Every school is different, often with distinct schedules, classes, and requirements. The same is true for teachers who build their classroom rules and environments, each slightly different from the rest. However, it is time for the Berkeley Unified School District to consider whether giving teachers the freedom to decide their own grading policies creates more harm than good.
In the current system at Berkeley High School, teachers are responsible for creating their own grading policies. These are mostly based on individual preferences, and can drastically change from teacher to teacher based on differing values on participation, homework, test scores, and finals. Additionally, most teachers create their own retake policies, with some teachers choosing to give their students unlimited retakes, and others giving their students none at all.
A solution to the widespread confusion and feelings of unfairness would be for classes to follow a more standardized grading system, created by the teachers or departments affiliated with each specific course. They would be responsible for creating universal policies on things such as retakes and the weighting of test scores and classwork. These rules would apply to all major courses and could vary slightly based on each course’s specific needs.
The current lack of mandated schoolwide grading policies has promoted confusion about the academic caliber for courses, and made it harder for students to choose classes that fit into their schedules and needs. “Some teachers don’t care and give an A to everyone, and then, in comparison, you can take the same class, but have to put in way more work because (another) teacher has a different retake policy,” BHS sophomore Vivi Johnston said.
Some teachers have decided to implement more widespread policies themselves, working with other teachers of the subject. “I do find it really helpful as a teacher to have some kind of common core aspects to collaborate around,” Hillary Fong, an ethnic studies and sociology teacher, said, “I felt like, because there are only three sections of sociology and comparative values and beliefs within BIHS (Berkeley International High School), I wanted all of them to have a similar experience with the course.”
The differences between grading policies can make it harder for students with certain teachers to get A’s compared to the students who are often just down the hall, taking the exact same class but with a different teacher. This creates cross-sectional grade inflation where it’s easier for one group of students to get higher grades than another, even though they both have similar syllabi and are taking the same course.
Cross-sectional grade inflation can also damage students who get teachers with relaxed grading policies. Because these students don’t have the same incentive to put in extra work, they might not learn the material as well. This causes repercussions for students later in their lives. According to NEA Today, “High school students who experience more lenient grading are less likely to pass subsequent courses, to graduate from high school and go to college, and will earn significantly less money over the course of their lives.”
This is uniquely harmful for students who plan on taking Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate tests at the end of the year. Some have noticed a trend where students who had “harder” teachers often earn better AP scores than their counterparts who had “easier” teachers. “I’m worried about taking some of my tests because I feel like I’m not getting prepared in the same way as students with other teachers,” Morgan Sharp-Christiansen, a BHS sophomore in AP Chemistry, said.
This discrepancy between the standards of different teachers can also make it more difficult for incoming students to decide on their classes. “It’s hard to choose my classes for next year because I’ve heard very different things on certain classes based on their teachers, and I don’t want to risk getting the ‘bad’ teacher,” Sharp-Christiansen said.
If BHS were to adopt a standardized grading policy, then these problems could be avoided. When teachers collaborate to create a standardized grading policy with the other teachers across the subject, it makes the expectations for the course clearer and gives students policies that are maintained for everyone.