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Grades should reflect performance, not behavior, Pasco County schools official says

 
Tampa Bay Times
Published May 1, 2017

The days of students seeing their grades drop because of their classroom behavior could soon end in Pasco County schools.

"The idea is, did you learn what you were expected to learn? If you did, you deserve a grade that reflects that," said Rayann Mitchell, district director of teaching and learning.

That doesn't mean that ill-disciplined students would face no consequences. Rather, the district is looking to detach academics from conduct when it comes to grading, as they're two separate things.

As it stands now, Mitchell explained, the district gives teachers great leeway in deciding how to determine student marks on report cards. But not all have the same philosophy. Some assign a zero for handing in an assignment late, for instance, while others accept the work and review its content, with a lesser penalty attached.

"We are trying to make it more systemic," Mitchell said of grading.

The administration has told all principals that they are responsible for adopting at least one recommended new grading practice for 2017-18, toward accomplishing that goal. The ideas include:

- Assigning academic grades separate from behavior, work completion and collaboration.
- Giving students an "incomplete" or "insufficient" mark for unfinished work, and requiring students to complete the assignments.
- Allowing students to replace failing scores with second attempts.
- Creating a better balance of graded assignments, so one major test or assignment does not overly sway the course grade.
- Adopting a no-zero policy in grading, and using equal score ranges for each letter-grade level.

Mitchell said the no-zero concept makes sense to the extent that a child knows he faces an uphill battle to improve his grade with a zero weighing down what otherwise might be an A.

"We want to make sure they have a fighting chance at being successful," she said -- particularly when the score is based on turning in something late, or not having received enough teacher support.

Too often, she suggested, a zero represents a teacher's failure as much as a student's.

At the same time, Mitchell acknowledged, the idea of giving away what amounts to free points to students who do not try is not anyone's desire. So the specifics of that concept are still a work in progress.

Pasco district officials have looked for new grading models for a few years, dabbling in such approaches as standards-based report cards along the way. Mitchell said the administration will assess the successes and failures of the models adopted, and devise a more consistent district-wide approach for 2018-19.