A-E report card system

[RustyCage]

Hey, just wondering if you could help me with something Im doing for uni.

Its about the new A-E grading system which the Government is forcing the schools to impliment or lose funding.

To all the parents out there who have been exposed to the new system, what are your thoughts on it? Is it better or worse than the old system? Does it give you a good indication of your childs abilities/achievements? What information would you like to know about your childs schooling that isn't provided with the a-e system that you were provided with before?

Any information you could provide would be much appreciated!

cheers

[Mic]

I can give you a teacher's point of view....

[RustyCage]

I can give you a teacher's point of view....

That would be great, because thats the perspective I need to write about.

Im in the final semester of a JP+P teaching course at uni and we are looking at how certain policy is deprofessionalising the profession.

[Mic]

The A-E grades policy was created by an Education Minister who had no background in education. I believe their background was in medicine.

When it first came out John Howard did a rant about how parents around the country were unhappy with their children's reports, that they were not being given 'the truth' about their child's learning. He provided no data as to who these parents were, or how many.

The idea was that schools around the country change their reporting format so that a grade of A, B, C, D or E was assigned to the 8 curriculum areas. Also on the report card would be some sort of comparison of that student with the other students in their year level at the school, such as a tally of all As, Bs, etc assigned for that area for the student's year level.

Schools who did not do this were to be threatened by having funding taken away.

I reckon the Federal government wanted this new system because it wanted data that all schools in the country could provide, so that comparisons could be made between states and between schools, and also wanted the new system because they had no clue about the issues:
-Giving a Reception student a grade doesn't make any sense.
-Grades might make high achievers feel good, but certainly not low achievers. In the past it was damaging to student's self esteem, which is why the concept of letters for grades was dropped decades ago, and of course it would be damaging now.
-Having year level results of grades tallied and displayed on each student's report card breaks confidentiality - it is no one else's business, except the student's parents, on what that student achieved.
-Making comparisons between schools using grades doesn't take into account any other aspects of the school, such as its socio-economic area that it's in.
-The school reports that schools use are frequently reviewed by teaching staff and by parents in the Governing Councils so that they are relevant to the community and provide the information that parents want. From receiving, each year, 1 to 2 written reports, 1 to 2 parent teacher interviews plus other phone calls and informal meetings, parents are given a very clear indiciation of their child's strengths and weaknesses.
-Giving one grade for English actually provides less information. It does not take into account that many students have different strengths and weaknesses in English. A student may be a highly competent reader but has trouble spelling. Or a student may be a very confident public speaker but has difficulty writing. So trying to summarise all of that into one letter defeats the purpose of providing more information to parents. This would be the same for other subjects too.
I could go on....

The response from the teaching unions was strong, particularly in South Australia. When schools were told that they must use the grades, most didn't. Becuase of this, our state education department postponed their use until the following year (this year). After some meetings between the 2 groups (which included the state education minister admitting the grade system was flawed), the state government decided that students in Reception were exempt from being given grades (and possibly Year 1 and 2 students as well, but I'm not sure) and that they should only be for Years 3 and above. The teaching unions were still not happy with this and continued to tell its union members to continue banning their use.
Since then the state education department has taken the state union to court over the banning. During the 'hearing', the union had lots of researchers, teachers, parents, etc there to explain why the grade system is so full of faults. The education department had almost noone to support their argument, because they didn't have one. Their only proposed reason why the grades should take place is because the Federal government will withhold funding. They could provide no educational reason for why the grades are a good idea. The ban was allowed to continue, and the case, in some way, is still going. No school has yet to lose funding for their actions (as I'm sure it would be a great way for the Federal government to lose votes if they tried to do so).

That ended up being a very long answer....
If you need more info I'll post tomorrow arvo. I'll dig up some links that might be useful too.

[mighty_tiger_79]

great explanation

[Psyber]

I could never see anything wrong with the older system where every subject was marked out of 100 and the totals combined to give and overall percentage, but then I usually averaged about 99%.

The exception was the year my primary school made me do woodwork over my objections in grade 7. I did the absoute minimum required and averaged 51% for the years practical work but topped the class with 75% overall by getting 99% for the theory paper in the last week of the term! The woodwork teacher was totally baffled, and said, "I don't know how you did it." My sweet reply, "The theory paper was a pushover Sir!" didn't help him, but I enjoyed it...

At least with real quantification it meant something other than, "Well we took all the figures and called the average [yes I know "mean"] result "C" and worked from there." That's an approach that would never work in running a nuclear power station or sending a man to the moon. I remember a biochemistry subject I did at Adelaide Uni where they did that, after 3 days intradepartmental arguing because the acting chairman of the Biochemistry department argued that only 10 people in the 100 doing the course had actually reached a passing grade. He was probably right.

I gather the problem is that it is not nice to tell the kiddies they got something wrong and should try again, harder.

[Magpiespower]

Went to a very traditional 'Énglish' primary school growing up...

"Education through humiliation.''

[smac]

Left us "Cherry" ripe for the real world MP.

[Psyber]

A traditional education beats "Any old crap is good enough so long as not too many of your mates do any better so you are near the average." How can you learn to get things right if no one is allowed to show you what you didn't the first time you tried? Perhaps a teacher for each student so total confidentiality is preserved?

Now we have kids in shops who don't have a clue when the calculator with flattish batteries comes up with a truly ludicrous total, and when you try to resolve their indecision by doing the mental arithmetic out loud for them they look totally bewildered, because they have no idea whether you are right or cheating them.

Streaming kids into class groups of approximately equal ability in theory took the most of the incidental humiliation out of it - except for those who could see how the streaming worked - or if it was carelessly done. My old High School [Woodville] naively did Otis IQ tests on the intake and read the lists of who would be in 1A 1B 1C etc. out at an assembly. Since the names weren't in alphabetical order it was easy to guess they had been left in score order, a deduction I confirmed later when helping out in the administration office as an older student. That wasn't cruel or intentional humiliation of those who scored lower. It was just stupidity on the part of the administration. [The Head and Deputy were not all that bright.]

[Psyber]

... It does not take into account that many students have different strengths and weaknesses in English. A student may be a highly competent reader but has trouble spelling. Or a student may be a very confident public speaker but has difficulty writing. So trying to summarise all of that into one letter defeats the purpose of providing more information to parents. This would be the same for other subjects too.
I could go on....

Of course if the disparities between performance skills in various aspects of learning are fairly pronounced it is important to note them in detail rather than average and generalise them. They may need investigation because it may reflect a minimal brain damage syndrome caused by, for example, a lack of oxygen at birth or jaundice at birth, or childhood hypothyroidism, or be a product of many other conditions including the over-diagnosed ADD/ADHD. Some conditions can cause electrical abnormalities in the brain like a form of sub-clinical epilepsy that can impaired concentration and memory and can be treated. This may show up in different areas of learning depending on which brain region is affected.

So then you look at the sub-tests in better IQ tests like the WISC or WAIS and consider whether an electro-encephalogram should be done to check for sub-clinical epilepsy.... and on it goes.

I wonder how many never get detected....

[Mic]

I'm not actually sure what you're on about Psyber.

pafc1870 - some more info can be found at http://www.aeusa.asn.au/topics/2542.html

[Psyber]

I'm not actually sure what you're on about Psyber.

pafc1870 - some more info can be found at http://www.aeusa.asn.au/topics/2542.html

Sorry, I thought I was being quite obvious and neglected to explain.

I'm concerned that in the process of not being too "critical" of childrens' achievements, and the softening of the process and method of assessing school performance in the interest of not "humiliating " anyone and making life easier for teachers, some childrens' disabilities may not show up as they used to and will go undiagnosed and untreated to the childrens' disadvantage.

Part of the work we do in one of my organisations is reassessing adults possibly misdiagnosed as having ADD in childhood, and detailed school performance records are an important tool in looking back at what was going on back then. I fear that tool may be lost under this softer grading system while we pursue politically correct non-discriminatory fashion. This will mean much more expensive, and less meaningful because it is done at a later age, retesting at greater cost to the clients.

Specific and meaningful learning performance records relating to the early primary years supply important and irreplaceable information, much more effective than medical or psychological testing later. It is the patterns revealed in the old academic record that matter.

I am concerned that so many young adults are damaged because learning problems have not been picked up in the school system, or they have been misdiagnosed as having ADD and been bunged on dexamphetamine or Ritalin.

[Mic]

As to not being critical enough, teachers still provide plenty of feed-back as to what students' weaknesses are and how they could develop/improve them. The aim is to do it in a productive manner.

A school's performance could be based on the grades its students achieve. It could also be based on what it offers its students in terms of learning opportunities, programs, support, resources, curriculum, etc.

I don't know how humiliating an 8-year-old will help his learning.

I'm also not sure how current assessment/reporting practices make life easier for teachers.

What evidence do you have that less students with learning disabilities are being picked up these days compared to the past? I would have thought that with the greater variety of assessment that presently occurs in classrooms (ie, not just a written test at the end of a unit) compared to the past, learning difficulties would be noticed a lot more now. Plus guidence offciers visit schools to do testing of students who teachers feel may have an issue.

As to misdiagnoses of ADD, I'd have to ask some doctors' opinions.

[Psyber]

Something went odd here and a half completed reply was posted when I tried to check back on your post - I had not clicked "Submit". So I deleted it - see completed version below

[Psyber]

As to not being critical enough, teachers still provide plenty of **** as to what students' weaknesses are and how they could develop/improve them. The aim is to do it in a productive manner.

A school's performance could be based on the grades its students achieve. It could also be based on what it offers its students in terms of learning opportunities, programs, support, resources, curriculum, etc.

I don't know how humiliating an 8-year-old will help his learning.

I'm also not sure how current assessment/reporting practices make life easier for teachers.

What evidence do you have that less students with learning disabilities are being picked up these days compared to the past? I would have thought that with the greater variety of assessment that presently occurs in classrooms (ie, not just a written test at the end of a unit) compared to the past, learning difficulties would be noticed a lot more now. Plus guidence offciers visit schools to do testing of students who teachers feel may have an issue.

As to misdiagnoses of ADD, I'd have to ask some doctors' opinions.

I am not saying I am sure it is happening, but that I am concerned from the past school assessments I review as part of working with young adults with difficulties that it might be.

I have been working in a field that involves among other things assessing young adults with learning disabilities, for many years, and my subjective impression is that those with major disabilities are being turned up later, usually after they leave school and try to get a job. So, where my company used to get them turning up referred at 12 or 13 because they were demonstrably not keeping up with their peers they tend now to come at 18 or so, and their presentation is usually complicated by symptoms of social failure like alcohol and drug abuse as they drift in the post-school society.

I could probably produce statistics to prove this change in age of presentation if I bothered to spend a lot of time analysing our records of age of presentation, but we really don't have the time to spend on such unpaid activity, as we have a 4 week waiting list already. [We don't allow clerical staff access to the records.] However, for what it is worth, my opinion based on my experience and known expertise in the area is usually accepted by the courts in Victoria, and I have been flown over to arbitrate conflicting expert opinion in SA on occasion.

What I am saying about school records is that when there were set marks for subjects scored on a term by term basis, we as assessors had some fairly concrete guide as to what school performance before age 8 was and what the trends were. This is important to us. As assessments become less simply numerate and more subject to interpretation by the schools and translation into social theory acceptable terms like an A-E scale the subjectivity and abstractedness of the assessment increases, and it is of less value to us, and thus to the client.

We have some insight into the school systems too, as we see teachers who may be involved on Workers' Compensation claims, along with Police, and other workers in similar situations. Teachers seem to divide into those who like the new systems of assessment, and those who feel it wastes valuable teaching time generating more meaningless paper to feed the bureaucracy. [ A schism similar to that that arises in religious groups.]

As to ADD - don't ask just any Paediatrician or Psychologist, let alone most GPs. There is a tendency to make the diagnosis using symptom checklists and not pay any attention to the section in the definition of the disorder in DSM-IV which requires the next step of eliminating, after reasonable consideration, other conditions that may produce the same symptom clusters. SA held the national record for the highest per capita prescribing of stimulants to children for alleged ADD, until a particular Paediatrician moved to WA and the statistical prescription record moved with him. I talked to him once - he seemed to be genuinely convinced he was right.