Middle Schools Should Not Use Letter Grades

Thanks for the challenge, Rocky, it should be fun debating you again :) 1. Pro explains, "Letter grades do not report at all on many of the things that parents find most important: Is my child making friends; is he responsible; is he learning new skills?" However, you'll note that my opponent's suggestion of using number grades doesn't report these things either. Getting a "B" in Social Studies doesn't mean that one's social skills are up to par. So in fact, it seems like what Pro is actually advocating for are additional feedback on report cards (which can be detailed in the write-in comment section by teachers), or particular information about a child's well-being in the class which can be relayed at parent-teacher conferences or other meetings. I absolutely agree with and encourage a parent taking a high interest in what their child is doing in the classroom and how they're fairing as individual students. However, the purpose of the report card is to evaluate how the student is performing to the standards and expectations of the curriculum. 2. Pro's next point states, "The research on grades has demonstrated three robust and reliable findings: When kids are led to focus on getting good grades, they tend to do less creative thinking; they pick the easiest possible task if given a choice, and they begin to lose interest in the learning itself." This is a completely irrelevant argument, because the same reality still applies even if number grades were used instead of letter grades. 3. Pro says that using number grades would be more appropriate, because students would be encouraged to out-perform their counterparts. You'll first note that the idea of competition in education completely upholds the point from #2 in regards to pupils choosing to do the easy stuff on purpose. Nevertheless, this is a very weak argument. As Pro mentioned, the letter grade of an A- for example represents the number grades of 90-93. I maintain that students can still be competitive with number grades. When you receive a certain letter grade, it's indicative that you scored within 3 measly points making competition still widely accessible. Further, since this is only middle school as my opponent pointed out, I highly doubt that the kids' interest in competition would be weakened because they didn't know if one scored a 91 or 92 on a test. 4. Once again, I don't think the issue of precision is a big deal at all. Pro exclaims that letter grades are "NOT accurate in the LEAST" but I think that's a completely false and dramatic statement. So long as one knows that an A- represents a score of 90-93 percent, then one's achievement or rather comprehension of the subject material (which is really what grades are supposed to represent) are acknowledged with a letter grade. One can understand how well a student has understood the material or performed on an exam or assignment whether or not they received a grade of a 70 or a C. 5. As far as Pro's last point - efficiency - I negate the idea that this is an issue at all. He says that if one scores a 57/60, a teacher would have a hard time converting that to a letter grade as opposed to a number grade. Yes, he's right - the teacher can divide 57 by 60 and get the percentage grade... but knowing that percentage grade would also reveal the corresponding letter grade, so the teacher is actually not doing any additional work. Further, sometimes numbers are even more confusing than letter grades. For instance, if I received a 51/60 on an exam, I might not know what that translates to of the top of my head... especially if I'm in middle school. However, if I saw a big "B" on the top of my paper, then I will know how I did right away. I'd also like to point out that the link Pro provided showing the "complexity" of letter grading is really not complex at all, though I think that's a bad example of a scoring chart and not one a MS teacher would use. I'll link to a better one in the next round.