I still remember the orientation to my school right out of the Faculty. We were given a tour of the school and, like in any fair-sized secondary school, were kind of lost and turned around. There were just the three of us and the vice-principal. Of course, he told us that we could ask questions but I remember being so overwhelmed that I didn’t. I just hoped that there would come a time when we’d be able to recognize where we were. The school seemed so huge!
We did eventually end up back in his office and we were sitting there chatting politely and then he made an interesting comment about reporting that sticks with me to this day. “You don’t give final marks or credits to students; the school does through the principal”. Knowing what I know about things now, I would have loved to dig into that. But, I hadn’t received my first paycheque yet much less given my first test.
Of course, we did various assessments and assigned grades throughout the year. Sometimes, they were numbers between 0 and 100; sometimes they were letters from A-F; sometimes they were PASS/FAIL. A copy of everything had to be nicely packaged in a binder in case someone wanted to see something – I don’t recall anyone but me going into mine – and at the end of the course, we had to submit the binders to our department head, along with our final marks, who checked them over and returned them. At that point, we could then put them on “mark entry sheets” to go to the office. I found out later that they went through another bit of scrutiny via the Guidance Department, Principal, and then entered into the computer by the head secretary. There would occasionally be bones of contention from teaching staff if a mark was changed by the office. Again, I don’t recall any of my marks being changed.
Later as a department director, I was in the middle of the process. I really didn’t have any expertise in making sense of someone else’s marks. You’d like to think that colleagues were professional and were reporting the best that they could. We did have a rule about not giving 48, 49, or 50 because they were so easy to question. The philosophy, I guess, was “fail them good” or “pass them by the skin of their teeth”. 47 and 51 where magic numbers.
We had professional development sessions periodically by subject and it was awesome to get together with other computer science teachers. None of us had textbooks and so we were doing out best to meet the requirements set by the Ministry, although none of us were doing the same thing. I had a bit of an advantage since I had four years of university studies in computer science; others had advantages because they had experience teaching the subject. I’d be lying if I said that assessment, evaluation, and reporting was consistent across all schools.
I read this longish article this morning.
It speaks volumes about the challenges in education. As long as the students are in your school for four years, things would be relatively consistent, I supposed. It’s when they change schools.
The chit-chat about our incoming Grade 9 students was that there would be a noticeable difference from one “feeder” school to another. I never experienced it first hand since the only Grade 9 class that I taught was Business and there was very little to carry forward from Grade 8 to Grade 9. I’m told that in Mathematics and English, it was really noticeable.
When the students graduate from secondary school, there are a number of different pathways they can take. For those moving academically to university or college, there’s another big shakeup. I remember talking to a professor once and he said that he had given up looking at entry grades and the ranking of secondary schools and he just treated students all equally as if they were at the lower end of things. They’d move on from there.
Before any of this happens though, they have to get into university and that’s where those marks come in to play. It isn’t too hard a reach to see why a school would make changes to marks – the article calls it “grade inflation” – to help students get accepted and to maintain the reputation of the school.
Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash
Over the years, we’ve got better at assessment and evaluation. The move to leveling makes so much consistency and not splitting hairs about the difference between a 74 and a 75. Teachers today are much more comfortable talking about assessment and evaluation than I ever was.
Post secondary relies on reporting as one of their criteria for acceptance.
illustrates the immense pressure in the race up the grade scale, one in which Grade 12 averages are on a steady slope upwards and the number of kids entering university with a 95+ average has exploded, according to data collected by the Star.
https://www.thestar.com
There would have been a time when I would be very passionate about the content of The Star’s story. Now, I can understand. We know that kids are under pressure from parents to get ahead in life. That pressure is easily directed at schools as well.
I’d be hard pressed to come up with a solution. I know that there was a time when departmental exams were the thing with everyone in the province writing them. I know that we have implemented EQAO testing in some areas so try to level the playing field. We’ve abandoned the departmental exams and we question the value of EQAO testing so we appear to not have that right yet.
But that doesn’t solve the university situation. It costs a lot of money to attend and live, should you get accepted. It doesn’t seem to me to be fair that over-inflating marks helps the cause at all.
Do you have a solution?
doug --- off the record 