The Teachers Leaders Network has launched a new blog by Ariel Sacks, a young NYC English teacher who’s already gained a voice as an educator-writer to watch. In an early post on the blog, she writes with honesty about the conflicts she has over her grading system:
Recipe formulas for calculating grades tend to turn out numbers that represent a mishmash of student effort (as perceived by teacher), task completion (which may not require effort for all students), knowledge acquired, and skill development (both evidenced in student work). Lately I’m struggling with the creeping notion that the net result of this mishmash is a totally inadequate measure of student learning. In an effort to grade almost every aspect of a student’s involvement in my class, in the end I’ve graded nothing in particular!