Bring Standards-Based Grading To Your School — SUCCESSFULLY! Part 3

Although my school started with the end in mind, we quickly understood that change was much more about shifts in assessment and teaching practices and less about grades. Especially true when a mantra like ours is, “It’s about the learning, not the grading.” A blog post by Garnet Hillman and these strategies will help you understand that standards-based learning underpins the transition to standards-based grading. If you don’t align assessment and instructional methods with curriculum standards, your SBG initiative will be tossed in the waste basket with other incomplete initiatives.

Part 3: IMPLEMENTATION

Information Sources Are Complete.

By now, you have all information channels in the public domain. Recommend that you have a special section on your school website dedicated to SBG. This should include an FAQ, glossary, presentations, pdfs of special communications, etc. At this time, we were no longer doing large-scale parent presentations. Now, we conducted annual presentations for new middle school families only. Your Student information System (we use PowerSchool) is fully standards-based ready.

Letter grade or no letter grade?

Some adopting schools have opted to include a letter grade along with proficiency scale results on report cards. I strongly believe that a complete philosophical shift to SBG is hindered by including a letter grade. But, if this is the most you can accomplish, celebrate the shift!  We all live in a practical world. However, I encourage you to remove the letter grade as a future step in the transition process. Our school chose to eliminate all letter and percentage grades in assessment and reporting during the implementation stage.

As the process unfolded, draft editions of the new report card were shared with parents. Our final report card was heavily influenced by Tom Guskey & Jane Bailey’s work: Developing Standards-Based Report Cards.

Final Roll-Out.

There are multiple options to a full SBG roll-out in middle school. As grade 5 students are already coming from an SBG type program, you could begin with grade 6 only. Then add grade 7 and 8 in following years. If particular subject areas are more ready, you could go with those.

Since our specialists (Performing Arts, Visual Arts, PE, Health, Global Languages) adjusted instructional and assessment practices more easily, this group went full SBG across grades 6-8 first. Full SBG means both academic progress and learning behaviors are assessed/reported in a standards-based format. Core classes (Math, Social Studies, Language Arts, Science plus Chinese) came onboard the following year.

Impact on Student Learning.

Do we have hard quantitative data to support the shift to SBG and improved student learning? Pretty hard to do as current metrics are based on analyzing letters, numbers, and high stakes test results. Through baseline surveys and reflections with students, teachers, and parents, we determined that our move to SBG significantly improved communication and the focus on learning. Biggest positive reported by students was reduced stress and the strongest recommendation was for improved teacher consistency in interpreting proficiency scale levels. Overall, feedback indicated that continued commitment to improving/refining the processes and outcomes were essential to further success.

Acknowledgments. 

Shanghai American School’s move to SBG was truly a collaborative effort. I want to recognize my fellow middle school administrator and teacher colleagues for the long-term commitment, passion, and hard work to effect this important shift.

Final Thought. 

Bringing Standards-Based Grading to your school can be done anywhere, at any level. The trailblazing has been done. There are incredible resources (see Part 1) available to support your efforts. The single most important reason for shifting grading practices? It is in your students’ current and future best interests.

It’s about the learning, not the grading.

Blog Series
Part 1: Laying The Foundation
Part 2: Transitioning
Part 3: Implementation