Jay Mathews is back in the Washington Post with a warning about the effects of testing on effort and motivation in class. He tells the tale of Kerry Constabile, a high school student who didn't qualify for placement in the AP American History course, so she took a regular History class and studied for the AP exam on her own time:
Constabile's grades in freshman and sophomore social studies were not good enough to get into the Advanced Placement (AP) American history course she yearned for in her junior year. She had discovered a great love for American politics, but the social science department chairman said no, you cannot take AP. So she studied for the AP course on her own, supplementing the homework she got in her regular history course with assignments her friends in AP were getting.
AP American history ends with a three-hour, standardized test, designed to be the equivalent of an introductory college course final. It is a cut above any of the state tests that are being used to rate schools under the new federal No Child Left Behind act, but it is based on the same principle. Every student must be judged on the same standard, so that we can see how much each has learned and how well they have been taught. On that basis Constabile did not do as well as she hoped she would. She passed the test, although did not get the top mark.
But she got a better grade from her high school history teacher. And any independent observer, knowing how extraordinary it is for a high school student to go to such lengths to challenge herself, would be obliged to give her an A-plus for effort.
Which brings us to the Montgomery County school board...Under the board's new grading policy...it will no longer matter, at least on the report card, how hard a student tries to learn and how much, like Constabile, she reaches beyond what her teachers thought she was capable of. Under the new policy, only tests, papers and homework that reveal her level of achievement can count as part of her grade.
Expressly banned from consideration in the main course grade are the following factors, and I quote from guidelines helpfully supplied by the Montgomery County school system: "effort, participation, progress, attitude or behavior."
I agree with Jay that this is bizarre. The school is essentially trying to keep teachers for rewarding underperforming students with grades that don't objectively reflect their achievement - but this wording suggests that effort and attitude are not valued by teachers, when, of course, they are. Where the tests come in is that the tests don't measure these more intangible qualities, and when objective tests are correlated with class grades based on intangibles, it becomes difficult to see the relationship between the two. It's a comparison of apples and oranges.
It's good for the schools to take steps to prevent grade inflation, and to prevent grades that do not accurately reflect achievement for any reason. Yes, a teacher might be rewarding effort, but it's easy to slip into the "bigotry of low expectations" and award a disadvantaged child points just for showing up. At the same time, I don't blame the teachers for wanting to reward such children in some way just for showing up, if in fact getting them to show up is a problem.
Jay spoke with a few teachers about this conundrum:
...is the Montgomery County response, tying grades firmly to academic performance and nothing else, the best solution to the problem? I asked a few experienced teachers what they thought of the issue and they almost all made the same two points: (1) everybody has to know how the student is performing on the standards that will be measured, but (2) removing rewards for effort and attitude from the grading process is not the best way to ensure good scores on the state test.
Essentially, they all let Jay in on the "dirty little secret...that [teaching] is an art as well as a science." And they point out that disadvantaged kids aren't the only ones who lose out if effort is discounted. The "genius slacker" who skips classes yet shows up to score high on tests should somehow be convinced to come to class, and basing part of the grade on participation is one way to do that.
The founders of the KIPP schools, David Levin and Mike Feinberg, note that they emphasize grading on performance but also make sure to drill into students' heads the importance "effort, attitude and participation;" the rewards for these are not higher grades but non-academic treats. Students in KIPP schools perform well on standardized tests not only because their academic performance is objectively evaluated in class, but because their teachers have learned to reward extra motivation without artificially inflating grades.
This proposed grading policy, by the way, has been temporarily delayed because of "complaints and concerns." Hashing out the best way to help teachers learn to reward motivation without giving unearned grade points won't be easy, but it's essential in this situation.
Posted by kswygert at September 16, 2003 11:01 AM