By Matt Townsley & Ken O’Connor
In his April 3rd column entitled “Educators in growing debate scold me for defending grading of homework,” Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews asserts that homework deadlines help prepare students for life. Mr. Mathews is writing to express his disagreement with Arlington Public Schools’ recent move toward removing penalties for missing homework deadlines and prohibit grading of homework and other assignments during the learning process (known in the field of education as formative assessment). As alluded to in his column, we were two of the many educators who shared emails with Jay expressing our conceptual and research-informed disagreement with his opposition to Arlington’s plan.
The biggest error in Mr. Mathews’ argument is a failure to articulate the purpose of grades. We do not fault him for this omission, as over a century of grading research reviewed by Dr. Susan Brookhart and colleagues has shown that traditionally educators have not done a good job articulating a primary purpose of grades. If we agree the purpose of grades is to communicate student achievement, and any other non-achievement factor should be reported separately, Mr. Mathews’ perspective needs to be re-examined. Achievement should be assessed after students have engaged in a complete learning cycle, not while they are still learning and receiving feedback that helps them deepen their knowledge, understanding, and skills. In theatre and sports, practice gets feedback and performance is evaluated. For example, NFL teams don’t get scores for practice, every NFL game starts 0-0, and it should be the same in the classroom. Not grading homework presents the perfect opportunity for students to see the connection between practice and performance and in doing so, they are on the path to becoming learners rather than grade grubbers.
Mr. Mathews asserts that late work matters in the real world. We agree; however, the default way of treating late work in schools is to penalize students in the grade book. Yet, in the “real world” if you frequently show up late for doctor’s appointments, the office may charge extra or impose other penalties (or they may not); however, the doctor will never modify their assessment of your health. Yet, when educators “take off 10% for each day late” as is often the norm in schools, this inappropriate use of penalties is exactly what a doctor would not do in assessing your health.
Under the Arlington plan, faculty would grade only summative assessments, which Mr. Mathews dismissively calls “a fancy word for tests.” Summative assessments are – or should be – far more than tests. Summative assessment should include products (essays, papers, tests), observation (performance assessments), and conversation (oral exams, interviews); when teachers use a variety of summative assessments, they can triangulate the results and be more confident about the judgments they make when they determine grades.
Mr. Mathews describes a study that shows that Wakefield is in the top two percent of high schools nationally measured by participation in college-level Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams but presents no evidence about the success of these students beyond high school. First-year college failure rates and the proportion of students who have to take remedial Math and English courses show that high schools do a very good job of getting students into colleges, but they do not often prepare them well to be successful at that level. Success at college requires students to be independent reflective “learners” and for that, students need to have developed intrinsic motivation and not be reliant on the carrots and sticks approach at Wakefield.
Finally, Mr. Mathews suggests that there is not yet much research to support either side of the argument. While studies are still emerging in this area, a paper published in 2021 by Griffin and Townsley analyzing nearly 800 urban high school students’ semester math grades and the impact of homework on grades, 336 (43.2%) students had their grades inflated or deflated by 5% or more and 97 (12.6%) students had their grades inflated or deflated by 10% or more, which is equivalent to moving up or down a full letter grade.
In conclusion Mr. Mathews is supporting the use of practices by the Wakefield teachers that result in inaccurate grades and that short-change their students by not providing the environment where the students can develop as learners.
About the authors:
Matt Townsley is an assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of Northern Iowa and author of Making Grades Matter (2020, Solution Tree). Ken O’Connor is an independent consultant who specializes in issues related to the communication of student achievement, especially grading and reporting. He is author of A Repair Kit for Grades: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades. Third Edition (2022, First Educational Resources).