December 27, 2009: the Oregonian

No grading system nurtures a child

In my teaching career, I've sent home over a thousand report cards. In fact, it didn't take but a handful of years of recording and tabulating grades before the whole process became fairly routine and standard.

So it caught me off guard the other day when my 5-year-old daughter brought home her kindergarten report card, and I found myself immersed in a confluence of unexpected emotions as I opened up and read a report card for the first time as a parent.

Her grades were fine. She "met expectations" in each of 27 grading categories (except for "recognizes numerals out of sequence 0-20" in which she "exceeded expectations"). If I had given grades like that to one of my students, I would fully expect his or her parents to be satisfied with their child's work.

And yet, for some time as I sat staring at my daughter's grades, I felt oddly unsatisfied. Then the truth of the matter began to dawn upon me -- my daughter's teacher didn't think my daughter was as special as I thought she was. Mind you, this wasn't a moment of anger. It was more of a chin-scratching, "Uh-huh, I get it now" moment.

I also realized that I had just entered through a rite of passage that all parents before me must have gone through. Anyone, regardless of whether they have kids or not, knows that kindergarten is all about socialization and conformity. But it's one thing to understand it intellectually, and a whole different thing to actually witness it happening to your own child.

So these past days, as I have sat at my teacher's desk, I've wondered to myself, "How good of a job have I done of amplifying the special qualities of my students?" And "Have I made sure when I talk to parents that they know that I recognize their child's individual strengths?"

There is an intriguing movement in some corners of Oregon's public schools that you will be hearing about in the months and years to come. It's a philosophy of "proficiency-based" grading where a student is evaluated less on whether assignments and tests average out to a certain grade, and more on whether he or she is able to demonstrate understanding of a standardized set of targets regardless of the point in time when that happens.

Its most controversial element is that the traditional, quantitative A-through-F letter grading system is replaced by a more qualitative set of grades like "highly proficient," "proficient," and "working towards proficiency." Some will love it, some will hate it. But in the context of my "ah-ha" moment, I don't see a fundamental difference between the two.

Whether my daughter's grades are based upon the arbitrary considerations of a rogue teacher or upon a set of standards developed by an esteemed panel of experts, neither system will encourage my daughter to discover and celebrate those talents and traits that make her special in her own right. And though I agree that the development of a child's values and sense of self-worth is primarily the responsibility (and, in fact, the privilege) of that child's parents, it's difficult to deny the powerful impact that grades have on a child's outlook. I see this every day on the faces of children in the hallways of my own school.

As a first-time kindergarten parent, I know that I am overreacting. Just as my daughter's individuality is bound to succumb eventually to the irresistible forces of the Disney Channel, Happy Meals and MySpace, I, too, will mellow in due course and wonder how I could have been so dramatic over such an insignificant piece of paper.

But as an educator who teaches at a time when school districts are racing toward uniform standards, and budgets for anything other than reading and math are being cut to the bone, and decisions about neighborhood schools are being made further and further away from home, I hope to hold onto the beautifully parental notion that every child deserves to have her talents cherished and her value affirmed.