Another Post! Grading Standards...
Jan. 28th, 2009 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I was reading a Yahoo story about grading standards being challenged in Virginia. The school there has the grading scale as being 94 to 100 being an "A" versus the usual 90 to 100.
When I went to elementary school and high school, our grading scale was strangely more rigid than the schools around. It went like this:
I have no idea why it as this way, though I've heard it's different now. It does burn me up a bit, as my 3.795 GPA would have been a 4.0 in any other school around my hometown. Any opinions out there why this is good or bad? Any educators have an opinion?
When I went to elementary school and high school, our grading scale was strangely more rigid than the schools around. It went like this:
- 95 to 100 = A
- 88 to 94 = B
- 77 to 87 = C
- 70 to 76 = D
- <70 = F
I have no idea why it as this way, though I've heard it's different now. It does burn me up a bit, as my 3.795 GPA would have been a 4.0 in any other school around my hometown. Any opinions out there why this is good or bad? Any educators have an opinion?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 05:46 pm (UTC)For example, if you do well on all of your homework assignments and such and they have a ton of points assigned to them but bomb all of the tests, you still might land an A or B despite not really learning anything because you worked with your friends on all the homework assignments.
I think if you're looking at grade inflation you need to examine how points are allocated in various classes (homework, tests, quizzes, and projects) and then examine whether those points are then converted to percentages raw and used to assign a grade or weighted, curved, or both to do so.
Just playing with the conversion table from percentages to letter grades does not really get at underlying causes.
Of course, this all presupposes that letter grades are the right thing to be doing at all. Would it be more informative to directly report percentages in classes and have some uniform practices for reaching them within a district or state? Does grading even matter any more with the proliferation of proficiency and standardized testing?
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 06:26 pm (UTC)The irish system is totally different, but we still had very few A grades awarded. I had the 2nd best results in my final year and I only got 2 A's.
85-100=A, 70-84=B, 55-59=C, 40-54=D, >40=Fail
I suppose the system is irrelevant if everybody is playing to the same rules, but once one school changes theirs it will mess up things for everybody (unless it is clear to everybody what they have done). I can imagine you feel hard done by!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 09:56 pm (UTC)90-100 = A
80-89 = B
70-79 = C
65-69 = D
below 65 = F
Sometimes if you were in the higher end of the scale you got a + (plus) and the lower end a - (minus). IE: a 98 would be an A+ where a 91 would be an A-. To figure the GPA, A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 10:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 03:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 10:09 pm (UTC)A = 92-100
B = 84 - 91
C = 76 - 83
D = 86 - 75
F = 74 and under
And in high school for final grades you could not get 100. The computer system only had 2 digits for the grades. I can attest to this in my geometry class, I received perfect scores on everything, but could only get a 99 on my report card.