The leadership of the Wake County school board may have changed, but staff is still advocating changes that would eliminate classroom behavior from academic grades.

As noted in today's article, staff came back with the same recommended changes that stalled before the prior board in August. Staff is seeking the new school board's approval to go ahead with this revised grading policy and new R&P.

During Thursday's student achievement committee meeting, board member John Tedesco was the main proponent of the changes. Board member Jim Martin was the main critic.

It looks like there's support for at least partially returning to letter grades on report cards in Wake County elementary schools

The school board's student achievement committee voted today in favor of a section of this draft grading R&P calling for letter grades to be used on report cards in third-, fourth- and fifth-grades. The committee also told staff to use a 10-point grading scale for those grades with an A being 90 to 100, a B being to 80 and 89 and so on.

That's different from the seven-point grading scale used in middle school and high school. The committee discussed moving to a 10-point scale in middle school. They have to leave the seven-point scale in place for high school because that's mandated under state law.

The proposed move to "standards-based" grading will be the main topic at today's first meeting of the reconstituted Wake County school board student achievement committee.

Ruth Stedinger, senior director of middle school programs, will give the committee an overview of the grading review and the recommendations that have been made. Recommendations such as reducing the value of homework, counting retests and letting students hand in work late caused the prior board to put the idea on hold.

The Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children has been advocating Wake to implement the recommendations.

The grading review has gained new attention since the Panther Creek High cheating scandal. Panther Creek has been one of the schools that been pursuing the grading changes on its own, such as not giving zeros and allowing students who've cheated to take alternative exams or assignments.

It took eight months, but the Wake County school board was finally able to agree on passing a middle school math placement policy.

As noted in today's article, the policy got over the hump when staff proposed a number of changes to both the policy and the placement criteria to win over the support of Democratic board members Christine Kushner and Keith Sutton to form a majority with Republicans on the issue. Click here for the adopted policy and here for the revised placement criteria.

"We raised our concerns and staff came up with some good suggestions to them that it was enough for me to support the policy," Kushner said.

Supporters and critics of Wake County's proposed math placement policy both sought the moral high ground during this week's school board discussion.

Critics of the policy argued that using too low a placement standard would do students a disservice and give them a weak math foundation. Supporters of the policy argued they were trying to promote equitable access to rigorous courses.

School board member Jim Martin got the discussion going Tuesday when he proposed a motion to indefinitely postpone the policy in favor of implementing this charge.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST

After much discussion and revision, the Wake County school board is finally set to vote Tuesday on a math placement policy that reflects the new common core standards.

Staff is supposed to present this version of the policy, which has gone through at least six versions over the past year. Compare it to the version (pages 14-15 of this handout) that the board told staff to work from two weeks ago.

One difference in the latest iteration is that staff has apparently gone back to restricting teachers from using their judgment to recommend placing students in a class lower than student data suggests. They can recommend a higher placement.

As the Wake County school system moves to the common core for math, what role should teacher judgment play in placing students and what criteria should be used for placement in the super-advanced track?

As noted in today's article, the school board is supposed to discuss the math placement policy on Tuesday. A number of questions still have to be resolved, such as whether a policy is needed and whether an EVAAS probability predictor of 70 percent is the right floor for placement.

But another issue to be resolved is what to do about teacher judgment.

It's late so I'll keep it short.

The first reading of the revised middle school math placement policy was tabled Tueseay night at the suggestion of Wake County school board member John Tedesco. This came in an attempt to block a motion by school board member Jim Martin that would have nixed the policy entirely in favor of forming a working group to evaluate and stop tracking issues.

Martin questioned the need to have a districtwide policy on math placement when one doesn't exist for other subjects. He also criticized the use of the 70 percent EVAAS probability of success as the floor for placing students,

By passing Tedesco's motion, it moves the discussion of the policy to the next board meeting. Ruth Steidinger, senior director of middle school programs, said the middle schools will do math placement this month for the upcoming school year and need guidance soon on what criteria to use.

In line with the new common core standards adopted by the state, the Wake County school system will implement new math course names and sequencing for the 2012-13 school year.

During Tuesday's school board meeting, staff laid out how the new math sequencing, which in middle school would be used with EVAAs to place students, would look. Staff also gave new data that could put a different spin on the arguments used by critics who've said that using an EVAAS predictor score of below 80 percent is too low.

All five member school districts of the Triangle High Five are supposed to use the same sequencing and course names.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF REPORT FOR LINKS TO HANDOUTS

If the Triangle High Five has its way, Wake, Durham, Orange and Johnston counties and the Chapel hill-Carrboro school system will have a uniform set of math course names and sequences.

As noted in today's article, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board will review the Triangle High Five proposal at tonight's board meeting. Ruth Steidinger, Wake's senior director of middle school program,s said the board would likely get the presentation in January.

Wake will need to decide relatively soon so that high school students can make their course selections for the fall 2012 semester.