New report card marking system creates controversy
Anglophone West School District is piloting a new report card using new terms for student achievement
The Anglophone West School District’s experiment with a new report card system that eliminates traditional marks is intended to give students and parents a better understanding of how well they are performing in school.
Ann Sherman, the dean of the faculty of education at the University of New Brunswick, said the pilot project that is being used in the district’s kindergarten-to-Grade 8 classes is intended to better reflect the progress of students.
| Progress Reports (Nov./April) | |
| PW | Progressing well |
| P | Progressing |
| PD | Progressing with difficulty |
| Achievement Reports (Feb./June) | |
| 4 | Exceeding learning goals |
| 3 | Meeting learning goals |
| 2 | Approaching learning goals |
| 1 | Working below learning goals |
“What we are trying shift away from is this thing that that tells us that this child has reached a single point to the idea that it is a more fluid process and that kids are progressing,” Sherman said.
“Are they really zooming along? Are they progressing well? Or they are progressing very slowly and we really need to be monitoring and supporting them in a different way.”
The pilot project that started this year is prompting an intense debate over whether the traditional system of marks such as 75 per cent is a better reflection of students’ achievement.
Under the new system, students will receive progress reports in early November and early April, which will indicate if the child is Progressing Well, Progressing or Progressing with Difficulty. The report is then intended to focus the discussion during parent-teacher interviews.
A separate achievement report will be distributed in early February and the end of June. These reports will have a four-point scale to indicate the student’s performance.
In this scale, a 4 indicates a student is exceeding learning goals, meanwhile a 1 indicates a student is working below the learning goals.
Previously, middle school students received a numerical mark. Elementary and primary students had report cards noting whether performance was superior, appropriate or needed improvement, for example.
In a two-page document shared with parents, the Anglophone West School District said the pilot project affects all students from kindergarten to Grade 8 in the district and it will be implemented in all other Anglophone school in the next two years.
Sherman said the system of telling students and parents that they are “progressing well” is more informative than a traditional mark or letter grade.
“To tell a child that they are progressing well does give them more information than to say they have an 85. An 85 doesn’t mean that they have learned 85 per cent of the material, it means they scored 85 on one one-hour test,” she said.
“It really doesn’t give them the kind of information that we are trying to give them in the new assessing approach.”
Parental input is important
Under the new system, the UNB education professor said it is important for parents to be involved, to look at teacher feedback and to go over their child’s work.
As research advances and educators get better insight into how students learn, the marking scheme must evolve too.
Jennifer Jamieson said in an email to CBC News that she does not believe this new system of report cards is serving students appropriately.
"I had looked at the new format, I had read the information on the website but I am still a little 'flummoxed' … I suppose, if his mark was 90 when he started and is now 92, he is indeed progressing. However, if his starting grade was 60 and is now 64 he could still be classified as progressing," Jamieson said.
"Using the above rubric, how would the Department of Education and District of Anglophone West be graded?" said Jamieson.
While other anglophone school districts are also supposed to follow the lead of the Anglophone West School District in the next two years, Sherman said the real goal is to get universities to move beyond their reliance on traditional marks and letter grades.
She said she believes universities are starting to become “more flexible in accepting that kind of kid who has a non-marked report card.”
“I believe that detailed letters, anecdotal report cards that really describe the way the student thinks deeply, can assess their own learning, is progressing well, really gives you the kind of information that you want to know about your child,” she said.