By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
Professional teaching has rapidly eroded under pressure to increase graduation rates. The most recent new tool in this “race to the bottom” is a requirement for teachers to adjust their grading scale to “equal interval grading.” Simply, a teacher can keep their traditional 90-80-70-60 percent cutoffs for A-B-C-D grades, but a zero score starts at 50 percent!
The twisted rationale for demanding this change from teachers is that the use of a 60 percent cut-off for passing work is mathematically unfair, does not accurately reflect student knowledge, and is de-motivating. Supposedly redefining the zero will “re-imagine the grading scale” and make it more “mathematically sound and accurate.”
The argument is usually made using a “B” student who is averaging a score of 80–90 percent correct schoolwork, but who misses a required assignment or test. Thus the student’s “B” scores are now averaged with the zero and the student’s average falls below passing. Therefore the grading scales must be a scale of equal slices or intervals. And starting the zero at 50 achieves this “mathematical fairness.” This rationale is both ignorant of professional teaching practices and is mathematically illiterate.
Some educational objectives involve being able to perform a skill that is all-or-nothing, and the grading does not utilize any such mathematical array. Other objective assessments of complex topics may utilize multiple-choice tests with four or five answers to chose among. That provides a 20 to 25 percent chance of getting an answer right merely by guessing and knowing nothing about the subject. Added to the 50 percent baseline, that student who knows nothing is now a 70–75 percent “C” student!
Grading is a teacher’s professional responsibility and varies among disciplines. No administrator should interfere with a teacher’s professional teaching practices or evaluation procedures, just as no hospital administrator should demand a doctor perform uniform diagnosis and surgery for the wide variety of different patients. Patients are different and students are different. In the above example, a professional teacher would very likely discuss with the “B” student why he or she missed the required assignment and would provide a make-up or disregard the requirement if justified.
However, across the United States, more public school administrators are ordering their teachers to use this watered-down grading scale in these last three years. The driving force is the widespread pressure on schools to increase high school graduation rates by any means possible. This counterfeit “equal interval grading” results in a dilution of academics that devalues the grades of the higher performing students who have mastered the academic skills to move ahead into higher education.
This intrusion into teachers’ professionalism has become legitimate due to the No Child Left Behind and ESSA standardized testing that has made one-size-fits-all commands-from-above legitimate, thus de-professionalizing teachers and treating them as assembly line factory workers.
This de-professionalization of teachers is leading to a dramatic shortage of qualified teachers. High school students have personally witnessed their best teachers being handcuffed by top-down commands since 2001. These results are abundantly clear in the report, “Superintendents Struggle During Pandemic” just released and openly available on the National Superintendents Roundtable: “‘Unfortunately, we have begun to place people in the classroom who are not certified teachers. There are no applicants available who are fully certified,’ one respondent reported. ‘No one wants to go into education as a profession anymore. Colleges are not graduating enough educators to go around. Pay is a problem. Respect for teachers is a problem. Mandates and control of every aspect of the job is a problem.’”
This problem extends upward to the state Superintendents of Instruction, Education Commissioners and state boards of education that in 50 different state systems are dictating that graduation rates will increase despite the NAEP and ACT scores showing student performance is falling.
It would be very unprofessional for a healthcare system to mandate a higher survival rate for a particular ailment, by diluting the test that measures the disease. This dramatic grade inflation is likewise corrupt, generating high school graduation numbers based on empty grades and low student performance.
Any school administrator who insists teachers use equal interval grading should be fired.
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John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities in 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.