Houston drew an analogy between letter grades and golfer Tiger Woods by comparing Woods's A game in golf to Houston's own A game. Better just to acknowledge that he plays a game not normally seen on this planet and my game has the following strengths and areas needing improvement. Houston believes the traditional system is limited and that it must include other measures and systems, including samples of student work, standardized tests, and narratives. Report card change usually comes about because of the limited nature of traditional systems, Houston said. But, he added, many school districts eventually return to traditional grading methods because of political pressure or parent dissatisfaction.
Today there is much more pressure to show results, and so grades are caught up in it.
That does not track with reality and can harm a child's motivation at the very time we should be improving it. Traditional grading is something that some parents think that they understand. Chandler told of an administrator who suggested giving two grades for each subject, one based on effort and progress and another indicating the grade level equivalency that a student is working at. Others give no A's or B's to students who are below grade level and A's only to those students working at or above grade level. Although Chandler still sends home report cards with traditional grades on them, she also offers parents other proof of students' progress.