The first trimester of kindergarten is now complete. First off, trimesters? Really? Is this an efficiency initiative or something? How hard is it to grade quarterly?
Moving on from that gripe to the next. Apparently, all Burlington schools are required to use the same format which is pages of minutia all tied to the "No Child Left Behind" initiative. Sam's report card is broken into 6 sections, two with sub sections, all with multiple criteria -- 36 different grading opportunities. The kids are scored on this scale:
4 - Exceeds the Grade Level Expectation
3 - Meets the Grade Level Expectations
2 - Approaching the Grade Level Expectation
1 - Skill is not Demonstrated
Sam received mostly threes with a sprinkling of fours. According to his teacher at the parent/teacher conference he's doing just fine and she doesn't have any concerns.
It wasn't until after the conference that I realized what was really bothering me about the report card. There is no real indication that he's working to his potential or that he's enjoying school. I can't see the forest for the trees -- lots of minutia, no real conclusion. It's simply a way to tell if the school is going to meet the requirements of the legislation. I also imagine that the sheer volume of work the teacher must do to create these report cards for all 20 students in the class decreases the narrative that might speak to my concerns. The narrative portion of the report card was simply "I enjoy having Sam in class."
I'm glad that she enjoys Sam of course, but if she didn't spend so much time on the minutia, would she have had time to provide more useful feedback to parents?
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3 comments:
Grading 20 students three times a year is NOT burdensome. There is no reason why they can't say whether he is meeting his potential and whether he likes school or not!
The report cards in NJ were like that too. I'd look at them and say, "What?" They had a complicated system of checks, check pluses, check minuses, which really left me without a clue. Then there would be a small comment. Invariably: Lukas is a nice boy. He needs to speak up more in class.
The last couple years we lived in Green Bay the grade school report cards were checked either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Sometimes the teacher would comment but not always. They really left me wondering if the teachers paid any attention to what the students were actually doing. And Pulaski High School didn't have any required class except PE and that was only because of state law.
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