Bethel Public Schools New Improved Student Assessment System Aims for More Comprehensive Information and Better Feedback to Parents and Teachers

– Standards Based Reporting
– BHS Reads
– Smarter Balanced Assessment Parent Info Sessions

As you may be aware, the Bethel Public Schools over the past few years has been shifting their PreK-8 model grade reporting to a standards based system, most recently at BMS. Dr. Brooks, the administrative team and I felt it was critical to communicate the rationale for the shift and the impact it will have on student achievement and your understanding of your son and or/daughter’s progress within the curriculum. There is a tremendous amount of research nationally about the ineffectiveness of grading systems based on numerical averages and/or letter grades. The largest concern with these traditional systems is the lack of consistency about the calculation of grades and the limited feedback on what students have actually mastered in terms of skills and knowledge. For example, with traditional averaging systems, grades could be calculated on homework completion, effort and some performance indicators. This system typically does not provide any specific feedback on skills and is not helpful in enriching experiences for those students who are advanced or providing intervention to a skill deficit.

First, it is important to understand what a standard is in education. A standard is the skills and knowledge (what we want students to know and be able to do) by content area and grade level. They are the basis for our district curriculum. The goal of standards-based grading is to clearly communicate to students and parents what is expected, the current level of proficiency, and how a student can achieve mastery. I would like to provide an example of the differences from the old system to the new and how it can provide more specific feedback:

Old system example: Student receives a grade of a “B” in English. In looking in Powerschool, parents can see that they have done most of their homework, grades on some assignments, and tests. There typically is not a description of how the assignment was assessed or whether or not the student demonstrated grade level mastery. Parents are given almost no feedback on whether or not their child is able to perform skills at grade level.

New system example: In Powerschool, for each content area, there will be a list of standards and how they will be assessed. For example, a writing standard at the MS would be that students can write for multiple purposes and audiences. Parents would see a list of assessments that measure that specific skill and how their child performed on those assessments. Teachers have (or are creating) explicit rubrics or criteria for how students can achieve mastery on the assessment. This gives a tremendous amount of feedback to families about student’s strengths and areas for development.