Colorado school district does away with grades

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**Frazzled**

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090210/ts_csm/agradeless

By Amanda Paulson Amanda Paulson – Tue Feb 10, 3:00 am ET
Westminster, Colo. – School districts across the US are trying to improve student performance and low test scores. But few have taken as radical an approach as Adams 50.

For starters, when the elementary and middle-school students come back next fall, there won't be any grade levels – or traditional grades, for that matter. And those are only the most visible changes in a district that, striving to reverse dismal test scores and a soaring dropout rate, is opting for a wholesale reinvention of itself, rather than the incremental reforms usually favored by administrators.

The 10,000-student district in the metropolitan Denver area is at the forefront of a new "standards-based" educational approach that has achieved success in individual schools and in some small districts in Alaska, but has yet to be put to the test on such a large scale in an urban district.

"There was a sense of urgency to attend to what wasn't happening for kids here," says Roberta Selleck, district superintendent, explaining why she decided to go with a drastic approach. "When you see the stats for the whole school district over time, we realized we are disconnecting [from] our kids."

The change that's getting by far the most attention is the decision to do away with traditional grade levels – for kids younger than eighth grade, this first year, though the district plans to phase in the reform through high school a year at a time. Ultimately, there will be 10 multiage levels, rather than 12 grades, and students might be in different levels depending on the subject. They'll move up only as they demonstrate mastery of the material.

But Dr. Selleck and others are quick to emphasize that that's only one piece of a radically different, more student-centered, approach to learning – and that it's not the same as tracking, the currently out-of-favor system of grouping students by ability.

Students help craft own lesson plans
The district is training teachers to involve students in the lesson plan in a far greater way than before – the students articulate their goals and develop things such as a code of conduct as a classroom. And when children fall short of understanding the material, they keep working at it. The only "acceptable" score to move on to the next lesson is the equivalent of a "B" in normal grading – hopefully showing proficiency and giving kids a better foundation as they move on to more advanced concepts. Advocates sometimes describe it as flipping the traditional system around so that time, rather than mastery of material, is the variable.

While the idea of "standards-based education," as it's often known, has been around for a while, the only public district where it's been tried for any length of time is in Alaska, where the Chugach district – whose 250 students are scattered over 22,000 square miles – went from the lowest performing district in the state to Alaska's highest-performing quartile in five years in the 1990s, a shift the former superintendent, Richard DeLorenzo, attributes to the new philosophy.

"We saw how radical a reinvention needs to happen," says Mr. DeLorenzo, who is serving as a consultant to Adams 50 and is now the founder of the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition, which is seeking to spread the model.

In Adams 50, the challenges aren't quite so severe as they were in Chugach, which had only had one college graduate come out of its schools in the 20 years before DeLorenzo implemented the reforms. But the district, which has a 58 percent graduation rate, has been on an academic watch list for several years now, and has seen a drastically shifting student population in which percentages of minorities, non-English speakers, and low-income kids have shot up.

Selleck decided the district needed a massive transformation, and got the OK from the state. This year, the district is beginning to phase in the changes before all the schools switch to the new, gradeless system next year. One elementary school is serving as a pilot program, and many of the 300 or so teachers who have undergone training from DeLorenzo are implementing a modified approach in their classrooms – albeit still in traditional grade levels.

In Nikolaus Namba's first-grade classroom, that means that his students have worked over the year to create – and refine – a classroom code of conduct (which includes items such as "don't hit people" and "we will not play with hair" written in childish handwriting on Post-it notes mounted in the front of the class) and goals of the week. Students use what Mr. Namba calls "power voting" with the Post-its to get a voice in these and other classroom decisions – hoping, ultimately, to give them a greater sense of independence and ownership of their learning.

Namba says it's been somewhat tough to implement the new approach halfway – still in a traditional first-grade classroom with all ability levels and learning speeds mixed in – but he says that even a few months into the year, he's come to appreciate it.

"We have discussions about what is a good student, and what does a good teacher look like," he says, noting that it's easier now to talk to students about work that comes up short, for instance, of where they thought they were, and says that everyone is aware of each specific thing they need to learn.

On one recent day, that included a quiz on telling time. Namba has the student who received the only perfect score help some of the others. "Cristian knows how to tell time," he says. "He's available to help others."

Next year, Namba hopes to really dive into the reforms, and is looking forward to being able to work with students all at a similar level. "The goal is that they'll accomplish things faster," he says. Moving up without truly understanding what they learn "is what creates the cracks in the foundation later on."

But if Namba and other teachers who have bought into the idea in a big way have high hopes for the future, there are also significant complications.

Scheduling is a big one. It's also unclear what will happen if large numbers of kids arrive in high school still unable to demonstrate proficiency in certain subjects, like math, and a bottleneck gets created. Since no student can move forward without a "B" equivalent, it's also essentially impossible for students to have lower than a 3.0 GPA, which could be a challenge to explain to colleges.

'Video-game' approach to grade levels
Still, Selleck says most parents she talks to are enthusiastic, and the district is doing an enormous amount of outreach and education to explain the changes to them. (She often uses a video game analogy: Students are engaged, take as much or as little time as they need to at each level, and can't move on to the next level until they've mastered the one before it).

Arisbeth, an articulate fifth-grader at F.M. Day school whose teacher is already incorporating some of the reforms, says she's looking forward to the changes. "You'll be working with other kids where you're working on the same thing," she explains. Already, she adds, "Our voices are being heard more."

**malfred**

I just roll a d20 in class to get their overall percentile.

1-19 ... 60% Passing
Natural 20... re-roll to make sure it's not a fluke

**Frazzled**

malfred wrote:
If they don't offer me their socks as a bribe
I just roll a d20 in class to get their overall percentile.

1-19 ... 60% Passing
Natural 20... re-roll to make sure it's not a fluke

Fixed your typo.

**malfred**

Nah. With sock bribes, I adjust the 20 range to 19-20 with a re-roll.

**FearPeteySodes**

Damn hippies...

**gorgon**

So basically, throw age mostly out the window. Students who master the material quickly get to move on and reach the next level, where they'll presumably be more challenged. Students who don't master the material will stay until they learn it, and presumably receive more attention since the more advanced students will have been promoted out.

This isn't a bad idea.

My son's daycare/preschool isn't terribly different. The different classes/rooms relate to a general age (pre-toddler, toddler, etc.). But when a kid's ready for the next room (meeting a specific list of accomplishments/requirements), away they go. That way they aren't bored, stay challenged, and are around others of the same or slightly better skill set.

I can see how the hippie comments come in. But I'll say this -- I think it's been beneficial for my son. The more advanced kids provide an example and give him something to shoot for. Plus, he doesn't get a lot of time to sit around thinking he's the smartest kid in the room. If that happens, he graduates to the next room and starts over again.

And I think there are some pretty good life lessons of a decidedly non-hippie nature in there.

**Frazzled**

What motivates them to succeed? Its a group thing so everyone gets held back by the lowest common mouthbreather. Yep recipe for success there.

**usernamesareannoying**

i saw this idea awhile back.
one of the most interesting questions was what happens when you get to a point in your life like say college where they want to know how your grades were in school?
it just seems like it wont mesh until everyone is on board with the new system.

**Kilkrazy**

Frazzled wrote:What motivates them to succeed? Its a group thing so everyone gets held back by the lowest common mouthbreather. Yep recipe for success there.

The Japanese operate a similar system in primary school. It works to socialise the children to group norms.

As they progress to higher levels, the system becomes much more about rote-learning to pass 'tick the box' exams. Those who pass with th ehihgest scores, and have the richest parents, go to the best universities and get the best government and big corporation jobs.

That is how the Japanese have achieved one of the world's highest standards of living, lowest crime, longest life, best scores in maths, worst scores in foreign languages, and an economy that roared through the 60s to 80s and has been stagnant since the early 90s, leading to increasing poverty, unemployment, plummeting birthrate and other social ills.

Make of it what you will.

There is no one best way to educate children, because all children aren't identical and they won't grow up into identical jobs.

**Anung Un Rama**

There is no one best way to educate children, because all children aren't identical and they won't grow up into identical jobs.

Can that sentence please be written in large letters on every classroom's wall in the whole "civilised" word.

**gorgon**

Frazzled wrote:What motivates them to succeed? Its a group thing so everyone gets held back by the lowest common mouthbreather. Yep recipe for success there.

There's not a lot of difference between grades and standards, really. Standards are just pass/fail grades. The child has either achieved mastery of the material based on a given set of criteria or they haven't.

So a child in a class gets an "A" while another receives a "C". What's the *actual* reward for the child with the "A"? They get to sit there bored while the teacher spends their time with the "C" level student, stuck in the same class because they're the same age? Under this system, if you're aceing the material, you leave that class behind and move on to be with students of a similar ability level.

I think it's actually far better at handling the problem of children being held back by the slowest student than the traditional grade level system. Now, I tend to think this would operate much better for the elementary levels than at the high school levels, since high schools tend to be stratified by student ability anyway. And I understand the argument for letter grades mattering at the high school level. But before then, letter grades really don't matter. A focus on just learning the things that are the building blocks for what they'll learn in high school and beyond has some merit.

Of course it's mostly just moving deck chairs around and likely creating other problems. That doesn't mean there aren't some interesting ideas in there.

**Frazzled**

gorgon wrote:

So a child in a class gets an "A" while another receives a "C". What's the *actual* reward for the child with the "A"?

Remember they are talking about running that through high school.

1. Get into a good college
2. Get scholarships to pay for college.

Its an old bureaucratic tactic. If you can't succeed in fixing a problem (poor grades) you redefine the problem. Voila, instant success.

**sebster**

I like the underlying ideas of this system, and was in favour of them when they started to brought in here in Western Australia. But the actual execution has been completely disastrous.

First up, parents don’t understand and don’t want to understand what ‘adequate learning to the desired level means’. They want an A-F grade like they used to get, and to be told if their kid is well behaved. Maybe the parents are being a little obstinate, but that’s what they’re like, and the education system needs to allow for that.

The bigger problem is that the strength of the system, advancing kids as they master the material or holding them back as they fail, can’t be implemented. It is very difficult to get a kid held back a grade, especially if he might only be weak in one area. Some of these concerns are political, parent and bureaucratic interests, but plenty are legitimate concerns built around socialisation and development. Then there’s infrastructure issues, as schools are built to have a steady number of kids flowing through the grades each year, and if you start holding kids back in tough areas you are likely to overload certain parts of the system.

What you end up with is reports saying little Billy made minimal progress in reading and comprehension and is only at a K-6 level, but that he’s moving up a grade.

**Black Blow Fly**

I Appluad them. Grading systems are archaic.

G

**Typeline**

Frazzled wrote:
1. Get into a good college
2. Get scholarships to pay for college.

Its an old bureaucratic tactic. If you can't succeed in fixing a problem (poor grades) you redefine the problem. Voila, instant success.

The school will still know how the student actually performed. They can send a record of the grades they made and what grades they finally made to succeed in any given level.

sebster wrote:
What you end up with is reports saying little Billy made minimal progress in reading and comprehension and is only at a K-6 level, but that he’s moving up a grade.

That sounds like little Billy might have a learning disability like dyslexia. That's when he is tested and may be moved to a more specialised teacher. The school system in this case though will probably become more maleable in terms of people being held back and how teachers handle this kind of ebb and flow of students in and out of their class rooms.

But ultimately you might just have a kind of sifting effect. You can tell who is naturally intelligent at the higher levels because they are the youngest and who is naturally slow at the bottom because of how old they are. It might lead to a system where after a certain period of time you are deemed developmentally slowed and discharged form the system. This might work well with the mentally handicapped though. I have no idea why someone who can't even fathom themselves a human being has to sit in their wheelchair through 6 or 7 years of highschool until they are discharged because they are 21. Although it probably provides a nice day care for the parents.

**sebster**

Typeline wrote:That sounds like little Billy might have a learning disability like dyslexia. That's when he is tested and may be moved to a more specialised teacher. The school system in this case though will probably become more maleable in terms of people being held back and how teachers handle this kind of ebb and flow of students in and out of their class rooms.

Yeah, and schools have gotten a lot better at identifying learning disabilities like dyslexia/ Still a long way to go but it’s better than in the past.

But ultimately you might just have a kind of sifting effect. You can tell who is naturally intelligent at the higher levels because they are the youngest and who is naturally slow at the bottom because of how old they are. It might lead to a system where after a certain period of time you are deemed developmentally slowed and discharged form the system. This might work well with the mentally handicapped though. I have no idea why someone who can't even fathom themselves a human being has to sit in their wheelchair through 6 or 7 years of highschool until they are discharged because they are 21. Although it probably provides a nice day care for the parents.

The problem with kids being held back or advanced is that development isn’t just about how well you understand Geography or French. Kids develop their social skills as well, and they often develop at a different rate to academic progress.

I won’t beat around the bush, I was a bright kid. I generally had concepts down pat before the teacher had finished the first lesson, and then I sat there bored for the rest of the week as the concept was repeated again and again for other kids to get it. Under the system people are talking about here I could have been taken up a level. But I was also a pretty immature kid, and if I’d been accelerated from year 2 to year 3 or similar, I would have been left to interact with kids who were well beyond my level of social interaction. It would have been disastrous.

I’m not saying that kids shouldn’t be taken up a level. A lot of kids should be, and it isn’t always the ones that are excelling in class… often kids are at a higher level of socialisation and this leads to them failing to fit in, and that leads to them struggling in school. I’m just saying it’s complicated, and the ‘strength’ of the proposed system, where kids are taught at their current level, isn’t as simple to implement as is often assumed.

**99MDeery**

I can understand what you are saying Sebster, however you must also factor in that it won't be a trickle of kids moving up into the next "academic level" their will be quite a few so kids theoretically will be able to interact with their social groups at their current social level, they will be just be challenged more academically.

Its not a personal attack on your viewpoint, I just think that when you add in that its more beneficial for a child to be challenged at school as it means they won't become bored and their is always a healthy competition as well, something to aim for.

**sebster**

99MDeery wrote:I can understand what you are saying Sebster, however you must also factor in that it won't be a trickle of kids moving up into the next "academic level" their will be quite a few so kids theoretically will be able to interact with their social groups at their current social level, they will be just be challenged more academically.

Its not a personal attack on your viewpoint, I just think that when you add in that its more beneficial for a child to be challenged at school as it means they won't become bored and their is always a healthy competition as well, something to aim for.

And I'm saying it is a lot harder to implement than people realise. And that from the implementation I've seen here in WA, this leads to a default state of 'shunt the kids forward one grade every year, but keep on printing report cards no-one understands'.

I like the idea of more flexible class structures and reports based on capability, I just think people have to realise how hard it is to acheive.

**malfred**

Anung Un Rama wrote:
There is no one best way to educate children, because all children aren't identical and they won't grow up into identical jobs.

Can that sentence please be written in large letters on every classroom's wall in the whole "civilised" word.

Would it be ironic to standardize non standardization?

**warpcrafter**

Teachers and other school staff have gotten a lot more educated themselves since I was in school. During first and second grade, I was forced to wear coke-bottle glasses that gave me a headache and most likely actually damaged my eyesight, because I was and still am dyslexic. I never even knew that condition existed until I was well out of high school. I also had to suffer through speech therapy with kids who actually did have speech disabilities, but I was not one of them. The reason they thought I had a speech difficulty boiled down to the fact that my mother was born and raised in Maine and I was primarily raised by my mother and grandmother and had a pronounced nor'easter accent, which I can still slip into with little effort. I am sure that if I had not been forced to deal with all that crap, my grades would have been a lot better. Perhaps if teachers now can deal with actually teaching a group of kids who are at the same level without constant distractions, the kids will learn faster and with better retention that a random mass of assorted kids.

**Zip Napalm**

"more student-centered, approach to learning"

I suppose this is one way to get rid of the union.

**Black Blow Fly**

If you don't use grades to measure success at learning then what are the alternatives. When I was in the public school system I saw my share of fellow students who were very intelligent but failed to make good grades for whatever reason. I think a great alternative to grades is the use of projects. When I went to university the college of architecture did not use any grades for the first year. Students were given projects to complete instead and interacted with their professors outside of class to learn more about how to successfully complete their projects. The college of architecture had an excellent system in place and was/is top ranked. Subjects such as software are also a good environment for using projects. I am an engineer and while you can easily use projects to teach this subject matter much more emphasis unfortunately was placed on your grades. There are some universities that have one final at the end of the semester to meauee your success... many students goof off right up until the end then cram. Needless to say there is a huge dropoff after the first couple of semesters in terms of students that completely fail and dropout.

I have never liked grades. If you are in a very large class (100+ students) there is a good possibility that the professor will use multiple choice tests. Here is one set of possible answers I was once saw posed for a query:

1) +1
2) -1
3) +10
4) -10

No chance at all for partial credit and a big chance that you will select the wrong answer if your sign is wrong or if you are off by one order of magnitude.

When I took these types of test and did not prepare well I would simply marked down the same choice for every query and I could always beat the curve. I learned nothing and passed the class. This is a total failure on the part of the academic institution who implements these types of tests. There are too many students in the class to stimulate interaction with the professor and by using my method or obtaining prior copies of tests proxies by the same professor for the same course a student could acheive a high mark.

When you take a national placement exam to gain a birth into a top ranked school generally you can retake the exam over the course of your final year in public school. Smart students realize that there are strategies for taking thee types of tests. For example work all the problems you feel comfortable with first then go back and finish what you can for the hard ones.

As an example here is a classic query:

Water is to fire as war is to:

A) paper
B) rock
C) peace
D) music

Here is another:

Johnny has two brothers, one of which is older and the other is younger. The oldest will be eligible to join the armed forces in less than three years and the youngest has started kindergarden. Which of the following statements is true about Johnny:

A) Johnny is in high school.
B) Johnny is eligible to join the armed forces within the next six years.
C) Johnny can take driver's education.
D) None of the above.
E) All of the above.

Good luck with that. Oh and don't spend more than 30 seconds on any question if you want a passing grade.

G

**Frazzled**

Grades determine if you get a scholarship. Grades determine if you get into a good school if you don't have connections.

**dogma**

Frazzled wrote:Grades determine if you get a scholarship. Grades determine if you get into a good school if you don't have connections.

That's not completely true. I had average grades and got into one of the best liberal arts schools in the country, as well as one of the top research universities. I also collected more than my fair share of scholarships. Far more, actually, than my high school classmates whose grades were much better than mine. I also know that some of those students were turned away from institutions that were less prestigious than the ones that accepted me. In most instances having a superlative gpa doesn't seem to matter. The real issue is whether or not your gpa is good enough for the institution in question. And, in most cases, that standard of 'good enough' is a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. Once you have that, and the vast majority of my high school classmates had that, the questions become:
Can you write?
Can you read?
Can you do math?
Colleges develop answers to these questions through admissions essays, standardized testing, and, to a lesser extent, recommendations. Though, increasingly, the SAT/ACT is being phased out as a true barometer of intelligence. Something that I find strange, as the test scores seem to be fairly indicative of general academic ability (though obviously there are exceptions to this).

Green Blow Fly wrote:
When you take a national placement exam to gain a birth into a top ranked school generally you can retake the exam over the course of your final year in public school. Smart students realize that there are strategies for taking thee types of tests. For example work all the problems you feel comfortable with first then go back and finish what you can for the hard ones.

Computerized testing has largely done away with that strategy as you can't skip over questions. I don't know about the SAT/ACT anymore, but the GRE, LSAT, and other graduate levels tests are almost entirely computerized. You can take paper tests, but they are more expensive, harder to schedule, and less flexible in terms of potential conflicts.

**Frazzled**

Then how did you get in Dogma?

Seriously, thats not an attack.

**dogma**

Frazzled wrote:Then how did you get in Dogma?

Seriously, thats not an attack.

I did really, really well on my standardized tests, and put a good chunk of time into my entrance essays.

**Polonius**

Yeah, in my experience most top colleges know that high school grades dont' really mean much. There is huge disparity in school districts, grading curves, and resources. Even in students, for every slacker that just hated high school there is an over achiever that got good grades by working hard. The problem is, those people can't step it up a gear in college.

the real thing is this: how many truly successful valedictorians have you met?

**Corey85**

oddly enough my wife, she went to UW Madison and got a degree in chemistry education. She got a job right out of college and makes twice as much as me. She also has rocking health insurance. All my degree got me was my current factory job where I make mattress for 10 hours at a crack.

**Kilkrazy**

Polonius wrote:Yeah, in my experience most top colleges know that high school grades dont' really mean much. There is huge disparity in school districts, grading curves, and resources. Even in students, for every slacker that just hated high school there is an over achiever that got good grades by working hard. The problem is, those people can't step it up a gear in college.

the real thing is this: how many truly successful valedictorians have you met?

A similar effect in the UK is where middle-class parents push their children and send them to schools where they get a lot of support and direction. Once the children get to university, they are on their own and tend to get less good results than the working-class children who make it to university.

Some universities recognise this and accept working-class students with lower A-level grades than middle-class.

The shame of it is that many working-class children don't get the chance to compete even on that level. The research shows that children from working-class families start to lose educational headway by the age of three.

If society wants to get the full potential out of all its members, there should be more chances in education not to force all children through a particular filter.