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Study critiques schools over subjective grading — latimes.com
Before reading this article on grading, determine what final grade you would give a student who made the following grades on assignments of equal importance.
C, C, MA (Missing Assignment), D, C, B, MA, MA, B, A
In a study of over 10,000 educators, Douglass Reeves discovered that teachers would have given this student a final grade anywhere between A-F. Clearly, the study exhibits how different teachers are in grading students. Do we give students extra time to complete missing assignments or do we assign a zero and move on? Do we include the student's attendance record and work habits in the final grade or do we rely solely on the grades? Do we raise a student's final average if his work shows marked improvement during the semester?
Teachers grapple over such questions. Whereas Reeves sees the discrepancies in these grades as a failure of teachers to grade consistently, I would suggest that teachers grade differently based on the age of students, the course, the level of the course (honors, college-prep, etc,.), and, yes, even the students themselves. With a class of reluctant readers, most teachers will give students every possible opportunity to turn in late work because we are trying to help them develop lifelong reading skills. For students who are avowed procrastinators, sometimes we have to "lay down the law" and hold them to stated due dates because developing punctuality skills may be just as important as learning academic skills. Regardless of stated rules regarding submission of assignments and chances to re-do assignments, most teachers will always provide extra chances and extra days to complete the assignment to students who are sick or who are experiencing family problems.
Inconsistency in grading is not always wrong.
Reeves states that grading regimes that work "offer accurate, precise and timely
feedback that is aimed at helping students improve — not penalizing
them — and is only one type of response." I agree wholeheartedly. We must explain to students before they complete work how they will be graded and what we will do if they are late with an assignment or fail to complete the assignment. Teachers who teach the same course within a school must be consistent in their grading or they will experience legitimate and vociferous complaints from students and parents.
However, teachers are human. As long as individual teachers assign grades, absolute consistency in grading is impossible.
