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Grading and Evaluation
The practices and policies in grading and evaluation reflected of attitudes and be-
liefs about individual difference in ability among students. At Parks Elementary,
the local school board and principal had adopted a policy of leniency in grading
and evaluation. The conflict generated over grading policy between teachers and
administrators was evident during our interviews and observations. One teacher
was protesting what she perceived as the principal’s advocacy for lenient grading
by giving the same grades she would have given prior to the installation of the
new school board and principal. She was worried that it might get her fired, but
she could not bring herself to give grades that she believed were undeserved.
The fears of this teacher about her job were not unfounded. The principal clearly
was upset with the grading practices of teachers at her school.
I look at all the report cards because I want to know how people (the teach-
ers) come up with grades, and I want to make sure that they (the teachers)
don’t call the kids scumbags or something.
In contrast, several parents as well as teachers expressed outrage over the lenient
grading policy adopted by schools such as King and Parks. For example, the
mother of a King student made the following comment about the school’s grading
and evaluation policy:
Our school is trying to make everyone feel successful, so they make it so that
everyone can get a star. But the kids don’t feel good about that. They know
that they aren’t doing anything. So you are getting a lot of this psychobabble
from the school about how tender these sixth, seventh and eighth grades are.
The following example illustrated the depth of feeling concerning grading prac-
tices. Teachers at Parks Elementary reported being frustrated by grading, particu-
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larly when students were performing poorly. A teacher described the implementa-
tion of the school’s policies:
I assess them based on homework, and I’ve gotten in trouble for that, because
they said that the students cannot control that, that they can’t do it at home
because their home isn’t stable. So now I don’t count it at all. One time we
had a teacher who gave the kids the grades they deserved. Here, the principal
has to look at your grade book and report card. So the teacher submitted hers,
and she had all her information backed up, that these kids deserved these
grades. The principal made her go back on the day of the report card pick-
up and white out these grades and change them. They were very low grades.
You’ll get reprimanded if you give really low grades, even if the kids deserve
them, if the principal feels that they’re . . . . This school is about helping
their self-esteem. It don’t matter if a kid is screaming and cursing in class, or
hitting the teacher, that’s not important. We don’t want to hurt their self-es-
teem by suspending them. I mean there is nothing wrong with building self-
esteem, but they’re also not learning responsibility.
Parks Elementary was not unusual in its lenient grading policy. The local school
board and administration at King Junior High School in Metro City also favored
a lenient approach. In order to de-emphasize grades, the administration at King
forbid the posting of an honor roll.
There is no honor roll at King, because they [the administration] are afraid that
kids will not feel good about themselves. They don’t want good children to
stand out. (King mother)
The schoolwide policy also was apparent at the classroom level in the grading
practices of individual teachers. During an observation of the eighth-grade math
class for advanced students at King Junior High School, the teacher told the entire
class:
I am happy to report that 17 out of 25 students are running an A-plus average.
Good job! I think more of you can get A-pluses.
This teacher made it possible for students to receive these grades by allowing
them to take exams with open books and notes and to resubmit assignments until
they answered everything correctly and received the top score of four.
In sum, grading and evaluation were central concerns of parents and teachers
with whom we spoke. Some were advocates of lenient grading or grading less fo-
cused on test scores, while others argued for tougher standards in grading.
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