Feedback and Grading for High School Students

How it Works

Two key features of effective grading policies are:

1) Do no harm - work in April through June can help students, but lack of access to technology
and instruction will not hurt students.

2) Emotional resilience - work in April through June and student response to the crisis can help
them not only academically but emotionally. We ensure resilience by rejecting the average for
the semester and using the latest and best evidence to determine the final semester grade

These three vignettes illustrate the application of these principles

Christina is a high school junior who has worked hard, loves school, and excelled
academically despite working a job after school and on weekends and caring for two younger
siblings every evening. Although her school has provided a laptop, Christina's family does not
have an internet connection and she has been unable to participate in her school's on-line
learning activities and therefore she has missed two months of instruction. Although she tried
to read assignments and has talked with her friends, she has not been able to ask question, get
real-time feedback, or otherwise make much progress in her classes. Through the end of
February, Christina was earning A's and B's in all of her classes. Christina's teachers, using the
latest and best evidence of her achievement, will award the grades Christina was earning
through the end of February, so her A and B grades will remain unaffected by the school
closing. Teachers will continue to do their best to reach Christina, but her inability to turn in
work in March and April will not be held against her.

Jerome is a high school senior who lives in the city in a small apartment with his mother
and four siblings, and last week his aunt and her two children also moved in. Although they
have a computer and internet connection, there are two adults and now seven children all
trying to use the same computer. Jerome has taken a leadership position not only in the home
but also with his classmates, spending time encouraging and supporting his friends, siblings,
and cousins. Though he has only an hour a day on the computer, he has impressed his teachers
with his diligence, commitment, and leadership. Jerome was struggling in school in January and
February, but the quality of his writing and the seriousness he has applied to his studies in
March and April have shown his teachers that he is capable of rigorous work under very difficult
conditions. Because of his work and responsiveness to teacher support and feedback, Jerome
has pulled his grades from D's to B's, and because they are committed to using the latest and
best evidence of student learning, it is the B's that will be reflected on Jerome's transcript as
the final grades for the spring of 2020.
 Alicia is a high school sophomore who was the super-responsible student - her friends
called her "the Mom" because she was always caring for others. Alicia's Mom doesn't speak
English, so Alicia served not only as the family translator, but also the intermediary between the
elementary school where her younger sisters attend and the family. Alicia has never had a
grade below a B+ since entering middle school. So it was a great surprise when, during the
transition to on-line learning, Alicia simply dropped off the map. She didn't check in on the on-
line computer platform and was not responding to teacher calls. In mid-May, Alicia finally
checked in with her teachers, but she had already missed sixty days of school and catching up
seemed impossible. This very bright and responsible student was now considering dropping
out. It turned out that she was not refusing to answer phone calls, but had given her phone to
her Dad, who didn't live with the family, because he needed it in order to look for work. Her
18-hour days were consumed with working and caring for family members. But in a single
conversation with her teachers, Alicia learned about the "do no harm" policy in which her hard
work through February would be honored in her final grade. Far from dropping out, Alicia
learned that she would continue to be on the honor roll.
 Sample “Three-Column Rubric”
Creative Leadership Solutions*
Dr. Douglas Reeves

Concept: Most rubrics are designed for use by teachers and other evaluators. The student submits the
work, the teacher grades it, and that’s usually the end of the process. In the Three-Column Rubric, by
contrast, students take responsibility for assessing their own work and the teachers are able to focus on
those areas where the students are unclear about whether or not they are proficient. The teacher
feedback is not the final evaluation, but rather a method of improving student work in response to that
feedback. These rubrics can be used for any grade level. Primary students might have simple “I can”
statements, while secondary students can have more elaborate multi-level rubrics. The key is that the
language of the rubrics must be accessible to students.

Benefits: The three-column rubric engages student interest because they take on the powerful role of
assessor. Teachers no longer have to write comments or provide rubric scores for every part of an
assessment, but can save time by focusing exclusively on student misunderstandings. Teachers who use
this technique report that the time devoted to evaluating student work has declined by more than 60%.
This not only saves teachers time, but also gives students feedback much more quickly.

Example: Intermediate Grade Social Studies. Look at three maps of the United States – one from
1800, one from 1830, and one from 1860. Why did the maps change and what was in the impact on the
United States?

My Work: Student Self-assessment: Teacher Assessment:

1. I accurately described the I made a three-column chart for Ö
changes in each map, including 1800, 1830, and 1860, showing
new states and territories. states and territories.
2. I explained the reasons for I showed the laws that Please expand your explanation
changes in the maps. approved expansion. to include actions that were not
authorized, wars, and executive
actions.
3. I explained at least two I wrote a story about the Trail of Ö
controversies about westward Tears and summarized a debate
expansion. on the Mexica-American War.
4. I explained the impact of I made a table showing the Please expand your answer to
westward expansion on native number of members of native include the loss of property and
nations. nations who were killed, and economic opportunity and the
who died of disease. long-term consequences of
displacement.
* You can find other free resources, including videos, articles, assessment tools, and research at
CreativeLeadership.net. For professional development keynotes, workshops, and consulting, please
call 781.710.9633 or e-mail Service@Creativeleadership.net.
 Sample “Three-Column Rubric”
Creative Leadership Solutions*
Dr. Douglas Reeves

Concept: Most rubrics are designed for use by teachers and other evaluators. The student submits the work, the
teacher grades it, and that’s usually the end of the process. In the Three-Column Rubric, by contrast, students take
responsibility for assessing their own work and the teachers are able to focus on those areas where the students are
unclear about whether or not they are proficient. The teacher feedback is not the final evaluation, but rather a method
of improving student work in response to that feedback. These rubrics can be used for any grade level. Primary
students might have simple “I can” statements, while secondary students can have more elaborate multi-level rubrics.
The key is that the language of the rubrics must be accessible to students.

Benefits: The three-column rubric engages student interest because they take on the powerful role of assessor.
Teachers no longer have to write comments or provide rubric scores for every part of an assessment, but can save time
by focusing exclusively on student misunderstandings. Teachers who use this technique report that the time devoted to
evaluating student work has declined by more than 60%. This not only saves teachers time, but also gives students
feedback much more quickly.

Example: Intermediate Mathematics. Look at the data set that shows the nation's Gross Domestic Product from 1928
to 2938. Plot the points on an X-Y graph, label the axes, explain the formula that includes the y-intercept and slope.
Make a prediction about what the data on the Y axis would look like if you extended the graph from 1938 to 1943.
Explain your prediction based on what you know about events from 1938 to 1943

My Work: Student Self-assessment: Teacher Assessment:

1. The points on the graph are I plotted the GDP on the Y axis Ö
plotted correctly from the data and the years on the x-axis.
table
2. The X and Y axis on the graph I labeled the X and Y axis Please label not only "GDP" and
are labeled correctly "Year" but also the units on the
X and Y axis.
3. I wrote the formula for the The line connecting the dots is Ö
graph using the y = mx + b not perfectly straight, but I
formulation, and explained in connected them the best I
words the formula could. I showed the y-intercept
and the slope of the line.
4. I made a prediction about I copied the first draft onto Please elaborate on your
what the graph would look like another paper, with the X-axis explanation. What happened
if the X-axes were extended to having 5 more years. from 1938 to 1943 that might
the right by 10 years. influence your prediction? Try
to find the real Y-axis data for
those years and see how it
compares to your prediction
* You can find other free resources, including videos, articles, assessment tools, and research at
CreativeLeadership.net. For professional development keynotes, workshops, and consulting, please call 781.710.9633
or e-mail Service@Creativeleadership.net.
 Getting Educational Equity Right

With almost all schools in the US and around the world closed, leaders and policymakers

share a legitimate concern about educational equity. While some students have been able to

continue their lessons with online learning, many others cannot. Some families lack computers

and internet connectivity. Other families have a computer and internet service, but with

parents and siblings all competing for the same computer, it is impossible for any individual

child to have continuous access to online learning. States and school districts are taking two

strikingly different approaches to this challenge. While both approaches justify their policies in

the name of educational equity, one represents the path toward progress and the other deeply

misguided approach is the path of despair and growing inequity.

The path toward progress is represented by schools, including those serving low-income

families, that have made an extraordinary effort to gain access for all students. They are

delivering computers to every student and parking school busses equipped with internet

routers around their communities to provide web access for families without internet

connectivity. They are supplementing online learning with delivery of lessons on local

television channels and using public access television and local radio and television stations to

provide lessons and story hours in different languages to serve students. Best of all, they are

using old-fashioned telephone calls to provide one to one emotional and academic support for

every student. Community and school libraries are working to create sanitized bags of books,

paper, and supplies to be delivered to every home so that, even without computer access,

1
students can continue to read, write, and learn. Teachers are standing on sidewalks and

connecting with students, providing the vital message that students are valued and loved.

While none of these solutions is perfect, they all represent the triumph of hope over despair

and send the message that, even in the most challenging times, human relationships and

mental development must continue. Educational equity, in the views of these educators and

leaders, occurs when schools strive to provide every student with the opportunity to learn. In

these schools, students are graded on the "do no harm" principle, in which students who were

doing well in February will not be harmed by lack of access to lessons in March and April. But

students who were floundering in February and are now striving and succeeding in an online

environment can improve their end of year grades. This is especially important for high school

juniors and seniors competing for increasingly scarce scholarships and college admissions.

The other approach, already embraced by many states and school systems, is the

opposite. Rather than strive to provide opportunities for all students, these schools have

decided to stop learning, stop providing grades, or only awarding pass/fail trades to their high

school students. In a perverse pursuit of their view of educational equity, these states and

schools have decreed that no new learning should take place. Rather than engage students in

learning and the emotional and intellectual rewards that come with it, they have taken the view

that if all students cannot make progress, then no students should be able to make progress.

Their central claim is that to provide new learning and end of semester grades to students will

only perpetuate the inequities in the system. They seem not to realize that unequal access to

technology, parental support, housing, food, and medical care were factors affecting students

2
long before the pandemic of 2020. Until that time, our mission as educators was to pursue

equity by doing all within our power, before, during, and after school, to reach every student

and support their learning. Only now is there a wave of sentiment that suggests that learning

should stop for all because learning has not been equally provided for some. The result of

policies that have decreed that no new learning will take place will not be equity, but a further

division between the rich and poor. Economically advantaged students will continue to learn.

By withholding new learning from all students, the poor will be emotionally and intellectually

devastated, making educational opportunities and intellectual challenges further out of reach.

The impulse to pass/fail grades for high school students is particularly harmful, as it fails to

distinguish between the student with honor roll grades and those passing with a D-minus.

Consider the high school junior or senior from a poor household for whom a scholarship to

college or technical school is their only route out of poverty. Thanks to their hard work for 17

or 18 years, this scholarship is within their grasp. But thanks to the stock market crash, college

endowments are down by 30% or more and scholarship funds for the fall of 2021 will be

similarly decreased. The only chance this student has is to compete for scarce resources, and

their record of hard work, perseverance, and determination, reflected in their high school

transcript, is their last hope. Pass/Fail grades rob them of that chance. Far from providing

equity, such a policy harms the very students it claims to help.

Everyone believes in educational equity. But there is a right and wrong way to pursue it.

It's time to get equity right.

Douglas Reeves is an educational researcher in Boston.

3
 Appendix B

Power Standards:

Identifying The Standards That Matter The Most

Chapter Eight:

Identifying Power Standards: The Step-by-Step Process

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a summary of the steps any school

system can follow to accomplish the identification of their Power Standards. My intent

is to present this series of steps, repeated from preceding chapters without the

explanatory commentary, in a checklist format for easy reference by educators working

through the Power Standards process.

POWER STANDARDS IDENTIFICATION PROCESS

q Present rationale for Power Standards

q Agree on definition of terms (standards, indicators, benchmarks, etc.)

q Pose guiding question:

1. “What knowledge and skills do this year’s students need so they will

enter next year’s class with confidence and a readiness for

success?”

q Determine criteria for Power Standards selection:

§ Endurance

Copyright 2003 Larry Ainsworth from Power Standards 1

Permission to copy for instructional purposes only
 § Leverage

§ Readiness for next level of learning

§ What students need for success in school, in life, on state

tests

q Define role of participants:

§ Develop first drafts of Power Standards in grade span groups

§ Plan how to share drafts and receive feedback at sites

§ Revise drafts based on feedback received

§ Assist in implementation of Power Standards at sites

q Begin Power Standards identification process:

§ Select a content area

§ Divide participants into grade-span groups

§ Select particular section within content area in which to begin

§ Begin process in ONE grade within the grade span

§ Review agreed-upon selection criteria

§ Individuals mark Power Standards choices ALONE

§ Compare selections with colleagues

§ Note similarities and differences; reach preliminary consensus

§ Consult state’s Testing Information Guide and district test data

§ Revise selected Power Standards to reflect what will be tested

§ Record selections on large pieces of chart paper, one chart

per grade

§ Repeat process for grade below and grade above

Copyright 2003 Larry Ainsworth from Power Standards 2

Permission to copy for instructional purposes only
 § Grade spans post their charts in K-12 progression

§ Look for vertical alignment within grade span

§ Identify gaps, overlaps, and omissions

§ Revise selections as needed on charts

§ Look for gaps, overlaps, omissions between grade spans

§ Revise selections as needed

§ Sequence Power Standards by reporting periods (optional)

q Develop action plan for sharing drafts and receiving feedback at sites:

§ Share information with building principals

§ Schedule faculty meetings to present information

§ Develop a plan and schedule for grade levels and departments

to create their own Power Standards drafts

§ Review drafts from district meeting; compare/contrast/revise

§ Gather revised drafts or feedback from each site

§ Schedule district meeting to review feedback from all sites

§ Do second revision of drafts based on feedback

§ Send back to sites for final review (optional)

§ Publish and distribute final versions of Power Standards to

sites

§ See also 11-step agenda for district meeting(s) in Chapter 3

q Plan related follow-up activities:

§ Develop instructional guides or curriculum frameworks to

implement Power Standards

Copyright 2003 Larry Ainsworth from Power Standards 3

Permission to copy for instructional purposes only
 § Develop end-of-course and grade-level assessments aligned

to Power Standards

§ Revise reporting system to reflect Power Standards

This is by no means an all-inclusive checklist of all the activities a school system

may engage in to identify and implement Power Standards. Each school and district will

recognize the need to make many changes in curriculum, instructional practices,

assessment, and reporting of student progress as a direct result of their establishment

of Power Standards. But these changes will, over time, inevitably lead to the goal of all

educational restructuring—that of increased student success in school, improved

student performance on all assessment measures, and a more effective preparation of

students for adult life.

When educators express concern as to how long it will take them to identify all

their Power Standards and then implement an assessment system aligned to them, I

offer a bit of logic to encourage them. Even if it does take several months or even a

year or more to identify all the Power Standards and get them fully implemented

throughout the district, what does it matter? That time will pass anyway! The

difference is, when the work is finished, you will have a district-owned process and

product that everyone can use to improve instruction and assessment. Time well spent

indeed!

It may be helpful to share with everyone the following slogan when the Power

Standards identification work begins: it is a process, not an event; a marathon, not a

sprint!

Copyright 2003 Larry Ainsworth from Power Standards 4

Permission to copy for instructional purposes only
Copyright 2003 Larry Ainsworth from Power Standards 5
Permission to copy for instructional purposes only