Changing the way Outlaws are graded

"Educational research says if you want to make one major change that will have the greatest impact in the overall educational environment, change the grading system," says Joe Hosang, Sisters School District Curriculum Director and principal at Sisters High School.

Hosang will present a symposium on grading practices in the SHS auditorium, Wednesday, October 10 at 6 p.m. This is a district-wide grading practices initiative; parents from the elementary, middle school and high school, as well as any community member interested in the subject are encouraged to attend.

Grading is, or is supposed to be able, to help students to learn. Assessments are needed that tell the instructor and the parents how far along the students are in gaining mastery, as opposed to telling - after the fact - how well the student did.

"The purpose of a report card is to describe students' learning progress based on our schools' expectations (standards). It is intended to inform us about learning needs and to guide decisions," said Hosang.

Public education's current grading system was developed at Yale over 100 years ago.

"Current grading practices are dreadfully misaligned with current reforms in teaching and learning," said Hosang. "Students currently play "educational lottery' and are involved in a hodgepodge grading system. Our society currently values the grades over learning."

The process of changing the district's approach to grading is complicated and will take time.

"The first step is to clarify the essential learning standards," said Hosang. "What do students need to know or be able to do (to be able to move to) the next level?"

Hosang said, "The initiative this year is to separate academic performance from non-academic performance. We will be calling the non-academic performance "work habits.' Behavior is certainly important, and we don't want to dismiss that.

"In the past, when parents would say, "What does my child need to do to get a better grade?', the reply was "They need to work harder,' or "they can't talk so much in class.' That can't be acceptable any more," said Hosang.

"What we want to able to do is to tell students and the parents the specific area where the student is deficient. We also need that information for our own knowledge to help for interventions."