The Zero Sum Grading Endgame

Why Can’t Everyone Get A’s?

Why Can’t Everyone Get A’s? (From the New York Times, June 15, 2019)
          *Read the article first, only if you promise to come back.

I read this article on grading philosophy, and it really got me thinking about the purpose of grading. I have given out thousands of grades, but never really paid attention to the reasoning behind them. I know what and how we grade, but have not paid that much attention to why.

I have been teaching for almost half of my life. I have come across many different philosophies on grading. I’ve worked alongside a spectrum of people, from those who covet an A as if it was going to come out of their paycheck, to those who give an A if you smile every day in class. Nobody ever told me how to grade. I did what I thought was right based off of how I was graded. When in doubt, follow the herd.

While working in Arizona, one principal was concerned that grades were too high, so they somehow came down the next semester. The next principal was concerned that the grades were too low, and as if by magic, they increased in the next semester.

I was always fascinated how the rate of class failure virtually disappeared for graduating seniors. (We called it the “mercy D”.)

When I worked in China, teachers made sure their grades were a nice neat bell curve, so as to avoid having your grades stand out. After all, the nail that stands out, gets the hammer.

A Bulletproof System

While I have remained pretty consistent in my grading philosophy, it’s literally just been my own system, largely based on what the author of the article discussed.

Here is a breakdown of how I used to grade my AP students. Of course, their grades were tailored to fall within the mathematical ranges necessary, and were almost always directly correlated to their likely score on the AP exam.

A: The student knows the content and works hard in and out of class. These students typically scored 4-5 on the exam.

B: The student does one of the “A” criteria, but not necessarily the other. These students typically scored 3 on the exam, with the occasional outlier.

C: The student does what is needed to get by. The student gets some of the content, and does some of the work. These students typically scored a 2 on the exam.

D: The student does not get the content, and doesn’t try very hard to. They show up and might listen or participate. These students typically scored a 1, maybe 2.

F: The student literally does nothing. They may get the content, but I have no way to document it because they did absolutely no work. You had to work very hard at not working to get this. Some of the students I had in this range were very bright. They got anywhere from a 1-5.

What shocked me was how students would complete many assignments, essays, and tests each semester, and if they got an 84 the first semester, they got from an 83 to an 85 in the second semester. It only served to strengthen my belief that my system was rock solid. I was pretty spot on, man. When I taught in China, almost all of my students fit the A/B category, and they all got 4’s and 5’s on the exam.

It always made sense, it was never questioned by anyone, so I must be doing it right……right?

Zero Sum

I attended graduation at my current school this year,  and watched the same story unfold that happens each year. Like most ceremonies, there was the recognition of the students who got superior grades, or are going on to a brand name university. Those accolades are based on system of grades that is subjective at best, and pits the students against each other in a zero sum game.  We praise those who have achieved, then everyone gets their certificate.

I remember the outrage when one of my schools did away with the valedictorian, because the competition was coming down to tenths of a point, in a grading system with no real clarity. Critics complained that we were perpetuating the “every kid gets a trophy” mentality, because we did not have a clear winner. If we are to give our education the prized label of “rigorous”, then there have to be those that rose above, and those who failed.

If everyone succeeds, then nobody does.

The article posed the question of: Why can’t every kid get an A if they all meet the requirements? I thought to myself “Hey, I did that in China.”  All of my kids got A’s and B’s; however, while I wasn’t playing the zero sum game with them locally, I was doing it globally. I had one or two students who fell into the C category, and I knew they would not fare well on the exam. Their grade reflected that, in part because I knew I had to play the game.

The AP exam is graded on a sliding scale to ensure a bell curve.  Maybe, just maybe, I was picking the winners and losers as well. Maybe, by pitting my students against each other, or the global population, I was helping to perpetuate the idea that in order for the exam, and my class, to be valid there has to be winners and losers. If everyone got a 5, how could colleges sort out the top applicants? If every kid achieves, then we must not be doing our jobs correctly. If an oncologist has a 100% cure rate for cancer, they would be heralded as a hero. If a teacher has a 100% rate of students getting an A, they would most likely be put on an improvement plan. If every kid got a five, the test would be deemed invalid.

The most insidious side to this, is that when someone is picked as a winner or a loser in a class, they know it. They can feel it. I did not intentionally play that game, but I am sure I played it nonetheless.

Endgame

I stepped away from AP for the last two years on an Educational Technology and Design detour in my career, but will be returning to it in the fall to teach AP World History. With this new found perspective, it reminds me of a student I taught in my very first year of teaching. It was an AP US class in New York, and I had a student who had learning disabilities, had difficulty writing, and was labeled as someone who was not fit to be in an AP class. (If I recall, this was around the time that the school moved away from teacher recommendations for AP classes to student self selection.) I knew he would not do well on the AP exam, and in my youthful naiveté, I resented him because he was going to bring my class average down.

That is until the last couple days of school when he came to me and told me that he had learned more in my class than any other class he had taken. He told me that I opened his mind to things he had never thought of, and that although his writing was still was not great, it had improved tremendously. It was in that moment that I realized what teaching was really all about. I was more proud of his 2, than I was of the student who got a five regardless of what I did, or did not do, in the classroom.

He became more educated in my class, even though his grades and AP score did not show it. Anyone looking at his transcript would surmise that he did not do well in AP US History. He would have been valedictorian if he was graded on growth. Unfortunately, in high school at least, we only grade on achievement.

If our endgame is to sort out winners and losers to be de facto recruiters for colleges, than the current system works just fine. If our endgame is to educate children, then it is my fear that the zero sum grading game is having the opposite effect. Every school leader says all kids can be educated, but our systems say that only some can achieve. My hope, and goal, is to find a way for my students to do both.

…..but first, I am going on summer vacation 😉

If you have any comments, suggestions, or solutions,  I would love to hear them in the comments.

Have an amazing summer 🙂