I stumbled across an article in my news stream this morning that has me all riled up.

Titled Virginia Teachers Fire Back After School System Mulls Implementing More ‘Equitable’ Grading System, it details an open letter that a group of high school teachers in the Arlington Public Schools sent to their superintendent pushing back against a district proposal to remove point penalties for work that students turn in late, to discontinue the practice of grading homework assignments and to allow students multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery on tests and quizzes.

Now, regular readers of Building Confident Learners probably know that I’m a huge supporter of reimagining the way that we handle grading in our schools — so I wanted to dig into the reasoning given by these teachers for opposing what I see as more responsible grading practices.

And honestly, what I found were tired arguments that hold no real merit in my mind.

Here are a few — followed by my reaction:

Reason #1 given by APS high school teachers for opposing policy:  “We believe that these changes will impact student learning and socio-emotional development and growth in a negative way.” 

Bill’s response: Want to know what else has a negative impact on socio-emotional development?

Earning low marks on homework assignments early in the course of a sequence of instruction because the content and concepts were new to you and then never being able to make up for those low marks in the long run, resulting in grades that aren’t an accurate indicator of your current level of mastery.

Or failing an important test and being told by the very people who are supposed to ensure that you learn essentials that there’s nothing that you can do to make up for that mistake.

Or struggling to get an assignment completed after its original due date — an inherently responsible action — only to have a teacher label you as irresponsible and give you a failing mark anyway.

The fact of the matter is that traditional grading practices — like those that these APS teachers are advocating for — do more harm than good to the socio-emotional development of most kids. They prioritize compliance over making progress and demonstrating mastery — which should be the priority in every school.

Reason #2 given by APS high school teachers for opposing policy:  “The changes, if implemented, will also result in the decline of high expectations and rigor in the classroom across all APS high schools.”

Bill’s response: “High expectations” shouldn’t just mean “our kids turn their work in on time — and if they don’t, they learn all about consequences.” Schools with high expectations believe that all students will learn essential knowledge, skills and dispositions at the highest levels and accept responsibility for taking action when students are struggling to get there.

And don’t even get me started on the word “rigor.”

Rigorous learning environments aren’t the ones with the strictest grading policies, the most homework, or the biggest penalties for failing to meet expectations. Rigorous learning environments are the ones that are asking students to think and reason and create and imagine at the highest levels.

Those aren’t the same thing.

Reason #3 given by APS high school teachers for opposing policy:  Deadlines and corrections help children “develop organizational, time and stress management skills and grow as responsible, civically engaged, and considerate young adults” and that  “to achieve these ends, students should be held accountable for completing their work in a timely manner and meeting deadlines that were reasonably established by their teachers.”

Bill’s response: My first reaction was that the phrase “considerate young adults” tells me all that I need to know about these teachers: They see missing work as a sign of disrespect and are convinced that every kid who fails a test the first time didn’t bother to work hard to begin with.

That’s sad, but not surprising. I hear those same arguments all the time from teachers who believe in traditional grading practices.

But here’s a question worth asking: Do deadlines and point consequences, as these teachers argue, REALLY work to “help children develop organizational, time and stress management skills?”

The answer: Nope.

How do I know?

Because I used to breathe fire about due dates, too. Would give kids a ton of penalties for missing work. Wouldn’t accept assignments past a certain point. Cackled while handing out zeros. “That’ll teach ’em!” I’d think.

It didn’t phase the kids who struggled with work completion one bit.

In fact, it gave them an excuse to give up on assignments because what was the point in completing something if you were going to get a failing grade even after turning it in?

That’s why arguments against more responsible grading practices are ridiculous: If point penalties and stiff consequences for failure actually worked, you would immediately see students changing their behavior in response to them. Kids would get one zero and then never miss another assignment.

But that’s not what happens, is it?

Instead, students who struggle with work behaviors continue to struggle, no matter how many point consequences you assign.

So what’s the solution?

Identify the students who are struggling to complete work or to study for tests and figure out why. Is it because no one is holding them accountable at home? Is it because they are caring for younger siblings from the moment they get off the bus? Is it because they’ve given up on school completely? Is it because they have to work a part time job to support their family?

Once you know the reasons that kids are struggling with work completion, you can develop systematic schoolwide interventions to teach them to act more responsibly or classroom practices that are responsive to the realities that some of our students wrestle with day in and day out.

But it was the fourth reason given by APS high school teachers that REALLY set me off:

Here’s what they wrote: “Students who come from families which are not as ‘savvy’ or ‘aware,’ will be subject to further disadvantage because they will not be held accountable for not completing their homework assignments and/or formative assessments according to the deadlines set by their teachers: such results are anything but equitable–conversely, they offer our most needy students reduced probability of preparing for and realizing post-secondary opportunities.”

Bill’s response: Lemme tell you about Arnez — a student that I am currently teaching. That’s not his real name, but that’s what I’ll call him here.

Arnez is exactly the kind of student that these APS teachers would complain about. He has spotty attendance in school and when he is in class, he rarely completes assignments for teachers. He’s got lots of missing work and he struggles to pass tests the first time around.

When I sat down with him to find out why he missed so much school and did so little work, he told me that his mom is unemployed, but when she picks up a day-job, there is no one to watch his infant sister — so he stays home to babysit and take care of the house. On top of that, his dad — who is in construction — will often pick him up after school to have him help on job sites. That chews up a ton of his time — which means getting his research on the ethics of biotechology done by the due date or studying for his chemistry vocabulary quiz is just not possible.

But let’s not — as the APS teachers argue — pretend that he’s not learning about accountability or “growing as responsible, civically engaged, and considerate young adult.”

Heck, I would suggest that Arnez is one of the MOST accountable, responsible and considerate kids on my entire team.

He is pushing through a thousand challenges that students from what the APS teachers would call more “savvy and aware” families will never have to deal with — and to think otherwise is to malign the kids who need our help the most simply because they didn’t prioritize OUR assignments over other very real demands in THEIR lives.

What’s my final take on all of this?

I get it. A part of growing up is learning to act responsibly. Meeting deadlines and investing in tasks assigned by bosses are work behaviors that define successful individuals. We DO want kids to learn those behaviors and there ARE students who struggle with them.

But pretending like point penalties and rigid grading practices actually develop responsibility in students ignores reality. Those strategies just don’t work — and clinging to them is the quickest way to prove that you aren’t interested in acting professionally.

Instead, acting professionally would mean working together to identify more effective strategies for helping students who struggle with academic work behaviors instead of just complaining about them.

Stated another way, point consequences for missing work or penalties for initial struggles don’t teach kids to act responsibly.

Teachers — in partnership with parents and other professionals who are tuned into the reasons students struggle — do.

#steppingoffsoapbox

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