STANDARDS BASED GRADING

Introductions Fort Osage High School

Dr. Jason Snodgrass, High School Principal De Soto School District

Dr. Stacie Stryhal, Director of CurriculumDan Hoehn, High School PrincipalCooper Tucker, Junior High Principal

Marquette High SchoolDr. Jennifer Sebold, Assistant High School Principal

Our Goal Overview of standards

based grading Implementation within our

districts Answer Questions

Grading History in Fort Osage District of 5000 students outside Kansas City

(Independence, MO) Eleven schools serve K-12 students One high school serving 1450 students Standards-based grading in Fort Osage

began in 2001 with the purchase of new grade book program (Excelsior/Pinnacle-Global Scholar).

Implemented over 5 years at all grade levels Last three years focused on refining the

philosophy and practices of the system

Principle One Success is defined by what students learn rather than

what teachers teach. Effective Practices: Give students additional opportunities to complete

assignments, quizzes, tests and replace grades with updated information. Final grade should reflect final learning.

Make introductory activities in a unit worth fewer points than culminating assignments and assessments that occur after significant instruction has taken place.

Remember that it’s okay not to record everything students do in the gradebook. Students can learn and improve from feedback and additional practice, without assignments being recorded.

Do not award extra credit, particularly for things that are not directly related to the learning goals.

Principle TwoEnsuring mastery of the most important standards is a

powerful way to improve achievement.Effective Practices: Work closely with your grade level and department

team to discuss and determine which standards are most important, and how to ensure student learning of those standards.

Consider rubric scoring in your classroom to make grading easier and more meaningful.

Provide reteaching opportunities for key standards for students who haven’t mastered them. Consider requiring students to submit additional practice to show increased learning before they are allowed to retake an assessment.

Principle Three Students will be more successful if they understand what

they’re expected to learn and why that learning is valuable.

Effective Practices: Create learning goals in student-friendly language and devise

ways (either electronically or on paper) for students to monitor their own progress toward these learning goals.

When a student has been unsuccessful on your assessment of a standard, ask him/her to come up with an alternate way to show mastery. Once you’ve agreed on and the student completes an alternate task, you can adjust the grade accordingly.

Avoid assigning mass practice homework to students. Research shows that practice makes permanent (not perfect); so having students practice something that they haven’t learned well can actually make it more difficult for them to succeed in the long run when they have to “unlearn” something they’ve done incorrectly.

Principle Four Effort plays a role in student achievement,

but should be separated from performance on academic standards.

Effective Practices: Effort will be reported on the report card through

rubric standards for participation, work completion and behavior.

Emphasize the importance of effort in ongoing feedback and communication with students. Smart is something you get, not something you are.

Avoid assigning zeros for work that students don’t turn in. Mark the assignment incomplete and require students to make it up.

Principle Five All students can achieve success and need

different approaches to realize their potential. Effective Practices: Work with your team to design and implement

interventions to ensure that ALL STUDENTS achieve the “non-negotiable” power standards for each course.

Design systems to ensure that students turn in acceptable work, especially on important assignments and assessments. The penalty for not turning in an assignment should NOT be that students don’t ever have to do the work.

Differentiate instruction and assessments by providing students with different (but equitable) means of demonstrating their mastery of learning goals.

Creating Standards Use DESE and/or Common Core Standards

as the foundation (big “overall objectives” for each course included on report card)

Create Power Standards Work done by each departmentModify CLEs to create objectives Included in gradebook Teachers link DCA questions to power

standards AVOID identifying a long list of standards

so that teachers aren’t overwhelmed by recording data

Technology Gradebook supports the use of standards and

provide useful reports for teachersClass List Report (view student’s performance on

each standard)SIP Report (% of kids at below basic, basic,

proficient, advanced) Ideally, an assessment management system

can “drop” scores by standard directly into the gradebook (teachers scan DCAs into gradebook)

Continue work with teachers to ensure they use data to support continued student growth (view how students are performing on each standard)

Instruction Quality instruction is key to the

success of any improvement initiative Fort Osage focus on Assessment for

Learning strategies Principles and Practices of Standards-

Based Grading guide teachers’ work in classrooms

AVOID imagining that standards-based grading is the answer to all school improvement problems

Report Card Changes for 2010-11

Include life/work skills scores (on 4 point scale) at all grade levels (grades 5-12) which are subjective and reported each quarter -Rational: Parents and staff agreed in surveys that information about effort was important

Report standard scores on 4 point scale rather than with a percentage score-Rationale: Confusion created when parents try to average standard percentage scores to reach final grade and may be misleading due to imbalance among class work in different standards

Calculate standard scores and letter grades based on total points rather than weighted categories-Rationale: Found weighted categories was confusing to parents and we believe goals can be better met through effective teacher grading practices

Page 1 of high school report card

High School Grading Policy Goal:  To provide effective teaching practices and policies in order to maximize

student achievement, understanding and learning.    All students, regardless of their original score, will be afforded the opportunity to reassess

on a DCA or other assessment.

In order to be afforded the opportunity for reassessment, students must be able to provide information to the teacher demonstrating growth.

  Students will have until the next DCA to reassess.

To ensure students meet the standards, teacher discretion is permitted in order to accommodate students with special circumstances (family emergencies, student absences, teacher absences, etc.)

The highest score received on any specific DCA or other assessment will be recorded in the grade book.

The specific time students are afforded the opportunity to retake a DCA or other assessment is based on teacher discretion. (Before school/after school/STAR time/within class after instruction, etc.)

Teacher Thoughts Students will NEVER do their work with relaxed due

dates and no points Those turning in late work will just copy the worksheets

already passed back I don’t have time to retest, grade retest and data crunch

by objective No one will study for the 1st assessment if there is

another chance I will have more Fs if the grade is based solely on

assessments How will I keep up with number of students attempting

to retest If students are allowed different paces my advanced

students will get done faster and begin to disrupt class

Realities More assignments completed Fewer students failing Greater success (more

students passing DCAs) Very few students try to retest Grading has been reduced by

50%

Ideas Tried More class work, less homework More oral retests after failing Make students redo and resubmit

assignments Place keys in room for students to check

own work Provide enrichment activities for students

completed with work Give choices

Choose 1 of 2 worksheets once completed with assignments

Questions? Jason Snodgrass

jsnodgrass@fortosage.net

De Soto Dr. Stacie Stryhal Dan Hoehn Cooper Tucker