I have found a cause to fight for.
This is for all my fellow educators and education majors.
Since I have started my teaching job at St. Helena Central Middle School, I have had ample opportunity to grade tests and papers. Our grading scale is as follows:
A - 94-100
B - 85-93.5
C - 77-84.5
D - 70-76.5
F - <70 (the lowest grade we are allowed to give is a 60)
This irks me. Coming from a college standpoint, I'm used to a 60 being the lowest D. This means a child who answers seven out of ten questions right barely crawls away from the tide of underperformance. A child who gets three out of four questions right (75%) still ends up with a D. Four out of five (80%) merits a C, the traditional demarkation for "average" performance and nine out of ten (90%) may be acceptable for how many dentsis recommend Crest over Colgate, but it's not quite enough for that highest echelon of achievement.
Why do different parishes have different grading scales?
Let's take, for example, the two districts I have worked in, St. Helena Parish and St. Tammany Parish. Why does St. Helena require a 94 for an A but St. Tammany only require a 92? Why is a 69 a failing grade in St Helena but a 65 in St Tammany is still passing?
The answer is very simple: the Parish School Board sets the grading scale. But now, out of those two parishes, which performs higher? St. Tammany -- coincidentally, the one with a wider margin. Yes, there are other factors in the mix, and St. Tammany definitely has better schools. The students perform better, the teachers are paid better, everything just seems to work out better.
But why do the better schools get the priviledge of a lower standard? St. Helena is under corrective action from the Louisiana Department of Education, so if we only saw the district lowering standards without considering other school systems, it would look like we're trying to fluff up our scores. So then when we take other districts into consideration, shouldn't our students have the chance to have their performance match that of other students in other districts?
Let me give an example. Two students from different school districts, everything else held constant (e.g. socioeconomic status, extracurricular activities, work ethic, standardized test scores), will have two different grades (and therefore two different transcripts) for scoring the same percentage in their classes. If a St. Helena and a St. Tammany student both got exactly 92% in all of their classes, one transcript would show all A's (4.0) and the other would show all B's (3.0). While this may be just scraping by under St. Tammany's standards, it would still be two points shy under St. Helena's. When you consider the far end of the grading scale, a St. Tammany student can do more poorly and still scrape by with a passing grade than a St. Helena student can.
So both of these students apply for the state's flagship school, Louisiana State University. LSU has a minimum 3.7 high school GPA for general scholarships. St. Tammany's student gets a free ride while St. Helena's will certainly be admitted, but will be moonlighting at Subway because they will get nothing from the school. Ultimately, this achievement will feed back to the school systems, as St. Tammany can account for more money received by their graduates.
All in all, I may be on the losing side of this battle, but it's something I have to fight for.
Since I have started my teaching job at St. Helena Central Middle School, I have had ample opportunity to grade tests and papers. Our grading scale is as follows:
A - 94-100
B - 85-93.5
C - 77-84.5
D - 70-76.5
F - <70 (the lowest grade we are allowed to give is a 60)
This irks me. Coming from a college standpoint, I'm used to a 60 being the lowest D. This means a child who answers seven out of ten questions right barely crawls away from the tide of underperformance. A child who gets three out of four questions right (75%) still ends up with a D. Four out of five (80%) merits a C, the traditional demarkation for "average" performance and nine out of ten (90%) may be acceptable for how many dentsis recommend Crest over Colgate, but it's not quite enough for that highest echelon of achievement.
Why do different parishes have different grading scales?
Let's take, for example, the two districts I have worked in, St. Helena Parish and St. Tammany Parish. Why does St. Helena require a 94 for an A but St. Tammany only require a 92? Why is a 69 a failing grade in St Helena but a 65 in St Tammany is still passing?
The answer is very simple: the Parish School Board sets the grading scale. But now, out of those two parishes, which performs higher? St. Tammany -- coincidentally, the one with a wider margin. Yes, there are other factors in the mix, and St. Tammany definitely has better schools. The students perform better, the teachers are paid better, everything just seems to work out better.
But why do the better schools get the priviledge of a lower standard? St. Helena is under corrective action from the Louisiana Department of Education, so if we only saw the district lowering standards without considering other school systems, it would look like we're trying to fluff up our scores. So then when we take other districts into consideration, shouldn't our students have the chance to have their performance match that of other students in other districts?
Let me give an example. Two students from different school districts, everything else held constant (e.g. socioeconomic status, extracurricular activities, work ethic, standardized test scores), will have two different grades (and therefore two different transcripts) for scoring the same percentage in their classes. If a St. Helena and a St. Tammany student both got exactly 92% in all of their classes, one transcript would show all A's (4.0) and the other would show all B's (3.0). While this may be just scraping by under St. Tammany's standards, it would still be two points shy under St. Helena's. When you consider the far end of the grading scale, a St. Tammany student can do more poorly and still scrape by with a passing grade than a St. Helena student can.
So both of these students apply for the state's flagship school, Louisiana State University. LSU has a minimum 3.7 high school GPA for general scholarships. St. Tammany's student gets a free ride while St. Helena's will certainly be admitted, but will be moonlighting at Subway because they will get nothing from the school. Ultimately, this achievement will feed back to the school systems, as St. Tammany can account for more money received by their graduates.
All in all, I may be on the losing side of this battle, but it's something I have to fight for.