SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2010
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From Page One A11 Incompletes replacing F’s in Fairfax school’s grading grades from A1
mac, he counted nearly 2,000 Fs, withalargegroupof teens racking upmore thanone failedcourse. The new strategy has critics —
both within West Potomac and beyond—who fear that reducing the possibility of outright failure gives teachers less leverage and gives studentsunrealisticexpecta- tions about the adult world they soon will enter. Some worry that the reordering of deadlines and test opportunities will also affect the transcripts of the college- bound, giving some students an advantage. Mary Mathewson, an English
teacher, says a number of her col- leagues are “livid” about the grad- ingchange,which“takesawayone of the very fewtoolswehave toget kids to learn.” The possibility of failingisamotivator, she says,and now “kids are under the impres- sion they can do it whenever they want to and it’s not that big of a deal.” In the first quarter, half of
Mathewson’s grades for two 10th- gradeEnglishclasseswere incom- pletes. “I don’t believe it’s an extra chance,” she said. “It’s an out. The root problem is motivation. The root problemis not thatwe’re not teaching them.” In Alexandria, T.C. Williams
High School recently adopted a policy allowing incompletes to be given as placeholders, but with fixed time limits for completing thework; Fs are still given.Mont- gomery County recalibrated its failingmarks several years ago to score Fs as no lower than 50 per- centwhen calculating grade aver- ages, rather the far more damag- ing zero. In PrinceWilliamCoun- ty, schools have made it easier to retake tests and awarded fewer outright zeroes. “Once they demonstrate mas-
tery, you give themcredit forwhat they know,” saidMickeyMulgrew, Prince William’s associate super- intendent for high schools. The idea, he said, is: “Who cares if you learned it onMonday or Tuesday, as long as youlearnedit?” In Fairfax, Peter Noonan, assis-
tant superintendent for instruc- tional services, says the high-per- forming system is not scrapping the A-to-F grading scale, but a small group of entrepreneurial principals are trying new ap- proaches, using standards-based ideas about the importance of learning content. “If we really want students to
knowanddo thework,whywould we give theman F andmove on?” Noonansaid. Now, the thinking atWestPoto-
mac goes, learning will trump grading. Teachers, working as a team, will be on duty more after- noons and Saturdays.Theywill be mentors, too. If students fail to finish work to clear up incom- pletes, they may have to attend a last-chance summer session. For students who have mas-
tered thematerial, the new policy hasbenefits, too.Missing aquiz or a assignmentmay simply result in an“NM,” fornomark. If the teach- er thinks that a student already understands thecontent,heor she may not have to complete the missingwork. Butsuchchangescanbeatough
sell, andmany parents and educa- tors worry about inflating grades, undermining teachers and send- ing students thewrongmessage. “I thinkgivingFshasapurpose, andthat istodemonstratewehave
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standards [students] have to meet, andif theydon’tmeet them, they don’t pass,” said Michael J. Petrilli, executive vicepresident at the Thomas B. FordhamInstitute, an educational policy think tank. “We’re trying to prepare young people for theworldof adults.” But Rick Wormeli, a grading
expert who has conducted train- ing on the new approaches in PrinceWilliam, Loudoun, Calvert and Anne Arundel counties, ar- gues that grades of incomplete ultimately create more account- abilityandunderscorethevalueof what isbeingtaught. “It’s farmore demanding on kids,” he says. For them, “nowit’s, ‘Oh crud, I have to learnit.’ ”
All of this is a work in progress
atWestPotomac, a school of 2,200 students that brings together the children of lawyers and lobbyists with the sons and daughters of new immigrants and financially strapped families living near the poverty line. Fewparents and teachers knew
about the change as the school year started, but a letter went home in October. The Parent- Teacher-Student Association is studying the change, and there is now an opposition group, Real World,RealGrades. Many parents ask about fair-
ness: What about the conscien- tious student who keeps up with class,
studiesuntil2a.m.andpulls
anAonamathtest? Shouldapeer whoskippedclass andflubbedthe test twice or three times get an equal grade?With the new policy, the ultimate grade on a student transcript couldbe the same, even thoughthe two students took very differentpaths. “I think there is a fairness issue
involved,” parent Carol Farquhar Bolger said. “What is a grade from WestPotomacgoingtomeannow? Whatdoes anAmeannow?” Student Harmain Rafi, 16, said
she views it from a similar angle, failingtoseehowit “balancesout” not to hold students to the same deadlines and test opportunities. “It more or less says all the hard work I’m doing isn’t going to be
worthanything,” she says. Ken O’Connor, the grading ex-
pert whose work inspired the changes inFairfax, saysWestPoto- mac’s is uncommon at the high school level but that critics should remember that some people pass their driver’s license test the first time,whileothersneedfourorfive tries. “The important thing is not when you demonstrate the com- petency, butwhether,”he said. West Potomac principal Hardi-
son said first-quarter grades in- cludedabout600marks of incom- plete.Hehopes thepolicywillhelp topstudents aswell,making them go back and fill in learning gaps. “Obviously we’re trying to help kids who were not successful in
the past, but reallywe’re trying to helpall kids,”he said. Kate Van Dyck, who has two
children attendingWest Potomac, wantedto know:Whenwill teach- ers find the extra time to work with students who have incom- pletes?What about students who game the system?How can learn- ing continue sequentially ifmake- upassignments remainundone? “There has to be some recogni-
tion that students do learn at dif- ferent rates . . . but these strate- gies,while theymaybewell-inten- tioned, are knee-jerk reactions for our student records not to reflect zeroes or Fs,” she says. “An ‘I’ is kindof a limbo.”
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