Now, before the education lynch mob comes after me, please understand that I DO NOT wish to move away from a grading system. I am all for education reform, but I am not that far out in left field. Instead, I am for grading students based on growth and what they have truly learned and then communicating to students and parents in a way that they understand and find meaning in it.
I recently read a blog from Patrick Malley called Parent Communication 3.0 and was struck at how he hit the nail right on the head in regard to communicating with parents in this high tech world. Malley writes, "You call a few other parents to hear how their kids are doing. The perception is mixed: some are doing better, some the same, and some worse. During each of these conversations, you share your concern for what's going on at school. Could it be the school's fault that your kid is failing?" I think the answer to this question is that the blame falls on how we grade students and how this gets communicated to parents.
As a high school principal, I have been on the receiving end of many phone calls from parents who were frustrated regarding their child's grade in a class. The focus of these conversations typically involves students who are in class every day, turning in their homework on time, and are failing because of a lousy test score. I am not in the classroom on a daily basis, so I don't know how to respond other than letting the parent know that I will have the teacher contact them as soon as possible.
There has to be a better way to communicate to parents about their child's progress.
Parents have to be able to understand what a grade means in relation to their student's learning without drawing comparisons to other students in the same class with different ability levels. How do you inform parents about what a grade truly means when they themselves have an entire frame of reference based on their own educational experiences? This is a paradigm shift for many people and I am not sure there is a right answer.
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