Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts,” read a sign hanging in Albert Einstein’s office at Princeton University. I hope to connect the wisdom of these words—attributed to Einstein—to the way in which grades are often formulated in Alberta’s schools.

Although receiving an A is considered a measure of success in school, there is little agreement on what an A means or what must be done to obtain one. The problem with grades is that one letter or number symbol carries many types of information. This makes it difficult to understand what grades actually mean.

Classroom assessment is gathered using various tools and is used for a variety of purposes. Formative assessment is designed to monitor and guide learning while it is in progress. Information from informal observations, homework, quizzes, and so on, informs the teaching and learning process. Summative assessment is used to judge a student’s achievement at the end of instruction. The teacher determines which assessments will be formative and which will be summative.

Though formative assessment is critical to learning, because it provides feedback when it is still possible to influence the learning process and is, therefore, at the heart of teaching, formative assessment results should not be included in grades. In a version of Einstein’s phrase, not all assessments can be counted, even though all forms of assessment have value. Therefore, summative assessment should be the only assessment used in assigning grades. Related to the words of wisdom from Einstein’s sign, not all assessments can be counted, even though all forms of assessment have value.

My second point relates to what counts in a grade. Current literature and research state that the only factor that should be included in a grade is achievement. Achievement is defined by the Alberta Assessment Consortium (2001) as a “student’s demonstration of knowledge, skills, and attitudes relative to grade level curriculum standards.” And, as O’Connor (2002) states, “For grades to have real meaning, they must be relatively pure measures of each student’s achievement of the learning goals.” Work habits, effort, progress and other non-achievement factors should, therefore, be reported separately, and not incorporated into the grade.

The third and most controversial point related to grading is the practice of awarding zeros to students for late or missed assignments. There are two problems with this practice. First, assigning a zero suggests that the student has learned absolutely nothing. More often than not, this is not the case. If grades are to clearly reflect achievement, then a zero for missing work distorts the truth. Second, penalizing a student for late work provides a powerful disincentive to finish the work. Teachers must ask themselves what is more important: that the work is completed on time, or that the work gets done and learning occurs.

My fourth and final point relates to the practice of norm-referenced grading—the bell curve. This practice is inappropriate both philosophically and technically. Philosophically speaking, it encourages students to become highly competitive rather than cooperative. It creates anxieties, and sorts students into winners and losers. It also works against the goal of successful learning for all students. Technically speaking, the sample size of a classroom is too small to establish a normal distribution.

In conclusion, incorporating non-achievement factors into grades, awarding penalties for late or missed work and grading on a bell curve result in letter or number symbols that tell little about what students know, understand and can do. Classroom grading practices must be designed to communicate accurate information about achievement. If success in school is an A, then everyone needs to be clear about what that means.

Resources

Alberta Assessment Consortium. 1991. A Framework for Communicating Student Learning. Edmonton, Alta.: AAC.

___. 2003. Refocus: Looking at Assessment for Learning. Edmonton, Alta.: AAC.

___. 2001. Smerging Data: Grading…More Than Just Number Crunching. Edmonton, Alta.: AAC.

O’Connor, K. 2001. How to Grade for Learning: Linking Grades to Standards (2nd ed.). Arlington Heights, Ill.: SkyLight.

Photo by Don Hammond