What's an A, 93 or 90?

[title1parent]

www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/1805055,2_1_AU04_GRADES_S1-091004.article

What's an A, 93 or 90?
Kaneland students must score higher for same grade as others

October 4, 2009

By LINDA GIRARDI For The Beacon-News
At Kaneland High School, a student getting a 92 is a B student.

But if that student got that same grade in Plano, Oswego, West Aurora, St. Charles or other local districts, it would be an A.

And that's got some Kaneland parents steamed.

While most school districts run a 10-point grading system where 90 to 100 is an A, 80 to 89 is a B and so on, Kaneland has had a more demanding system in place for the last 25 years.

While the district plans to review the system next year, a group of parents said that's not soon enough for the students currently dropped a letter grade.

"We are the only district in Kane County that does not have a standard 10-point grading scale," said Maureen Spradlin, one of about 17 parents who spoke to the School Board during this week's meeting. "This has been a hot topic for parents for a long time, and it has been shelved by the district for a long time. I would like to see it voted on this year, rather than waiting for a drawn-out study next year."

With Kaneland's current grading scale, a student must score 93 to 100 to get an A. Under a change, an A would be given for 90 to 100. For a B, students currently must score an 86 to 92. Under the 10-point grading system, a B would be 80 to 89.

This is the system high schools in West Aurora, St. Charles, Plano and Oswego and other area districts use to turn numbers into letters, although the processes for setting the number grades differ.

"Schools use lots of different grade configurations," Kaneland Assistant Superintendent Jeff Schuler said.

Schuler said Kaneland's grading scale has been in place for 25 years.

"If we felt we were harming students in terms of future opportunities, I don't think it would have been in place since 1984," he said. "Obviously, parents are looking at it through a lens of how it impacts their child."

Administrators said the process is more complicated that simply switching from a 93 to a 90 for the cut-off.

They said they would report back next meeting with the history of past discussions, the rationale in the initial decision and the effort that would be involved to complete a study.

"We need to have very in-depth discussions with the staff, community and students," Curriculum Director Sarah Mumm said. "We are not trying to defer the discussion or research because we don't want to take it on. We do want to take it on, but you have to have the curriculum (analysis) with that."

Staff writer Paul Dailing contributed to this story.
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For D204- our grading scale is :

100-91 A
90-81 B
80-71 C
70-65 D
64- F

[title1parent]

Beacon LTE 10/9/09

Grading system reflects the decline of education

The Beacon's "What's an 'A'" is to be thanked for reporting what we already felt existed, the declining of education in America over the past half century. Want more proof?
Prior to the '60s, the grading system in public high schools was thus:

S -- Superior 95-100

E -- Excellent 88-94

G -- Good 8 -87

F -- Fair 75-80

D -- Failure

Correct me if I am wrong, but failure now comes at 59. We graduate more students because we have lowered the bar.

The solution? As much as I deplore government control of our grading system, our representatives need to enact a statewide uniform marking system, and the uniformity needs to be upgraded to the original standards of yore. Right now our students are operating under an illusion, one that projects them far above their ability and accomplishments.

And I don't see any need for a "drawn out study." The research is already in. The dumbing down of American education has been accomplished, to which I suggest the parents of Kaneland students, instead of comparing their schools' grading system with the surrounding districts, work to upgrade their standards with those of the Oriental and Asian schools. Now there is a real challenge.

Joan Solms

Aurora

[asmodeus]

I thought the grading system in some of my college classes was best. The teacher took the average of the top 10% of scores and made that number the benchmark instead of 100. From there, he assigned grades based on 90% of the benchmark as A, 80% as B, etc. So for example, in a class of 27 students, if the average score of the top 3 students was 93, then the grades would be given as follows:

A= 84+
B= 74-83
C= 65-73
D= 56-64
E= <55

This system makes sure that students are not penalized for an extra difficult test that everyone does poorly on, nor rewarded for a super easy test that everyone aces. I think it is superior to the standard 90/80/70 system.

[doc]

Oct 9, 2009 5:24:21 GMT -5 title1parent said:

Beacon LTE 10/9/09

Grading system reflects the decline of education

The Beacon's "What's an 'A'" is to be thanked for reporting what we already felt existed, the declining of education in America over the past half century. Want more proof?
Prior to the '60s, the grading system in public high schools was thus:

S -- Superior 95-100

E -- Excellent 88-94

G -- Good 8 -87

F -- Fair 75-80

D -- Failure

Correct me if I am wrong, but failure now comes at 59. We graduate more students because we have lowered the bar.

The solution? As much as I deplore government control of our grading system, our representatives need to enact a statewide uniform marking system, and the uniformity needs to be upgraded to the original standards of yore. Right now our students are operating under an illusion, one that projects them far above their ability and accomplishments.

And I don't see any need for a "drawn out study." The research is already in. The dumbing down of American education has been accomplished, to which I suggest the parents of Kaneland students, instead of comparing their schools' grading system with the surrounding districts, work to upgrade their standards with those of the Oriental and Asian schools. Now there is a real challenge.

Joan Solms

Aurora

since colleges also use GPA for entrance I also though there needs to be a standard.

for instance 69 is an F @ Benet and honors/AP classes are not weighted.

The Indian Prairie schools' grading scale is as follows:

A 91–100

B 81–90

C 71–80

D 65–70

F 64 and below


does 203 match 204 ?