AT GRANGER, the teachers and district are trying to implement a new way of grading called performance based grading. With this, it makes it so that the students actually have to learn something and pass each one of the tests on that objective.

“For my classes I give 3 different “tests” which would be a multiple choice test, a project and then an essay. With those 3 things I broadly look over it and see if the students have learned the subject at hand. If they have mastered it they get a 4, understanding of it would be a 3 and then it would just continue down from there.  With this type of grading it makes it easier for the colleges to see if the students have actually learned something,” Mr. Fuller said.

Performance based grading is how the district wants all the teachers to be teaching. They feel this will be more beneficial and help when it comes to grading the kids on them actually learning. With this being so new, though, there are a few things that need to be fixed.

“With this type of grading they want it so that the students that are struggling get an intervention period where they can receive some help. But with this that also means that the students who are succeeding in the class have to do extra work on the same subject and “smarter” and I know that some of those students wouldn’t the extra instructions considering their mindset is that they already passed, why do more work?” Fuller said.

Students that are already passing a class don’t want to put more effort into it if they are already passing. But the students that need to get their grades up could really use the extra help, so is this something that could logically work for the passing and failing students?

In a faculty meeting, the teachers here at Granger High discussed how performance based grading is working for them and how they like it.

“It improves teaching while also improving the student learning kinda simultaneously. With performance based grading has made it extremely easy to grade because I went from have 30 assignments in a quarter to now having 8-10,” Mr. Wiemer said.

With less assignments, the students won’t have to worry about those classes as much anymore unless they need the extra help. Homework no longer being mandatory, the students will be doing less work unless they need the practice for the test.

“With this, homework no longer goes against the student’s grade because homework is practice. One assessment won’t lower a grade until the student has taken three assessments so that we can take the average of all 3 and then it would start going towards the students grades,” Ms. Funk said.

Although this idea seems like something the students would like because it means less work some students don’t like the whole idea of it.

“Many of the students don’t like the idea of this type of grading and I heard many complaints when I told them how I would be teaching. Most of the complaints were just horror stories about past teachers who had tried to implement this teaching strategy,” Fuller said.