Getting beyond just grading and tests

What class are you in?

A child might ask this question of a friend to see if they’ll be together next year. It can take on a different tone, too.

In the Free Press news story Grant Park removes advanced-placement test due to student stress (April 30), we learned that the Winnipeg School Division will stop using an intake exam administered at Grade 6 to inform academic streaming at Grade 7.

Such sit-down tests carry the risk of inaccurately reflecting true capacity and potential, and should not stand alone as gatekeepers for high-stakes decisions with potential implications for social stratification. When children are involved, the ethics are also debatable. Regardless of why the change came about (student stress was cited), it’s a good one.

From the Free Press story High school told to use percentage marking (April 23), we learned Manitoba Education recently found it necessary to remind the Louis Riel School Division that “all Grade 9 to 12 report cards must include a percentage grade in all reporting periods, including midterm reports”.

This coincided, perhaps by random chance, with a parental concern about missing percentage grades on report cards that, for this parent and her children, can “motivate and incentive and empower”. The article also noted “anecdotal comments from community members who are skeptical about its results [on student learning].”

Traditional student assessment practices focus on marks such as percentages. This practice facilitates a classist, competitive, win-lose aspect to schooling and, by implication, to prospects for socio-economic status. This puts a different spin on an interpretation of ‘classroom’.

A win-lose approach is inconsistent with a context where all graduates must be “proficient in complex critical thinking, problem-solving, and effective communication to meet demanding societal, economic and technological challenges.” (Manitoba Education document Rethinking classroom assessment with purpose in mind).

It is also troubling that, as in any competition, there must be losers by which to ascertain success. A system based to any degree on the fear and realization of humiliation to motivate learning fails many students who become dispirited and disengaged as a result.

Yet the routine classroom use of marks and grades such as percentages continues to facilitate rapid comparisons among students. This necessitates an art to teaching of fostering a sense of accomplishment for students regularly experiencing dispiriting rounds of ‘whujyaget’.

Such considerations may be among the factors motivating educators in the Louis Riel School Division to de-emphasize percentage grading and institute alternative ‘progressive’ assessment practices.

Such practices have featured in educational discussions, conferences and initiatives for over 20 years, and they appear in Manitoba Education documents. They include the use of descriptive feedback and dialogue with students about learning, and student reflection on learning with the help of clear learning targets. They entail less judgmental, marks-based feedback that can shut down learning due to frustration, a loss of agency and hope, or because the mark is good enough in the student’s view.

These are not experimental initiatives; they are practices supported by decades of research showing that they foster learning and engagement with school. As such, they deserve at least as much consideration as some people’s experiences and anecdotal preoccupations.

Yet concerns of some parents who may have succeeded with traditional assessment practices, or despite them, or who hold beliefs that marks and grades can be properly employed to motivate, intimidate and punish, challenge change. Meanwhile, parents of children adversely affected by these practices are far less likely to express concerns about them despite the greater need. This makes the advocacy and ambitions of school leaders who pursue reformative assessment practices all the more critical and commendable. It requires champions of considerable determination and vision.

The provincial policy requirement that high school report cards use percentage grades (almost exclusively — there are a few exceptions) need not preclude learning-supportive classroom assessment practices provided such grades are seen and treated as occasional artifacts of learning, rather than entangled in routine teacher-student interactions.

Hopefully, there is room for policy adherence and reformative practice to co-exist.

If streaming continues in the Winnipeg School Division, it is best determined through holistic recommendations from teachers and discussions with parents.

With moves in these directions, the meaning of ‘classroom’ need be no more ominous than the number on the door.

Ken Clark, retired, writes from Winnipeg. Most of his time in education focused on assessment, including a role in the collaborative development of the Manitoba student report card policy.