Author name: Matt Townsley

The purpose of this essay is to document what works when K-12 schools implement standards-based grading through a deep dive into related literature and to suggest areas for future consideration. With this improvement to educational systems on the horizon, K-12 teachers and administrators in the early stages of redesigning their grading practices will benefit from understanding the successes and struggles of early adopters in order to successfully reform grading in their own context.

The purpose of this study was to better understand how principals in rural schools are thinking about assessment and grading practices and if they anticipate implementing policy changes in the near future that may require increased support. Principals of schools in rural areas often face challenges that are significantly different from those of their urban and suburban counterparts. These principals also showed relatively high mean scores of standards-based assessment literacy, and moderately high percentages believed they have the resources and capacity to support SBG. The researchers thus conclude that there is a high likelihood that many rural high schools will be implementing some form of SBG within the next 5 years.

The purpose of this study was to explain the experiences of high school teachers and administrators in the midst of transitioning to standards-based grading practices. The researchers used a single case study methodology to investigate how teachers and administrators described their school’s implementation successes and challenges. Data triangulation occurred through analyzing semi-structured interviews, meeting agendas, handbooks, and relevant documents provided by study participants. Using Kotter’s eight steps for leading organizational change as a framework, we recommend school leaders blow off the cobwebs and get started, understand staff needs and provide teacher support, and be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

A growing number of Iowa schools are striving to improve communication of student learning by implementing standards-based or standards- referenced grading. Building upon the challenges identified by the earliest adopting secondary schools (Peters & Buckmiller, 2014), one recently published study suggests there may be a “second wave” of Iowa high schools considering standards-based grading (Townsley,

The following is a list of some, but likely not all, dissertations and journal articles investigating standards-based grading using quantitative methods. The summaries were copied and pasted from within the published abstract unless noted otherwise. While there was an increase in all grading areas, two showed a significant difference—the Physical Science course content average (p

[Note to readers: This column was recently published in Iowa ASCD’s The Source e-newsletter. My co-authors were Dr. Tom Buckmiller and Dr. Robyn Cooper, both associate professors of education at Drake University] The Second Wave of Standards-Based Grading in Iowa’s Secondary Schools In 2013, the first Iowa standards-based grading conference was held in Cedar Rapids.  At that

The purpose of standards-based grading/reporting is to communicate students’ current strengths and areas for improvement relative to course or grade-level standards. It may seem counter-productive to “go back” to using letter grades once a student’s level of learning has been described using an integer scale (i.e. 1-4) with corresponding descriptions of learning. Because some secondary schools may have a need to determine letter grades and grade point averages, the purpose of this post is to describe several ways to make this happen.