Teachers spend a lot of time talking about assessment, going to meetings and workshops, planning testing, gathering data on tests, etc. But it is arbitrary. I have been told by many teachers over the years that they “cook” their grades anyway at the end of the term, depending on if they like the kid and if the kid tries or not.
The big hypocrisy with grades, however, is that so many kids are not motivated and just play us for grades. They have a target grade (in my current school a D is as good as an A for about 80% of my kids) and so they selectively attend class, and do only what is necessary for the grade they want.
I grant that this describes an urban school where kids have less hope in life. But I remember being played for grades by kids of privilege just as much. I think that my statements here are accurate across the board, therefore.
What is really painful is to see younger teachers stress so much about doing accurate grading when their students could care less. The teacher busts their butt on a daily basis to be honest and accurate with the kids, but, if the kids are not reciprocating that effort with an honest effort of their own, they how can that lack of a quid pro quo produce anything accurate?
The students are the ones who are really in charge of their grades. We only feel as if we are in charge. The let us think that. They play us, we don’t play them. If we don’t know that and figure that out, and if we continue to try to produce accurate grades that reflect real student achievement in a situation like most of us are in these days, then we are fools.
I wonder how much of this discussion is connected to our need to have students. I know personally that if I graded my own students in terms of what they really did as students in terms of attendance and sincerity of effort, I wouldn’t have three classes (I am a half time teacher with three classes per day of about 30 kids in each class*). Rather, I would have one class.
*in my school we started this academic year with 2000 students. Now in April, 400 of them are gone.