Bringing in "The Grade Doctor"

http://venitapeyton.com/2009/05/wake-county-teachers-are-awake.html

here WCPSS. trying to save some $$ and possible teacher jobs:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/10312175/08-j-Webinar-15-Fixes

Here are his fixes and my comments: 1) Include only achievement If achievement is all we care about - then this is fine. I believe school is to also teach character, teamwork, etc. If we only grade achievement - students should be able to test out of courses and attend when they want to. 2) Provide support for the learner – don’t reduce marks for lateness If deadlines aren't important in life - this is fine. How do you move on with a class if half of the class hasn't completed the work necessary to move on? Teachers would be constantly re-teaching and wouldn't be able to keep the class on track. 3) Seek only evidence that more work resulted in higher achievement – avoid ‘extra credit.’ I agree with this. 4) Apply appropriate consequences for academic dishonesty and reassess to gather the necessary and missing data, but do not punish academic dishonesty with reduced grading. What are appropriate consequences for cheating? By not giving credit for cheating, students learn that they are better off (a higher grade) by being honest. I feel that's appropriate. 5) Report absences separately – don’t grade attendance. I can see this point but how many people would have a job if they only showed up 2-3 days per week? WCPSS teachers don't grade on attendance now. It should naturally affect the grade if the class time is valuable. 6) Use only individual achievement in a grade – avoid group grading High school students need to learn how to work in groups/teams - even when some are lazy, hard to work with etc. Adults don't always get to choose who they work with but still have to do their jobs. Not everything should be a group grade. 7) Organize and report evidence by standards/learning goals – not by tool (i.e. homework, test, quiz, etc.) Some teachers have a better grasp on standards than the people (DPI) who provide the curriculum. This is a bureacracy problem. 8) Provide clear descriptions of achievement expectations – avoid unclear performance standards Agree 9) Compare each individual learner against pre-set standards – not against each other Agree to a point - again goes back to standards problem in NC 10) Rely only on quality assessments for results – not evidence gathered from varying degrees of quality Again, a problem with curriculum in NC 11) Consider other measures of central tendency and use professional judgment – do not rely on the mean. The mean needs to be considered to determine if standards are realistic. 12) Use alternatives such as reassessing to determine real achievement or use “I” for incomplete or insufficient evidence. Don’t include zeroes in grade determination when evidence is missing or as punishment. So a student can do absolutely no work and just receive an I? If teachers had time and fewer students, they could track the I's and help those students. Our education system is not set up to make that realistic in any way. A zero tells exactly what the student did - nothing. I do see the point in a zero skewing the overall grade, but teachers can fix that easily. 13) Use only summative evidence. Don’t use information from formatives and practice. Again - only the final assessment matters? This is college - there is a reason K-12 is not run like a college. Schools are teaching far more than what is on a summative assessment. 14) Emphasize more recent achievement when learning is developmental and will grow with time and repeated opportunities. Most teachers do this already. 15) Involve students in the grading process as they can and should play a key role in assessment and grading to promote achievement. Many teachers do this but most students don't care.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518101,00.html

Hui,
Is ZAP used in some Wake County schools already?

This sounds like quite a fraud -- don't address the core problem, but dress up the grade results. Pathetic. And at $48,000 to "stimulate discussion" I bet we can bring in the unabomber for a whole lot less.

Hint, in the real world, guess what grade I get for late projects? They don't care about my self esteem, nor should they.