Standards-Based Instruction at 

Castaic High School Instruction and Assessment Philosophy

At Castaic High School, we ignite passion, creativity, and capability in an inclusive environment that supports global success.  In order to do this, we believe that we need to approach student instruction and assessment differently.

WE BELIEVE…

• Each student can learn at a high level and that it is our responsibility to utilize best practices to that end.
• The primary purpose of assessment and evaluation is to improve student learning.
• Grades should not be a point of comparison between students, but rather should indicate what individual students know and that they can demonstrate understanding of that knowledge.
• The most accurate reporting systems are those that separate academic achievement from appropriate behavior and task completion.
• Students deserve multiple opportunities to demonstrate what they know and can do with that knowledge after learning.
• Learning is a process and where a student finishes is more important than where a student starts or how long it took the student to get there.

What is Standards-Based Instruction?

Standards-Based Instruction and Assessment is a set of teaching and reporting practices that communicate how a student is performing against a predetermined set of expectations. The set expectations include standards for a specific content area and the skills students need to help meet those standards. SBIA reports achievement on each academic standard separately instead of combining them like in traditional systems. SBIA also separates out important characteristics like effort, attendance, participation, timeliness, cooperation, and attitude.These are not factored into student grades, but may still be communicated to parents and students. The reason these characteristics are separated is because the grade then reflects the clearest possible picture of student learning of the standards while still focusing on the important soft skills that students will need for local and global success, a goal for all students at Castaic High School.

How is Standards-Based Assessment different from traditional grading?

 Frequently Asked Questions about Standards-Based Instruction and Assessment

Q: Will my child be competitively prepared for college admission?

A: Of course! "As far as preparing students for colleges and universities (or high school), clearly the best preparation that any school can offer is to engage students in a rigorous and challenging curriculum and then do what is possible to guarantee that students learn excellently what that curriculum includes. A standards-based report card identifies the specific learning goals within the curriculum so that appropriate rigor can be ensured. It also communicates more detailed information about higher levels of success. These distinct benefits serve to prepare students well, no matter what type of learning environment they enter after they leave school.” (Guskey & Bailey 2010) In fact, colleges and universities have been using Standards-Based assessment for decades.  Professors explicitly state what will be taught, what the learning targets are, and how those learning targets will be assessed.  They do not give points for the practice nor for completion of the learning activities; they assess the students on the mastery of those explicitly-stated learning targets via a midterm and final (and maybe a paper or project or two).  Students are expected to use the skills they’ve learned in high school to show mastery of the content they’re taught in college and university. 

Q: Why not just use standard percentages and letter grades? 

A: “Schools use grades because it’s one of those things somebody once decided on and now everybody goes along with it. I don’t know where it started, but I know where it stops - in the real world. You don’t see supervisors telling their employees, “Great job, I’m going to give you an A.” Or, “You really screwed up here; that’s a C-.” No, in the real world, adults get real feedback and indications of where they need improvement.” (Littky & Grabelle 2004)

Castaic High Students will receive letter grades in Campus Portal as well as on transcripts at the end of ten weeks and at the culmination of each semester.  Those letter grades will coincide with the standards-based evidence of mastery shown throughout each semester through Canvas.  All students who graduate from Castaic High School will have the opportunity to be competitively eligible for university admissions directly out of high school.  In fact, due to the myriad opportunities available to students at Castaic High, those who choose to participate in them may find themselves at an advantage over students from more traditional schools who do  not offer so many opportunities to become passionate, creative people prepared for global success.

Q: Can my kid still get a zero?

A: If a student does not complete an assessment, he or she will be given multiple opportunities to attend WIN Time MTThF to come in to complete the assessment.  If a student still never completes the assessment, he or she will have to receive a zero as there is no criteria from which to determine whether or not he or she attained mastery of the standard.  The goal for all students is to attempt to gain mastery and the role of the teacher is to assist that student in doing so; however, the student is the one who ultimately has to take the assessment and show mastery of the standard.

The SBIA philosophy is not JUST about grading.  It is also about HOW THE TEACHER TEACHES.  At Castaic High School, teachers are doing standards-based INSTRUCTION.  This means that the focus is more on LEARNING and less on TASK COMPLETION.  This is significantly more work for teachers as it necessitated differentiation, or providing all students within their diverse classroom community of learners a range of different avenues for understanding new information (often in the same classroom) in terms of: acquiring content; processing, constructing, or making sense of ideas; and developing teaching materials and assessment measures so that all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in ability

Q: Is Castaic High School the only school using Standards-Based Instruction and Assessment?

A: While there is no official list, schools in every state are using standards-based grading. Departments of Education in Illinois, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, and North East School Division – Saskatchewan (CA) have all adopted their own versions of SBG. Many teachers throughout the William S. Hart Union School District use SBIA, however, Castaic High School is unique in that all teachers are embracing SBIA school-wide.

Check out some of the resources that contributed to the development of the Standards-based Instruction and Assessment practice at Castaic High School:

Rick Wormeli is an educator, columnist for AMLE Magazine, and author of the award-winning book, Meet Me in the Middle.  In fall 2019, he trained Hart District teachers and administrators in the area of Standards-based Grading.  Here is a 9 minute video that offers his succinct explanation for the rationale behind Standards-based Instruction and Assessment.

Check out the section of this article titled “How Does SBG Improve Education.”

Here’s what the research says about Standards-based Instruction and Assessment

Watch this 7 minute TedX about the Game of School and how standards-based grading teaches students how to learn rather than win the game.

Related and interesting, but not directly explanatory of Standards-based Instruction and Assessment is this two-part episode* of Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast series, Revisionist History.  One of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Gladwell is the author of Blink,Tipping Point, Outliers, and a number of other bestsellers.  His perspective on the arbitrary nature of some educational practices is an interesting connection to the philosophy behind approaching instruction and assessment the way we do at Castaic High School.  *Puzzle Rush and The Tortoise and the Hare.

Q: Are the iCAN classes using Standards-based Instruction and Assessment?

A: COC (like most colleges and universities) does not give students daily points for reading, studying, and accessing the content.  These are behavioral expectations held by the professors for the students, but they are not graded on them.  They are, essentially, graded on mastery of the learning standards or targets spelled out in the syllabus for that class.  The professors may not call it Standards-based Assessment because it’s the only kind of assessment they’ve ever used.  They definitely differentiate their method of instruction and assessment from the typical high school experience of point accumulation.

Q: Won’t this teach my kid bad behaviors like laziness?  How will she learn how to be responsible and to do things right the first time?

A: While teachers model and expect good school behaviors, it is inappropriate to give students GRADES for these behaviors.  Our job as teachers is to teach kids how to learn and give them the tools and access to do so.  We do that by teaching them standards and creating a system that allows them to master those standards.  Doing things right the first time implies that someone already knows how to do something, they just choose not to do it right the first time.  As teachers, we need to TEACH things to students and then assess what they’ve learned.  Their scholarly behaviors (organization, responsibility, the ability to follow directions) will help them to master the standards.  While they are not graded on these behaviors, there are realistic consequences when students CHOOSE not to do something they KNOW how to do the first time (loss of free time to attend WIN time to reassess or practice a standard, having to repeat an attempt at standards mastery, taking away time that could be spent on preferred activities.)  

Q: What about teacher subjectivity?  

A:  The reality is that the practice of traditional grading is significantly more subjective than is standards-based grading.  In traditional assessments and grading, teachers can individually determine how many points an activity is worth and students are graded on behaviors that are not explicitly taught by a teacher (organization, homework completion, laziness) but are rather reflections of what a student brings to the classroom from outside.  An A is one class might mean a lot of extra credit was done in the last week of school while an A in another comes from a student completing all assignments but doing poorly on tests because the teacher weighs homework heavily.  When there is no STANDARD by which we assess, there is much opportunity for subjectivity and inconsistency.  Standards-based Instruction and Assessment takes this subjectivity and inconsistency away from the grading process.  In standards-based grading, there is a specific rubric** with a defined standard.  Students show evidence of mastery of that standard as determined by the highly-trained teacher in that content.  Those standards are uniform across a school and the method by which mastery is assessed is too (the 4pt rubric).  

*Students who do not take assessments or turn in assignments or who do not re-attempt failed assessments will not pass the course.