Demystifying Standards, Part II: Grading and Cut Points

Standards themselves don't necessarily demand any particular grading system, but there are grading schemes specifically designed to best represent student progress in meeting standards.

When you look at the standards-based report card you see several standards for each subject area (math, science, English, social studies, health, and physical education). A student needs to meet the standard on each of these (or earn a 3.0) by the end of the course or during interventions in the summer or that carry into next year, if necessary. While this is harder than getting an average score of 70 in a course, our new system will push students to be better prepared to go on to post-secondary opportunities after high school.

The challenge we faced over the past several years was to create a system that remained fair and clear for students. With the help of an intensive study of the research, including Robert Marzano's book Transforming Classroom Grading and with guidance and facilitation from The Mitchell Institute, the grading system currently in use was developed over the course of two years, follows best practice, and has functioned well and as predicted.

In this letter, I'd like to discuss one aspect of our new system around an educational phenomenon known as “cut points.”

Cut Points

Cut points are the scores that a school system or testing organization (like the College Board who creates the SAT exam) creates to show levels of student learning.

In a traditional system there are 101 cut points, 70 of which (0 – 69) all mean failure. Cut points are so important because a student will have demonstrated that they have or have not met learning goals depending on which side of these cut points they fall. If you get a 69, you fail where a 70 means you pass. This distinction shows how important it is that there is a real difference between these two cut points. In fact, you could say that a student's future rests on the distinction between the single point that separates these two numbers.

Because of this we should be very clear about the difference between a 69 and a 70 so students understand exactly what is expected from them and what they have to do in order to pass then go on to pursue their hopes and dreams. No student who ever gets a 69 should ever shrug his or her shoulders, when asked why they got that number versus a 70 and say they have no idea.

If we have to be very clear about these two cut points, then we should be equally clear about the difference between a 22 and a 23, or between an 87 and an 88, or between any two numbers in this scale.

The problem is that schools have no clear reasons for these single cut point differences. They remain a mystery to students, parents/guardians and, to be honest, to the schools that issue the grades. It comes down to this idea: the difference between any two consecutive numbers in a traditional 0 -100 scale is not about a difference in the quality of the work an individual student has completed so much as it's about ranking the students in order to sort them in relation to one another.

Another way of saying this is that a traditional grading system is designed to compare and sort, where a standards-based system is designed to be clear and specific about levels of individual learning.

One way to prove this is to give an essay to two teachers in the same traditional school and ask them to assign a grade. What do you think the odds are that these two teachers will take this essay and assign it the exact same grade? The answer is that odds are they would never give the same grade, ever.

Imagine having 101 home made muffins and a set of numbers on cards (0 through 100) and having to put card number 100 in front of what you think the best muffin is, and card number 0 next to the one you think is the worst, then arrange all the other muffins using the rest of the numbers. This system is efficient when it comes to sorting and ranking, but as soon as the baker asks you to explain the significant differences between the muffin you assigned number 51 versus muffin number 52 you would be at a loss. Or, like the two essays, what if someone blindfolded you and a friend and had you each take a bite out of one of the muffins and asked you where you thought it ranked on the 0 – 100 scale. Would the two of you pick the same number? Probably not.

Our new system has, by comparison, only seven cut points, represented in the following chart:

Does Not Meet the Standard	Partially Meets the Standard	Meets the Standard	Exceeds the Standard
0	2.0 or 2.5	3.0 or 3.5	4.0 (4.5 Honors Option)

In this system teachers should nearly always, 100% of the time, score the two essays the same. Not only that, the student(s) who wrote them should score them the same as well, and so should their parents. Why? Because the system is designed to be clear and specific about what a student has to do and show in order to score at any one of the seven cut points. Not only are there a list of descriptors in each column explaining to students what the work looks like if it is at this level (which doesn't exist in a traditional 0 – 100 scale), but the students get these “rubrics” before starting their assessments, so before they ever have to begin the work they know exactly what they have to do to earn each level of learning (and the grade that goes with it).

In the standards-based grading system, you could select any of the 101 muffins and look at the descriptions of what a muffin that Does Not Meet, Partially Meets, Meets, or Exceeds the standard looks, tastes, and smells like. If those lists are specific enough, you and I would consistently grade the muffins the same. What we couldn't do, using this new system, is efficiently sort and rank the muffins in a long line, 0 – 100. And when you think about it, why should we do that? What does it matter how they compare to one another? Isn't it more important that the baker understands where each, individual muffin scores on meeting the standard so he or she can become a better cook and have all of his or her muffins be good tasting?

Again, a standards-based system like ours only cares about how each, individual student achieves – where they fall on the rubric and how to improve to the next level – not about comparing classmates, which is a traditional practice that can be deceiving . You and I and ninety-nine other people could all be part of the class of 2010, for instance, and while you might be ranked number one and I might be number sixty-six, maybe you as the valedictorian still have significant skill deficits (and the class itself is weak, overall), or vice versa; maybe student number sixty-six has excellent skills (and the class itself is strong, overall) but a traditional system would not give you or anyone else that information.

Instead, our new system cares about individual student ability and progress. Your progress, my progress individually, and that we both end up better academic students in the end.