looking for interesting ideas about grades and reports

[John Kurtz]

Hey there:

Is anyone working in a school or know of schools that are not using
traditional letter grades for reports, transcripts etc? And have any
detail on this you can share. We use letter grades 4 quarters per
year, and two of those get accompanied by written comments by all the
teachers. We are looking at some new options in our middle school
(grades, no grades, written comments, check lists, etc) and at our
assessment / evaluation / reporting process in general.

Thanks

John

[Kirk Smothers]

Hi John,

Calhoun does not have any grades through 7th grade; we start them in
8th. We do have narrative comments, and I think the MS has check lists,
too, but I'm not 100% certain. Once we do add grades in the US, we have
two (in addition to comments): one called the cognitive, which is a
regular A-F system; and an affective grade, which speaks to commitment,
contribution, effort, supporting the learning of others and is on a 1-5
scale. Our transcripts for colleges report both, along with a
description of the system.

If you want more detail on the MS, check with Noni Thomas, our MS
director, at noni....@calhoun.org.

Kirk

[Jonathan Rosenshine]

Hey, John.

At Buckley, we give straight numerical grades in grades 7-9 for all 4 quarters. We have academic comments for the 1st and 3rd quarters and advisor comments at the semesters. Check lists are decided independently by departments. Some have extensive skills check lists and some have none. It's a little lopsided on the report's aesthetics, but I like that we leave it to departments to decide.

Check out St. Ann's in Brooklyn for a school that gives no grades at all, even through high school. Cool place.

JR


--- On Mon, 11/17/08, John Kurtz <joh...@flash.net> wrote:

> From: John Kurtz <joh...@flash.net>
> Subject: looking for interesting ideas about grades and reports

[Jonathan Rosenshine]

Oh, yeah. At Buckley, we also give Effort and Conduct grades in every course.

1 = Excellent
2 = Good
3 = Average
4 = Below Standard
5 = Unacceptable

JR


--- On Mon, 11/17/08, Kirk Smothers <Kirk.S...@calhoun.org> wrote:

[John Kurtz]

Kirk
Thanks. this is very helpful. Good luck at the new job.

John