of assessment ultimately ends up in a discussion of grading. As its title indicates, Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading focuses on grading as well as on formative assessment. Not only are teachers responsible for evaluating a student’s level of knowledge or skill at one point in time through classroom assessments, they are also responsible for translating all of the information from assessments into an overall evaluation of a student’s performance over some fixed period of time (usually a quarter, trimester, or semester). This overall evaluation is in the form of some type of overall grade commonly referred to as an “omnibus grade.” Unfortunately, grades add a whole new layer of error to the assessment process.
Brookhart (2004) discussed the difficulties associated with grading:
Grades have been used to serve three general purposes simultaneously: ranking (for sorting students into those eligible for higher education and those not eligible); reporting results (accounting to parents the degree to which students learned the lessons prescribed for them); and contributing to learning (providing feedback and motivating students). (p. 23)
While all three purposes are valid, they provide very different perspectives on student achievement.
Since the teachers in many schools and districts have not agreed on any one grading philosophy, they are forced to design their own systems. To illustrate, consider the following grading criteria Thomas Guskey (2009, p. 17) listed as elements frequently included in teachers’ grading practices:
• Major exams or compositions
• Class quizzes
• Reports or projects
• Student portfolios
• Exhibits of students’ work
• Laboratory projects
• Students’ notebooks or journals
• Classroom observations
• Oral presentations
• Homework completion
• Homework quality
• Class participation
• Work habits and neatness
• Effort
• Attendance
• Punctuality of assignments
• Class behavior or attitude
• Progress made
He made the point that because of their different philosophies, different teachers rely on different combinations of these elements to construct an overall grade. For example, one teacher might include major exams, quizzes, class participation, and punctuality of assignments in his or her grading policy while another teacher teaching exactly the same course might include major exams, reports, effort, and attendance. Consequently, the grading schemes for the same course taught by two different teachers might be so different that grades are not comparable from teacher to teacher. In effect, individual teachers’ grades are interpretable only in the context of the grading scheme constructed by that specific teacher.
Norm-Referenced Grading
One approach to grading that has been used over the years is to report how students are performing in relation to one another. This might be called norm-referenced grading. In his doctoral dissertation, Kenneth Haponstall (2009) pointed out that this might have been the impetus for what was referred to as the “grading system” in the mid-nineteenth century, whereby students were grouped by level of knowledge and skill as well as by age so that teachers might provide more focused instruction to these homogeneous groups. He explained that James Baldwin (1884, in Haponstall, 2009) saw problems with the system even then, pointing out that no standard criteria about how students were “graded” or by whom had been established. The decision was subjective and left to anyone from the superintendent to the school secretary or a member of the board of education.
While few, if any, grading schemes currently in place use a strict norm-referenced approach, vestiges of it can be found in the practices of class rankings and grading on a curve.
Class Rankings
Class rankings are related to the concept of norm-referenced grading. Haponstall pointed out that “with districts using differing measures, including grade weighting for advanced placement classes, grade improvement for special education classes, [and] credit recovery for failed courses, there seems to be no standard method for schools to demonstrate those students who are showing academic excellence” (p. 22).
Lawrence Cross and Robert Frary (1999) noted that even though “grading is a hodgepodge of attitude, effort, and achievement at the middle and high school levels, colleges not only accept the grade point and class ranking in determining enrollment, but many are starting to use these measures exclusively” (as cited in Haponstall, 2009, p. 22). The admissions policies of many colleges exacerbate the practice of class ranking. To illustrate, David Lang (2007) pointed out that states such as California, Florida, and Texas guarantee a certain top percentage of each graduating class admission to a state school. This renders class ranks a high-stakes endeavor, particularly for those ranked too low for a guarantee of admission to a state school (as cited in Haponstall, 2009).
Grading on the Curve
When a teacher grades on the curve, he or she gives the highest grade to the student who performed best on an assessment and then gives every other student a grade by ranking his or her performance accordingly. This system essentially grades students in relation to one another. Thus, it has a basis in norm-referencing. Proponents for grading on the curve maintain that it is fair and equitable because most classes will have a normal distribution of achievement scores in any given subject area (for a discussion, see Brookhart, 2004).
Thomas Guskey (2009), however, maintained that “grading ‘on the curve’ communicates nothing about what students have learned or are able to do” (p. 11). Instead of telling teachers what a student has learned, it simply reports how much or how little he or she learned in relation to his or her fellow students. He also pointed to research by Benjamin Bloom (Bloom, 1976; Bloom, Madaus, & Hastings, 1981) indicating that student achievement does not necessarily follow a normal distribution when teachers exhibit a high level of instructional acumen. Grading students only in relation to one another, therefore, may provide information about a student’s rank in class, but it does not speak to the student’s academic achievement.
Self-Referenced Grading
Self-referenced grading occurs in relation to one’s own past performances. Proponents say that it may reduce competition in classrooms and serve to motivate students (for a discussion, see Brookhart & Nitko, 2007). On first glance, this kind of grading seems to make intuitive sense: the reference point for each student is his or her personal growth and the extent of active engagement in his or her own learning. But Brookhart and Nitko pointed out that this form of grading tends to be used primarily with low-ability students, and while heavily weighting factors such as effort, behavior, attitude, and participation might seem positive, this emphasis is one of the major criticisms of this form of grading. Mixing nonacademic competencies with academic competencies contaminates the meaning of a grade.
Standards-Based Grading
Grading that references
