Mastery vs. Points Scored

 Mastery versus Points Scored

 

Leaders of the Dublin Wisconsin Unified School District had this great idea.  They wanted to replace counting points to determine a student’s grade with student mastery of the material.  Such a strange idea?   Lots of parents thought so.

At Board meetings, parents complained their kids were being guinea pigs for what they saw as an unproven approach.  Grades they insisted were a reward for rigor, hard work and participation in the classroom.  Under the new system, if a student showed he/she understood the material it would even be ok to skip homework once in a while.

Instead of giving letter grades (A-F) to show achievement, the standards-based system starts with a list of proficiencies to be achieved. Students then receive a number from 1 (below standard) to 4 (exceeded standard) for each proficiency.

New Hampshire, Maine, Wisconsin are all on board.  Connecticut, New Mexico and Oregon have recently adopted the system.

Teachers see the system as a way to emphasize learning over effort.   It is also a way to “recognize the individual journey of every student.  It acknowledges that we all learn differently at our own pace and in various ways.”  Fascinating conclusion but why did it take so long to figure out.

Maybe because there is a strong majority of teachers who will tell you that teaching to the test is what it’s all about and if something isn’t graded students won’t do it.  One teacher remarked that “many students want to do as little as humanly possible, they want to skate by”.  Might that not also true of some adults.  So why damn the entire system.   The same teacher believed that homework was an important adult life skill, teaching kids to meet a deadline.  From whence came the hubris that educators really can differentiate between an 88 and a 91?

Some students see the new program as an approach for kids who were getting bad grades under the old system. Students also said that they believed under the old system, teachers preferred kids who got good grades.  When students were polled the vast majority of them preferred the standards based new system.  Many people complained that the roll-out of the new program was poorly done, highlighting small points that attracted a lot of negative attention.

Still, a small but vocal group of about 35 parents, convinced the Board to do away with the standards-based system.  Shows to go, scoring points does still matter.