Alfie Kaohn tweeted a link to his article in Educational Leadership magazine titled "The Case Against Grades." Claiming grades do more harm than good, he supports dropping grades altogether, which through great teaching will do a superior job promoting learning. Initially, I predicted the article would jump on the standards based grading wagon, but to my surprise, he dismissed this idea as being no better than letter grades. Furthermore, Kohn (2011) says, "In my experience, the best teachers tend to be skeptical about aligning their teaching to a list imposed by distant authorities, or using that list as a basis for assessing how well their students are thinking."
Here is my question: How do you evaluate a teacher whom dismisses the standards and leads a successful class in which learning is the focus? In Iowa, we use the 8-43 to help teachers and administrators pinpoint the qualities of a good professional in the teaching field. Since the teacher is not necessarily following the curriculum, would you dismiss her? Would you tell him to change the curriculum to align with the standards? What if they refused? Also, what implications does this have in larger schools using PLC's?
As a school manager, I want classes to be aligned, to have common grading scales and assessments. Through this alignment work, students would be on a more even playing field. The days of hearing the teachers that grade easy and hard would be gone. In opposition to the manager is the school leader in me which would celebrate the highly engaging class that builds lifelong learners. Every school I have been associated with as a student or teacher has a mission statement that includes lifelong learning, so I would hope to celebrate the class, not punish the teacher for being innovative.
Terry-
ReplyDeleteVery interesting article you blogged about by Kohn. I was also surprised by the stance that he took. To answer some of the questions that you posed, I don't know how I would address the teacher who was not following the 8-43. I haven't heard about how Jason Glass is going to address the 8-43. I read the blueprint and didn't see the 8-43 mentioned in it at all. I wonder if this will be a thing of the past. There will have to be some fierce conversations between the administration and school unions when it comes to teacher evaluations. I am glad we have the opportunity next weekend to ask Mr. Glass some of these questions.