The school system went to a new grading system this year – rather than the traditional 13 step (A+, A, A-, B+ …F) system they went to a four step (A, B, P-pass, NG-no grade) system. At the time this seemed to be a side effect of this very strange Covid school year – though it was never very clear, at least to me, why the Covid circumstances called out for a different grading system.
One widely noticed side effect of this transition was that it seemed to also include some substantial grade inflation as well. We were initially thrilled with my daughter’s all A’s reports card – her first one so far, but then we realized that this was a new system and it wasn’t clear how to compare this to previous reports. I likewise began hearing of similar step wise improvements in other kid’s grades with the new reports.
We spoke to the teachers at the parent Zoom conferences and they assured us that there was no systemic grade inflation going on but it certainly seemed that way. Another way to look at it though is that with this many fewer steps, grades that may have been a B or B- now become an A.
I chalked it all up to one more detail of our very strange Covid year … that is until now.
The school department has announced that they are considering sticking with the new grading system for middle and high schools for next year (2021-2022). They’ve set up a committee to make recommendations and they are polling parents with this survey.
Here’s a short video from the NPS about this issue.
The video talks about some generalities (equity, continuing effects of the pandemice, etc) but It’s not at all clear what the problem is they are trying to solve. The video does mentions the difficulty when teaching via Zoom of making the fine honed A- / B+ sorts of distinctions, but none of that would apply for next year when students will be back in the classroom.
Perhaps most worrying to many parents is the the loss of visibility in report-to-report changes in students performance, as well as the ramifications of Newton having its own grading system when kids get to the college application process.
My daughter is graduating high school in June so I’ll bow out of this conversation and let you all take it from here …
While the substantive issues about grading are important, Jerry, there are also important issues of process. I’d like to suggest that the public’s confidence in the decision the NPS makes will be deeply influenced by the manner in which they consider a policy change of this magnitude.
For example, the path by which NPS and School Committee intend to address this issue is unclear. For example, what is the authority of the educators working group that they have created? What is their charge? What resources have been made available to them? Who are they, and how were they chosen? When was the group created and how often have they met? Are there minutes of their deliberative sessions, and will those minutes be made available to the public?
If the intent of the survey is feedback, why is the video from the working group presented as advocacy for one result as opposed to a more objective presentation of the pro’s and con’s of the two different grading systems. The people in the video are not identified: Are they the full membership of the working group?
If the intent of the survey is to solicit feedback among families who will be immediately affected by the change, why are current fifth grade families not included in the request for comments? For that matter, if the new grading system is to be in place for more than one year, why are families with still younger children not included? As was the case in one of the NPS most recent surveys, if the response from the public, or from particular socioeconomic, ethnic, and racial groups, is not of a level that reaches statistical significance, how will they use the survey results?
What are the next steps? Is this a decision that will be made solely by the Superintendent based on recommendations from his staff? Which staff, other than the working group, will be consulted? Will the recommendation be presented to the School Committee for review and assent before being implemented? Will a formal recommendation be made available to the community for their review and comment before action by the Superintendent and/or School Committee? What weight will the Superintendent and the School Committee place on public sentiment when such a recommendation is formalized?
Finally, I don’t recall this topic being raised by the Superintendent in the School Committee meeting immediately before the email was sent or in his general letters to the community: When will there be a formal announcement from him that consideration of this issue is on the agenda for this spring?
These are just a few of the procedural questions that have arisen. Given the high level of concern around this issue, whatever substantive conclusion is reached, the manner in which NPS and the School Committee do so is significant.
I had the pleasure of speaking with a friend yesterday from my son’s elementary school days. She had applied for her youngest daughter to attend an independent school where an older sibling was already a student. The head of school told her that it is not clear how to evaluate Newton students this year. Between the disparate-from-peer-districts lack of school and non-transparent grades, the head of school did not feel enough information was available to admit the student. We are in dangerous waters as a community and would do well to return to rigor and metrics. Our children depend upon it.
A public record request shows that 75% of high school grades are A’s. Hard to believe.
Students are motivated by grades. When I was a student I did the minimum amount of work to get good grades. Things have not changed. Common sense and at least 3 peer-reviewed studies tells us that this policy will result in decreases in student learning.
Our high schools report grade distributions to colleges. There are going to be a lot of straight A students who don’t get into middle-of-the-road colleges. Don’t be surprised.
Even before this NPS delivered education results well below our peer districts. This will make the gap worse.
Where is the school committee?
If anyone thinks this proposed grading policy is motivated by doing what’s right for kids, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
I have nothing to add to the very thoughtful comments above.
November can’t come soon enough. We need to restore excellence to our school system.
I just noticed a few typos in my post. That’s not a surprise due to my chronic carelessness and the V14 retirement of my ever vigilant copy editor Paul Levy.
I do like “pandemice”, little infected rodents that spread disease. I think I’ve just coined a word ;-)
I have been told that teachers do not return the work that has been graded. I find that hard to believe: how can a student improve without seeing the constructive comments? How can a student know which part of the French sentence (let’s say) was wrong without seeing which words/ verbs are underlined? How can students learn from their mistakes and take pride on what they did right without detailed feedback?
Mom Mom!!
Come look!!
Everyone’s getting a trophy this year!!
The median house price in Newton
is getting pretty darn close to one million dollars. Largely due to our school system. This is what you’re
getting for your million bucks.
@Paul Levy you raise a lot of important questions about the process. I have found that NPS and the School Committee’s thought process has been flawed during the pandemic. The first example was the hybrid plan announced in August to start the year in a hybrid mode without the plan having been analyzed to determine potential road blocks so that those roadblocks could be addressed and the plan could be implemented.
I also find it strange that at the high school level when there are committees making decisions it seems to be very hard to determine who is a member of these committees. In this situation there is a reference to this committee but there is no clarity on just who us on the committee except a vague reference to educators, A similar situation occurred with the GPA working group and the SAC for the new principal at South. Why is there no transparency? This is so odd to me.
I’m not sure what happened to differentiated education and meeting kids at where they are at. Newton Schools should be trying to make all students the best that they can be, Not all kids are created equal, We should be recognizing their strengths and addressing their weaknesses. They seem to be an attempt to make things equal in the name of equity.
There has been a lot of mud as opposed to transparency on this matter, as Paul Levy pointed out. I was very surprised to hear that this year’s panic Pandemic system would be possibly be carried over in some for for next year in person. Why?
1) What is the mission statement of the Working Group on grade changes for NEXT year? 2) Who is on the Working Group? 3) What research are they using to make their decisions? I received a Google drive document that was clearly ONLY focused on the pandemic. I was told a survey went out to students – but did NOT ask them what they thought of the Classic grading system. OOPSIE.
We need a system that meets EVERY kid where they are — the A++ kids, the SpEd kids and the kids who are avoiding failing. ALL deserve to be met. It’s not a black and white issue.
SpEd kids who will be test-optional when they apply to college work VERY hard at non-AP courses which weight mor, to distinguish themselves as my daughter did. She deserved that B- instead of a C in chemistry. To take away her opportunity to shine is NOT equitable or smart. I give this project an F- so far.
For a mission this important, we need a task force using or commissioning real research, not carrying over Pandemic insights that takes time. We are not gonna change the system by changing grades, that is a cosmetic fix.
@Isabelle Teachers return graded work and spend hours on their “days off” grading papers as everyone knows. Here is one quote from the NCA Forum: “I spent several hours on Sunday to write a paragraph comment in the grading program for all 86 of my 8th graders, which will not appear on their report card. And some kids might never read. Many of my colleagues have 100+ or 200+ students! —
As a parent of 3 kids in or graduated from NPS, sometimes it takes longer – esp if your teaching systems changes every two months during a pandemic.
All good questions and concerns are raised here. From a parent’s perspective, this new pandemic grading policy has been a disaster for my daughter, who is completely unmotivated and is barely willing to put in any effort into her school work. “Don’t worry mom, we are all getting As anyway!” This is not how it was before, and this is definitely not what an excellent school system looks like. What a disservice to all students.
This just makes me sad. Next step will be to eliminate grades.
I can hear it now ….
We don’t want anyone’s feelings hurt. We don’t want to evaluate. We don’t want to judge. We don’t want to stress anyone out by ‘labeling’ them. Everyone is special. You don’t know a kid’s situation. How can you possibly ‘grade’ them? The teachers have it hard enough .. you expect them to spend the time to pass judgement and hurt feelings too! How Neanderthal like of you! All are equal! Meritocracy is capitalist suppression!
Posting a text I just got from an admissions committee member who cannot go on record;
What will happen is the colleges will catch on immediately and the standardized tests will mean everything and Newton grades nothing
All the schools have ears to the ground and alumni whose job it is to keep informed. The explanations NPS gives will not help.
Nationally, many school systems that have kept the typical A-F grading system have encountered a significant increase in the number of kids failing or falling behind. With this new grading system in Newton, we have no idea how just how much learning loss last spring and this school year has caused. I don’t want to assign nefarious motives. However, the administration, and specifically Superintendent Fleischman, cannot be held accountable for this disaster if most kids are getting all As and Bs.
It took NPS more than a year to get kids back to school, and that was only because the DESE mandated in person learning. Prior to the pandemic, the SC took years and years to study HS start times and still they could not be decisive. The grading system change was done very quickly with very little community input and received relatively scant attention since the emphasis was to get kids back in person. I think NPS leadership wanted to cover it’s backside.
As I read the previous comments two things stood out to me
“A cosmetic fix” and “increase in kids failing or falling behind”.
If you look at the latter comment failing it actually different than falling behind. Is NPS doing a cosmetic fix rather than admitting that the kids are falling behind because isn’t the falling behind on them?
It appears as though the
Newton school system is on a race to the bottom.
Watch the video linked above. It is propaganda. It is completely not objective. Tries to use popular phrases to explain the reason for the new grading system but stops there and doesn’t truly explain. Makes it seem like old grading system is bad and causes harm, leads to inequity, is racist, etc. Makes it sound like you are evil to want to go back to prior way. Makes NO attempt to provide data (portion of kids getting grades at different levels in old and new). Thus we can not see how it is being applied. Makes NO attempt to recognize the merits of the prior method. Makes NO attempt to recognize the difficulty this new grading system could create for college admissions. Makes NO attempt to recognize that it could make it harder to hold teachers accountable for the quality of their instruction. Makes NO mention that it makes it harder to gauge the degree to which students are falling behind. Makes NO mention of whether the old or new way is more likely to have a student strive for excellence.
Instead, the old way is racist, inequitable, and causes harm. That’s all we get.
I’ve stayed pretty quiet about how the school stuff has been handled during Covid. It is hard, tough decisions. Don’t like to second guess. But … this is opening my eyes. I’m beginning to that the teachers and district do not have my student’s best interest at heart. The attitudes being put forth are one of mediocracy. There is less and less interested in helping all the kids achieve their very best. We as a society need this. Help the weaker to be stronger and those that are exceptional to reach their potential. Instead they are saying that would be inequitable.
Great comments.
As with school reopening it’s vitally important that people keep up the pressure. Emails to everybody involved, emphatic responses on the surveys, and all the rest. Tell your friends with rising 5th graders to send emails and make calls.
We voted for this. Can this mess be fixed at the next local elections?
I am totally confused by this school year.
For ten years, Newton has held community meetings about high school start time, and then BOOM, this year the shift is made, and it is a BIG BIG BIG swing. 7:40 AM start time is now 9:15 AM. I have no idea how I missed ANY prediction of this, as someone who keeps up with the local news.
Then, BOOM the grading system is changed – NO community feed back, and really no looking into the future. BOOM. My kid (9th grader) receives all A’s. My kid is good. But, did I expect her to get all A’s? No. She showed up. She did the work. There was no homework. She doesn’t think it reflects reality, and nor do I. Again limited parent input. And teachers sounded limited to what work was appropriate this year.
I don’t think our students should be in a pressure cooker, but I do expect the high school to prepare a student for either the work force or college. The work from ACP classes this year was not college prep.
My kid will get into college and will hopefully succeed, but I don’t want her to glide through high school. I want her mind stretched. I want her to try new things and learn new things. But this year’s high school experience was different than my older child’s experience.
And my kid spend a good chunk of time in her own home doing school – lonely. Without the state, I fear that Newton would be all remote for the foreseeable future. There are some high school kids suffering with mental health issues and the school is drowning. The clubs are mostly zoom. There is little human contact unless your kid is on a sports team or in band. Those who want to learn are getting reduced learning. Those who need access to mental health resources have little, and often through zoom. We are failing our students.
We need NPS, the mayor and the school committee to step on the gas pedal before a generation of students become lost.
What is the goal for NPS in five years? And what are the steps to get there? Lay out a road map. The community doesn’t know where NPS is going and I wonder if NPS knows where they are going?
Last week I read three academic papers on grading and student achievement and emailed a summary to Principal Turner. An excerpt of my email follows.
Gershenson (2020) has a sample of 8th and 9th graders in North Carolina for 11 years (2006 to 2017). He categorizes teachers as having higher standards (4 different groups) if their average grades assigned to students are lower relative to student performance on a standardized exam. He finds that students instructed by high standard teachers perform, on average, much better on an end-of-course exam. He then looks at student performance in math classes for the following two years. Again, students who originally took algebra from high standard teachers perform much better than students who originally were instructed by low standard teachers. He continues by examining differences based on race. He finds similar, strong results, for each race.
Figlio and Lucas (2004) examine 4th and 5th graders in Florida and how their annual performance changes on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Using a similar high standard metric as Gershenson (2004), they find that students who are instructed by high standards teachers have higher increases in performance. This result holds for both math and reading and is robust to race controls.
Elikai and Schuhmann (2010) relate performance on professional accounting exams to the college accounting class grading leniency. They find that students who took classes from more lenient instructors performed worse on the professional exam. They find that the students who benefit the most from more stringent instructors are students with lower SAT scores.
References
Elikai and Schuhmann, 2010, Issues in Accounting Education.
Figlio and Lucas, 2004, Journal of Public Economics 88.
Gershenson, Seth. Great Expectations: The Impact of Rigorous Grading Practices on Student Achievement. Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute (February 2020) Note, this paper is currently under review at a top notch peer-review journal.
Every student should get full credit just for showing their face on Zoom.
After all, that is what public school teachers have been getting.
We need data to shine a flashlight on issues. Differentiated grades provide data. Current grading diminishes the quality of the data.
Let’s not sweep the problem of kids falling behind under the rug. Let’s not hide the degree to which kids are not learning.
Let’s instead have good data that all can see to show the magnitude of the issue and how the magnitude varies across student clusters/segments and schools.
Good data can promote good ideas and promote the application of more resources to get after more opportunities for improvement. Rather than apply resources to guesses.
I understand why people felt this grading system was needed this year. But to continue it would be a mistake.
The pursuit of equity over excellence by the current regime (Flesichman, the School Committee, and its puppet master) is the root cause of the decline of Newton schools. Equity is a noble goal, but in its implementation, it has been about pushing down higher performing students (e.g. eliminating honors track mathematics in middle school) and not about helping to lift those that need help. Now we have an example of disincentivizing higher performing students and masking the struggles of students that need help so this has devolved to fake equity.
20 years ago Mary Eich came to Mason-Rice School and told parents children didn’t need to learn their times table because they’d all be using calculators and memorization limited creativity. NPS then removed advanced classes from middle school and 9th grade to reduce stress.
I gave up and signed up my kids for Russian Math. Once they hit high school, I was repeatedly told they were ‘geniuses’. Nope they were ‘educated.’
Ms. Eich is now Asst. Sup. in charge of teaching and learning.
I sent the following to the Mayor, Superintendent, school committee members and others about the possible change in the grading system. Of course no response. Parents should reach out to them and let them know how you feel. It is not ok what is happening.
I strongly disagree with continuing with the current grading system. I don’t understand why Newton would want to continue using this minimalistic way of grading. Why shouldn’t the student get a C if that is what they earned? Do we think not showing a C or a D on a test is going to make the students feel better?
I believe that by continuing to use this grading system you are taking away the drive students have to succeed. Of course grades aren’t everything, but an incentive to work hard and trying to achieve a higher goal is a good thing. Why can’t a test be graded as a B- or a B+? You are making the students not want to push themselves. If they have a B; what difference does it make if they don’t put their all into a future assignment if that lower grade will still result in a B overall and not a B-.
I constantly hear that you don’t want to stress the kids out. By not pushing them at all isn’t helping them. How will they learn to push themselves post high school if they aren’t learning it here? I’m not saying they should only focus on grades; but having high standards is a good thing, trying to do better is a good thing; and by continuing what is being presented; you are teaching them that mediocracy is ok.
I am extremely disappointed that the students haven’t been in full time when most in the field of medicine have said it is ok. I am more disappointed in how the Newton School System has handled the academics during this time and I’m concerned that the laid back approach will continue. We receive many emails and have meetings about the social and emotional well being of the students. Where are the emails and meetings about keeping high standards of learning? Where are the emails and meetings about academics? We are constantly being told about equity and that Newton South is an anti-racist school (as it should be). Why has that taken over everything else? Why has that been the only focus we hear about?
When my kids were in elementary school parents asked about the academics and the Superintendent stated that when the kids get into high school the curriculum is strong. When my kids were in middle school and parents asked why the math classes weren’t broken out by level we were told that in high school there is a strong focus on academics and grades and we will see a big difference. My daughter is in high school now; what happened to that high school that I heard so much about?
I am not the only parent who feels this way. I have spoken to MANY who feel the same. I hope you take all of this into consideration as you look towards how the Newton Schools will move forward.
Good point, Lucia. If parents feel that NPS is not providing their kids with an adequate education then they will look elsewhere, either through supplemental programs such as Russian math or move their kids to private schools. In this way, NPS is actually increasing inequity since it creates a system where parents who can afford these program will send their kids for additional learning and parents who are unable to afford will only be able to rely on NPS.
Lucia-
I feel your pain. I really do.
Both Mary Eich and the Ed Dept have known about the problems with the
“Chicago Math” system in the Newton schools going back at least 10-15 years, and the blame can be squarely placed on the shoulders of Mary Eich who should have been fired years ago. They know/knew about it and couldnt care one bit. Damn The Torpedoes and full speed ahead. The kids used to call the math program “Math/English. I spoke to folks at the Ed Center including Mary Eich years ago, and they basically said “we got this”
I was told I’m so many words to let the professionals
mainly overpaid, unaccountable “ Curriculum Coordinators” handle it.
I mean c’mon, fundamentals are so overrated arent they?
I was met with a frosty reception from Mary Eich and the other Einstein’s over at the Ed Ctr when I asked them if they knew or cared whether residents new to Newton had to supplement the education of their kids
with the RSM or tutors because the Chicago Math system was failing our kids. This is very old news.
Interesting footnote … I was just speaking with a neighbor who said when her kids were at Newton North roughly 20 years ago they had a different non-standard (relative to most other schools) grading system. It was letter grades but no pluses and minuses – i.e. many fewer steps.
She said that it was somewhat of a problem with college admissions departments since the Newton academic yard stick was different than most other school systems. With the current movement away from SAT’s being a requirement for college application having a non-standard grading system is likely to be more of an issue.
She thought that it was sometime in the early 2000’s that they switched over to the more conventional A-, B+ system. It’s odd that the movement is to now go back again to a non-standard system with even fewer steps.
I am sharing this article,” How to get our kids back on track” also titled “Our Kids are not Broken” from the Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/how-to-get-our-kids-back-on-track/618269/
The article says that students’ social and emotional health can be supported with work that is meaningful and challenging.
“Once students understand what they need to change, how can districts and schools help them improve? Scientific research shows that learning is impeded if students do not feel safe, seen, and valued. All parents and teachers know that if a child does not feel that she belongs within her school culture because of her identity—whether it’s race or gender identity, income level, culture, body type, learning profile—she likely will not thrive academically.
Educators can support the social and emotional health and identities of students at the same time they assign work that is meaningful and—most important—challenging, even above students’ current level. Addressing concerns about learning loss by raising difficulty level may seem counterintuitive, but with strong relationships and support, this approach can be surprisingly effective.”
In many classes, but certainly not all, my children who are in 10th and 12th at Newton South, especially the senior, are not feeling challenged. They love the classes that are engaging, and it is apparent that across-the-board teachers are working really hard, no easy feat especially when kids turn cameras off and limit their responses to chat boxes. Without question it is hard to make online learning stimulating and with so many diverse home situations, I understand that the grading this year during the pandemic needed to be relaxed or refined.
Why does next year need to be more of the same? This new proposal is lacking dialogue and explanation with data for parents and families. If there is a committee, let’s hear from them directly. This video and survey are not it. I’m not an educator but does a grading policy need to be the same for a 6th grader and a 12th grader?
I also know that this year, 75% of kids in both Newton high schools in term 1 received “A’s” under the pandemic grading system. This can be the pandemic anomaly, but I worry that with the nationwide de-emphasis of SAT/ACT scores, colleges will struggle with how to reconcile this lack of differentiation of grades among Newton students if this is the long-term norm. It has been said that the grading committee talked to colleges and did peer district research – could that be shared with parents or have a college panel talk with parents? Without some more data it is hard to support this new grading direction or even answer the survey. Hopefully, this survey is just that, a survey that gets the result, with a high degree of confidence, that this is NOT the direction to take…
From tonight’s “NPS District News”:
“PLEASE NOTE: We are in the beginning stages of a process to review and evaluate our current grading system. We will continue to use the pre-pandemic grading systems (A,B,C,D,F) next year.”
https://www.smore.com/fza07-nps-district-news?ref=email
Pivot?
The survey linked above said: “A working group of educators in grades 6-12 has been formed with the ultimate goal of making a recommendation for a grading system for the 21-22 school year.”
Now, the Superintendent reports in the March 31 NPS District News: “We are in the beginning stages of a process to review and evaluate our current grading system. We will continue to use the pre-pandemic grading systems (A,B,C,D,F) next year.”
https://www.smore.com/fza07-nps-district-news?ref=email-content#w-7255592997
Still unanswered questions: Is this a decision that will be made solely by the Superintendent based on recommendations from his staff? Which staff, other than the working group, will be consulted? Will the recommendation be presented to the School Committee for review and assent before being implemented? Will a formal recommendation be made available to the community for their review and comment before action by the Superintendent and/or School Committee? What weight will the Superintendent and the School Committee place on public sentiment when such a recommendation is formalized?