Standards-Based Grading

• Standards describe what students are expected to know and be able to do at the end of each grade level or course. 
• Each content area (i.e., mathematics, English language arts) has specialized standards that connect with their discipline. 
• Standards are adopted and developed by Washington State’s Office of Public Instruction, in alignment with national frameworks.

• Our teachers were part of the district-wide process of selecting the essential standards for each course. Teams reviewed all the standards for a course and used the criteria below to select those that were essential:
  • Endurance: Standards that provide students with knowledge and skills beyond a single test date.
  • Leverage: Standards that provide knowledge and skills that will be of value in multiple disciplines (examples: non-fiction writing, graphing, arguing from evidence).
  • Readiness: Standards that provide knowledge and skills that are necessary for success in the next grade or level of instruction.
• Other standards will continue to be taught, but only the essential standards are part of the grade. This helps teachers and students focus on the skills and content that are most important.

• Standards-based grading evaluates learning of specific content and skills rather than grading on individual assignments. The online gradebook is organized by the standards students are expected to master by the end of the term. 
• On assignments, students don’t receive one overall score that averages all of the skills and knowledge together. Instead, when an assignment includes more than one standard, each one is assessed separately in order to show the students’ strengths and needs. 
• Students have multiple ways to show proficiency in each standard.

• 1 = Beginning to Meet Standards 
• 2 = Approaching Meeting Standards 
• 3 = Meeting Standards
• 4 = Exceeding Standards 
• A student might perform at the beginning level (1) at the beginning of the unit, which is normal. They will have multiple opportunities to show growth toward meeting a standard. If the student’s performance improves, the 1 will be replaced by higher proficiency levels (2, 3, or 4) later in the term, and the initial 1 won’t have a negative impact on the final grade. 
• A family might become concerned with their student’s growth if they start to see a pattern that does not demonstrate that their student is progressing (for example, 1-1-1, 2-2-2, or 1-2-1). If this happens, the family should first talk to the student about their learning, then if more clarification is needed, reach out to the teacher (if the teacher hasn’t already done so).

• Final grades for each standard are determined by the student’s performance by the end of the term. Instead of averaging all of the grades from the term, a standards-based approach focuses on how students are able to demonstrate their understanding by the end of the term. 
• In rare cases, a student may have an instance of lower performance near the end of the term. The teacher may choose to have the higher performance earlier in the term override the later performance if the earlier assessment better demonstrated the student’s actual skill or knowledge.
• On secondary report cards, the 1-4 scores are converted into a letter grade for each course. The final score for each standard is averaged to calculate an overall 1-4 for the course. This average is then translated into a letter grade using the following scale: 
  • A = 3.4 – 4.0
  • B = 2.7 – 3.3 
  • C = 1.6 – 2.6. 
  • Grades below 1.6 are coded as NC (no credit) and do not affect a student’s GPA. 

• In a standards-based gradebook, academic progress is separated from other non-academic behaviors such as participation and work completion. 
• The final grade is not about behavior, work completion, or attendance. Students still receive feedback and reflect on these areas, but the gradebook and report card only measure performance on learning standards. 

• Even though we aren't averaging the grades of the assignments, doing all assignments is how students learn, grow, and ultimately develop proficiency in the standards.
• Continuing to work towards standards at home is still an important part of learning. In a standards-based approach, the focus is less on completing individual assignments and more on building the knowledge and skills to demonstrate proficiency on standards. 
• Students will still come home with work to complete. As their family, you can support them by asking which standards they are working towards and how it is going. Instead of asking, “Did you do your homework?,” you could ask, “What learning did you work on today?”. You can look in the online gradebook to see which standards they need to continue to work on in order to meet expectations.

• Our secondary report cards convert the scores in the gradebook into a letter grade. This allows college admissions officers to easily compare our students with those in districts with traditional grading systems. 
• College admissions officers have reported that students coming from standards-based schools tend to be more successful in college because their K-12 experience has focused on their attainment of key skills and knowledge.
• Standards-based grading helps students take ownership over their learning and build a growth mindset that helps them be successful in the future.

• Rubrics describe how students are expected to demonstrate their learning of a standard. They include descriptions of the quality of student work at different levels: beginning, approaching, proficient, and exceeding. 
• Rubrics help teachers grade more consistently and objectively.
• Rubrics are a guide to help students know how to grow their learning.
• Rubrics support families in knowing what their children are expected to know and be able to do.

Sample Rubric for Social Studies

D2. Civ.6.6-8.Individually and with others, students describe the roles of political, civil, and economic organizations in shaping people's lives.

• Standards-based grading provides feedback for students and families on current learning and ways to progress. 
• Students and families can see which specific standards are current strengths and which standards the student needs to work on.
• Students have opportunities to be assessed again if they have not mastered a standard. If they perform better, the new grade replaces the previous one.
• Students are not penalized for having a bad day that causes them to do poorly on a task or test. They will have other opportunities to show they have met the standard, such as a chance to re-do the assignment or more time to complete the assignment.
• Students have the opportunity to choose how they demonstrate mastery of the standard using their personal strengths, as appropriate to the standard. 
• Standards-based grading helps a student change their mindset from task-orientated learning to a growth mindset. By doing this students have more ownership of their own learning, become advocates of their own learning, and will be able to better identify and use their own strengths.

• Standards-based grading helps families focus on learning instead of focusing on task completion. 
• By accessing the gradebook on ParentVue, families can identify strengths and opportunities for improvement, and they can focus on key concepts with their students. 
• Instead of asking, "What did you work on today," families can talk about standards with their students. For example, if a parent sees that their child is working on using evidence, the family may ask, "Tell me about how you wrote using evidence today"?