Attribution:

Alex Noroyan is a 6th and 7th grade Social Studies Teacher in the Metro Detroit Area. He holds
a Bachelors degree in Social Studies Secondary Education, a Masters degree in Educational
Leadership with a concentration in K-12 Administration, and is currently pursuing an Education
Specialist degree in Educational Leadership.

Assessing students in schools is currently a very controversial issue. Many teachers still
prefer traditional grading methods where a letter grade is associated with how the student
performed in their class. Students get a grade of an A-F based on their academic performance.
If a student earns an A, they are high achieving, while an F is considered failing. If the student
turns their homework in late, they get points taken off. If they do poorly on an assignment, they
get points taken off. If they fail a quiz or a test, there is no retake available. Along with this,
teachers may give fluff grades such as extra credit to students for bringing in kleenex boxes.
At the end of the quarter, the teacher takes the total amount of points the student
earned and divides it by the total amount of points available, spitting out the student's final
grade. Many ask, Is this traditional grading method the best way to actually assess our
students? After dissecting this question for many months, the answer is simple Absolutely
Not! This assessment style doesnt accurately reflect how much a student has learned!
This old, outdated assessment technique does not measure student achievement or
student growth. It doesnt accurately depict how much a student has learned. If a student fails a
test, their grade is in trouble. If they get a 50% on a test, they will need to get 100% on the next
test to average out to just a C. If a student didn't understand a concept on the day of the test,
but can prove they mastered the concepts later, why should their grade suffer? Shouldnt they
be able to show the teacher at a later date that they now understand those concepts? Doesnt
every student learn at a different rate?
To help alleviate these problems, we need to shift our grading practices to a standards
based grading system. This type of grading system allows for the teacher to grade their
students on their own academic growth, not necessarily comparing them to their peers. If a
student grows, shouldn't they be rewarded? Should a student that is severely below grade level
fail even if they've grown tremendously over the course of the year? Standards based grading
takes this into account.
Along with assessing students based on standards, it is also important to give students
the ability to work on project based learning opportunities. With this type of learning, students
become responsible for their own growth with hands on projects, and assignments. Instead of
just spitting back information that the teacher wants to you memorize, students must use higher
level thinking skills to solve problems and apply real life application to their learning. Project
Based Learning has been implemented in Finland for years. As a result, Finland has scored out
as the top educational system in the world. They achieved this level of success by scraping the
traditional educational method many years ago, and by adopting a project based learning
model. When comparing Finlands educational model to that of the United States, Finland
doesnt believe in high stakes standardized testing for their students. With that being said, they
still have to take the Programme for International Student Assessment test, where the students
in Finland recorded the highest scores in the world.
 Implementing a standards based grading system in a district is not an easy task. Many
teachers are skeptical to change the way that they assess their students. A wholesale change
like this must come from the top down. The district and school administration must provide their
staff with proper professional development. In these PD sessions, administrators must show
their staff data and statistics that prove that assessing students the old fashioned way is no
longer the best practice. Teachers will be much more likely to adopt a new policy if they know
what they are doing is best for kids. Along with this, if you want teacher buy in, it is also
important to provide them with proper professional development on the best way to create new
assessments and modify units to fit this new grading system.