the traditional letter grades.
A kids self-esteem will not be any better off when he's not promoted with the rest of his friends. If this takes hold, then when this has become the norm, it will be the new grading system and some other way of evaluating kids progress will have to be developed to protect the next batch of fragile egos.
Under this system, those who are motivated will progress, and whose who are not motivated will not progress. So, the end result will be the same. Those who do not make progress will have pressure applied in the usual ways (calling parents and whatever resources the school has).
This is not a new experiment. I went to a school in the 70’s that was conducting this experiment. I learned how to make tie-dyed t-shirts, collect sea shells, do interpretive dance, and all kinds of fun stuff. I didn’t bother with math, science and all those other boring subjects. Why should I? there was no grade. No right or wrong. No reward or punishment. No praise or reprimand. I sure got plenty of praise for my t-shirts though.
The school was round, with no walls between the classes. There was a glassed-in area in the center, that kept the faculty seperate from the students. I guess they felt safer that way. It was nice, because if I didn’t like what was going on in the room I was in, I could just wander to another room.
Then one day my Mom came to talk to my teacher during Free Day (which was even wilder than the other days.)
The next day, my mean old Mom put the house on the market, and moved us to a district with real schools.
Many teachers have told me their biggest hurdle is they are expected to move a student further along based on the idea that the student has mastered previous skills. In many cases the student has not mastered the basics, so the result is many students fall further and further behind. Teachers are expected to teach to the child that is several grade levels behind as well as students that are ahead and students that are at grade level in the same class- it is a difficult task. Add tp that mix is the inclusion of Special Education students into the classroom who are in most cases also the responsibility of the regular teacher. We have also piled on tremendous amounts of paperwork the teacher has to do in order to comply with this law or that policy. I don’t see how even a great teacher can deal with the current system. I know there are bad teachers out there- but really the system is broken and unless we can come up with a solution to that we will not be able to hire or keep decent or great teachers.
I went through elementary school in Flagstaff in the 1960’s and because of the teaching program at NAU there was an endless supply of student teachers. The schools took advantage of that and had students split into groups by ability. We moved along at out own pace, moving into other groups as we progressed. I was never bored in school, and always felt challenged. When I was in junior high my parents moved to southern Arizona, it was a shock to me- the school system was the overcrowded class with the unmotivated teacher and students- we had to go over and over the same material until everyone in the class “got it” my mind went numb and I began to hate school. Finally I quit my sophmore year of high school and went to college.
I think grouping by ability is really the way to go- it worked well for me.
I don’t agree with the idea that there will be no grades, I think that will make it easier for students and schools to take advantage of not being held accountable. The schools I went to that had students grouped by ability still had tests and grades. I think the group idea is great, but they need to keep a grading system in place.
I think it depends on how the school handles this system. The article doesn’t say they’ll stop testing. I would think they’d have to test somehow to see if a student has mastered a skill.
Looking at it from a homeschool point of view:
In our home, we don’t hand our children a report card with letter grades. I just test them periodically and calculate the percentage of correct answers. I show them the wrong answers (if any) marked with red X’s and the percentage.
At times, one will score as low as, say, 76% correct on a test. In school, that would be a passing grade. At home, I tell him he hasn’t quite mastered a particular skill, so he has to practice more and test again later.
Done that way, I think this system works well, and it sure doesn’t cushion egos. Of course, I don’t know how the schools will work this system. As others here have pointed out, they’re probably trying to get around the NCLB somehow. That may be the real motivation...
That's how math was when I was in 5th/6th grade. To "graduate" each skill level, one had to achieve a certain score on a test. If one failed to achieve an acceptable score, one would be assigned more practice materials for that skill level and then take another test. The tests were pass/fail, but the student's overall measure of performance would be based upon the number of levels passed.
I was in a similar math program in grades 10-11. It was an independent study program. The teacher was there to answer questions, test when you were ready, and check each test. But we students essentially taught ourselves from the books distributed to us, and we each progressed at our own pace.
it’s a public school in Colorado. you know there are a lot of crunchy types there.
ping
I agree, and I've been arguing this for years. Categorizing/grouping students for instruction with age being the most common overriding criteria is one of the most idiotic things done in an already idiotic system.
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