What's Going On About Grading

Grading and grades ... Students, parents, teachers and principals spend much time talking about grades and what they mean.  What is the real purpose of a grade?  What evidence supports a grade? What motivates an individual to make good grades?

Those questions and more were why C-FB ISD formed a Superintendent's Task Force on Grading Procedures last school year.  The task force included teachers and administrators from elementary, middle and high schools plus central office instructional team members.  They spent more than one year studying experts in the field of grading and assessment.  During that time, the task force also obtained feedback from other staff, parents and students as they developed new grading procedures.

One reason the district is changing current assessment practices relates to Senate Bill 2033.  This state law allows a student a reasonable opportunity to make up or redo a class assignment or examination for which the student received a failing grade. The law applies to an individual student and not a percentage of the students as our current procedures require.  Because of this, we don't believe our procedures meet the spirit of the law, and the district needs to change.  And, in our new procedures those changes have been made.  We also believe that these changes will benefit all students and their learning. 

A grade is all about learning. We want to determine if the student understands the state-required standards and the district curriculum required for that grade level or course.  Basically, we are measuring student achievement.

The Task Force has developed a draft of district procedures that will be used by the five pilot campuses for the 2011-2012 school year.  The campuses will use the procedures to determine if the changes move their student achievement forward.  Their work will help us make improvements in the procedures, and then district-wide implementation is planned for 2012-13.

The five piloting campuses are:

• R. L. Turner High School
• Davis Elementary School
• Vivian Field Middle School
• Rosemeade Elementary School
• Early College High School

The principals and our Educational Services Division have held parent meetings on the five piloting campuses.  We believe that the grading procedures are in tune with our district goal: high achievement for all students. 

In an article in the November 2009 issue of Educational Leadership, social studies teacher Tony Winger wrote the article, "Grading What Matters."  Two sentences from his article stand out. They are:  "No matter how lofty our espoused education goals, our grading practices reveal what we truly value. ... If higher-order thinking matters most, then that is what our grades must assess, record, report, and reward."

We in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch School District are always looking for ways to improve the educational quality found in our classrooms.  We believe that students must understand what they are learning in school because they need to re-connect and apply it to real-life situations.  C-FB ISD's grading procedures must assess a student's learning and his real understanding of the content.

To read the draft grading procedures, click here: C-FB ISD Grading Procedures