Lowering the Standards with Standards Referenced Grading

Since when is a 59.5% a passing grade? And why is a 1 on a scale of 1 to 4 acceptable? Standard Referenced Grading has changed the standards that our youth live up to. This fall our school district has gone to 100% standard grading. We have a senior in high school and after parent teacher conferences, it left me certain that standardized grading has truly lowered the academic standards for our children. It is not just about education & learning; it is about holding our youth accountable and creating good work habits that will transfer into college or the trades and eventually the workplace for these young adults.

When meeting with one teacher, I questioned why daily assignments were not in the grade book. He told me that daily assignments are not part of “the standard”. He went on to illustrate that, “the standard is not about behaviors and asking kids to do more outside of the classroom, but the standard is about whether students do well on the exams, which prove that they know the subject matter”. So, in this class, the quizzes & exams are what is graded. Assignments are left to be done or undone. And if the student chooses to do the assignments, they can be partially completed or have wrong answers. It does not matter because if the student does well on the quizzes & tests, they will pass the class.

Call me crazy (or maybe I am old school), but shouldn’t daily assignments be part of the curriculum? As adults, do we not get daily tasks given to us at our jobs? And aren’t those daily assignments expected to be done by our employer? Won’t these high school students have daily homework assigned to them when they enter college if they choose to continue their academic careers? What kind of message do these new “standards” teach our children? The message is quite clear, “practicing your academic skills and the daily work are not important”. Preparing for the test, the presentation, the pitch, the job interview is not valuable. And, if the daily work is not counted, why bother doing it. Students will gratefully trade the time that should be invested in schoolwork to waste even more time on their cell phones, which is a horrible trade-off for their growing brains.

In another classroom the teacher told me that “the standard” in her class did not include spelling, grammar, or punctuation. This class was a marketing class and apparently “the standard” in marketing according to standards referenced grading does not include the fine details in the presentation materials. “The standard” in this marketing class is just that; marketing, the creative idea, finding the appropriate target market for that idea… Apparently if you have missing punctuation & poor grammar in your presentation you give to a business owner or investment firm, it does not matter. Shoot, even if you spell the company’s name wrong on the cover page, I am sure the pitch will go great and whomever you are presenting to will choose you over other candidate because the idea alone was amazing! This teacher was very frustrated with “the standards” for her course so she cleverly created her own standard calling it “employability” which encompasses spelling, grammar, and punctuation. God bless her for taking the initiative to hold these kids to higher standards than what was originally outlined for her and her class using standard referenced grading. This teacher cares about the future of her students and that is a rare find. There are many teachers who would just accept “the standard” and that is what would be taught.  

These students deserve better. They deserve better from public schools, their teachers, and their parents. They deserve to be held to higher standards for the sake of their futures.

Standardized Reference Grading as outline by the Southeast Polk School District in Pleasant Hill, IA is below:

Teaching and learning at Southeast Polk High School is based on identified priority standards. Rather than a reflection of student behavior, grades are a reflection of student learning that has occurred as related to the priority standards. Teachers will collect pieces of evidence for each standard in order to determine each student’s level of proficiency for each standard.

Students must earn a minimum of 59.5% and must have a standard score of at least 1 for every standard to receive credit for a course. All students have the opportunity to reassess standards.

The Southeast Polk Standard Proficiency Scale:

• 4 - Exceeding. In addition to meeting the standard, the student shows in-depth inferences and applications such as explaining or demonstrating connections between ideas.

• 3.5 - Above Standard.

• 3 – Meeting. Student is able to independently and consistently use, apply and/or demonstrate the standard.

• 2.5 - Progressing.

• 2 - Approaching. Student can independently demonstrate foundational processes of the standard.

• 1.5 - Emerging.

• 1 - Beginning. Student demonstrates a minimal level of learning.

• 0 - No Evidence. Student does not show evidence of learning.

Parents, I encourage you to take an active role in your children’s academic lives. Teachers can only do so much. Make your kids do the assignments, even though they don’t count. Attend parent-teacher conferences and have meaningful conversations with teachers to give you important insight & feedback that you as a parent can use to further guide your child to be a more productive and independent human being. Raise them to a higher standard than what the public school system dictates.

Think about this; student athletes practice their sport for several hours every day. You are not going to make the football team at a standard grade of a 1 or even a 3. And if you do not show up for the daily practices (aka assignments), you will not play on Friday night even if you are capable of scoring a 4 when it comes to gametime. Practicing your academic skills is more critical than practicing your athletic skills in the game of life. Athletics are awesome, but academics are what resumes & futures are built on. Practice and the daily work are fundamental in being better at math, writing, speaking in front of an audience… You can’t just expect to wing it on game day (aka test day) and be a winner. It does not work that way. Raise your own standards & put in the daily work because you can and know that it makes you better. Those that are disciplined enough to put in the daily work will always come out ahead. ALWAYS! It is a competitive world. Take action & tackle the issue yourself to prepare for success on and off the field because God knows that our public school system is not doing it.