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Seven reasons why the curve (A-B-C marking) is bad; the eighth is a replacement plan for it which is healthy.
The following observations about A-B-C marking are adapted from Save Our Schools, Ralph E. Robinson and Barbara Ann Beswick,, University Press of America, 1996)
A-B-C Marking Is Inconsistent. A mark from one classroom does not have the same value as the same mark from another classroom.
A-B-C Marking Results in Diminishing Readiness. The gap between reality and potential can be demonstrated roughly, allowing for the eventual breakdown of all models. Assume that a young person, with high aptitude for learning (100%) also has a high aptitude for shirking, passes third-grade reading with a C (75 %). Since she has C command of third-grade feeder concepts, we can expect that s/he will do C work in fourth grade reading (100% x 75% = 75%). On the other hand, assume that young person were a C student (75%) who overworked in third-grade reading to earn an A (100%). She can be expected, within normal work\study time, to earn a C (75% x 100% = 75%) in fourth grade. But a student with C learning skills, and C expertise with third grade reading cannot be expected to pass fourth grade reading (75% x 75% = 53+%)! That student will be less ready to enter fifth grade than she was to enter the fourth grade. The same is true with arithmetic. By the time C students enter the upper grades, they have such a poor mastery of feeder concepts, their productivity is nil and their scholastic confidence and self-confidence have been shattered. They fully realize the futility and usually consider themselves to be evaluated as second class citizens. Remember, half our young people, by definition of the curve, get C or less.
A-B-C Marking Promotes Classroom Competition for Marks, a Sense of Futility, and Devastates Self-esteem. Since only a few classroom members can earn A's, many students, find competition for A's futile. Risk youngsters refuse to play the competition game. And all marks below B have no value in helping a young person gain loyalty to scholarship or appreciation for his or her "self."
A-B-C Marking Is Not Motivating to Youngsters at Risk. Starting early in their school careers, risk youngsters show us that they are NOT going to work for their highest possible mark. Further, the fear of failure is not a great incentive for them.
A-B-C Marking Is Not Diagnostic. Since by definition, half of any classroom must receive C or less, A-B-C marks are only an indication that a given student has a certain standing within her group--not what is wrong. A-B-C marks neither show a teacher where to place emphasis nor a prospective employer what a young person does or does not know. They do not impress the individual that he or she needs extra work in a given area.
A-B-C Marking Allows, Even Promotes, Intellectual Shirking and Short-term Learning. Low marks do not inspire C students with A capacity to work harder. But C provides them a procrastination level. The C potential also allows latitude in the number of concepts to avoid learning. Thus, risk youngsters can pass without a thorough knowledge of the subject. They (we all did) can also learn well enough to pass a test, then forget--allowing the information to atrophy, promoting futility. Further, because completing a course requires only an average passing mark, students can pass English with high enough marks on reports, and literature, for example, to avoid the need to learn grammar. In similar fashion, Algebra can be passed on symbol manipulation without solving a problem. In a worst-case illustration, since different teachers are encountered, a student can pass twelve years of English without a permanent knowledge of grammar. By adding short-term learning to selective learning and a few other avoidance tricks, a young person can graduate without an education and can be expected to carry mediocrity into life skills and the workplace.
A-B-C Marking Results in C Learning, C Teaching, C Productivity, and Habits of Mediocrity. Because C is considered "good enough," many young people learn at C levels--never having the experience of or acquiring the habit of doing something for excellence. C productivity is a habit which extends itself into life and the work place. Because of curricular/time demands, teachers unwittingly teach until most of the class can get a C on tests. The school organization simply does not allow enough time to teach all in a classroom to mastery. Thus, the system forces C teaching. But for some concepts C teaching/learning is not good enough, for other concepts C is too good. C establishes attitudes, impulses, and habits of mediocrity.
A-B-C Marking promotes learning for extrinsic rewards. The emphasis is not on learning, but to get passing marks. Note:. Within all educators is, to a varying extent, a romantic idea about the "joy of learning." But, They were successful at learning and experienced the "joy." The "joy" is only manifest when learning is achieved or is usable. As stated above, most students receive C or below and C is not really functional learning; therefore, few students experience the "joy." Carrying this attitude to the work place, many people are more interested in a pay-check than in doing a job above mediocrity.
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Let's rethink A-B-C marking.
An Evaluating System Which Is Healthy
A different process for reporting student progress should have been a part of school organization from the start. But to change a marking system alone is not enough. Appropriate change requires altering almost every facet of school.
At the outset, humanity is much more interested in how much and how well each student knows than in which students know well. Rather than standing in the group, useful evaluation compares what a young person does compared to his or her personal mastery, cognitive (how well knowledge is used), and attitude potentials. This requires that schools be organized for a student to work on learning some concepts long enough to know them permanently and well enough to use them. Time on task and excellence become the emphases. When this happens: a) humanity is assured that every young person knows feeder and survival concepts well. b) Risk youngsters are taken out of futile competition with their comrades and each is placed in competition with him or herself.
Such a system requires school organization which places a qualified, insightful teacher with a few students who need intense school experience for large parts of the school day (a closed/ structured classroom). That teacher then becomes a personal advocate, monitor and mentor. This presupposes a school organization which provides that teacher a broad curricular menu from which to prescribe appropriately. Two of the many birds killed with the same stone are:
Slow, late maturing, less verbal students do not feel incessantly compared to their more scholarly comrades and they cannot slip through impersonal cracks. Those who arrive at mastery latest are led to believe they are more immature than their faster learning comrades--not necessarily more stupid or that they are less desirable humans. Note: Immaturity can be overcome, but stupidity is a life sentence. Thus slow learners do not develop the conventional low self-esteem and dissension for school. They can come to feel: I may not be the best, but I am good.
It allows willing students to soar intellectually; to work on their own creative and cognitive levels without the drag from slower and reluctant learners. Willing learners do not need to waste time waiting for the rest to catch up, with the same short-term assignments, drills or reviews, frequent quizes, low cognitive instruction, under-their-level textbooks or to listen to reprimand meant for a few disobedient students. Willing students will work to learn by themselves or in concert. They seem to know when they have studied enough. These students can be marked on the curve--it doesn't harm them. Since a teacher can handle a larger classroom when students are willing, system pupil-teacher ratios do not change. Costs do not change.
Note: People who believe that most underachievers will accept high achieving classmates as teachers or role models are dreaming. In most classrooms, ten willing students cannot undo the harm one disruptive youngster will do.
This evaluation procedure for closed classrooms is not as simplistic as criterion marking (what is learned), but reflects changes in curricular emphases and content, teaching and observing techniques, and fundamental changes in educational philosophy and psychology.
All students must be marked on mastery, cognitive, and attitude potentials.
The plan is workable with shrewd administrating and by most teaching procedures. However, teachers must be trained for it and schools must be organized so teachers come to know risk youngsters well and have (bureaucratic) latitude enough to teach as each child needs to be taught.
Whatever method is selected, it must be workable by most teachers (only a few paragons can use most reform plans). It must result in each young person enjoying rather than resenting the school learning process. It must result in each young person learning, to excellence, certain essential concepts such as reading, computation and life skills well enough to use them. When we teach some concepts to excellence in each young person we are ruining the bell curve, but are doing a good job of educating.
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