Delaware State News
DOVER — A’s and B’s may be harder to earn at Dover High School this academic year.
Compared with last year and the year before, classroom averages for the recently completed first quarter were down, according to figures released this week.
In both earlier years, A or B was the overall student average in fully half of all first-quarter classes. But that was the case in only 38 percent of this year’s classes. More classes averaged C, D or F this year than in 2006 or 2007.
The change comes as Capital School District employs a new grading system, designed to reduce inconsistency in the way students are evaluated and more accurately demonstrate how much they learn. Eighty percent of grades are based on tests; 20 percent on homework, class participation and other factors.
There was no such formula in the past.
"I’ve been an A student all through school. Now I have more B’s than A’s," said junior Josh Guessford, who said the new system is responsible for the decline. "Some of us aren’t good test-takers."
District officials caution that conclusions should not be drawn from the results of a single marking period.
"Certainly, the new system may be a factor" in the lower class averages, said Capital Superintendent Michael D. Thomas, but there are other potential influences, including personnel and assignment changes among the faculty.
He noted that class averages fluctuated from year to year in the past. The percentage of classes with an F average, for instance, nearly doubled from 2006 to 2007.
The statistics were presented at the monthly Capital Board of Education meeting Wednesday night. Similar reports are to follow each of the next three grading periods.
At the October meeting, parents complained that test results were overemphasized. But officials said this week that initial indications are that grades would not be significantly different if test scores counted as only 70 percent or 60 percent of a grade.
In many cases sampled, grades would have been lower if tests accounted for 70 percent and lower still if a 60-percent standard were employed.
Dr. Thomas said the new system, developed after more than two years of research, reflects "emerging trends in grading across the country."
The topic of grading long generated little discussion among educators, said the district’s supervisor of instruction, Sandra Spangler. Inconsistency was the norm.
At the college level, where students can choose their instructors, "everybody knows which teacher to take for the easier A," Ms. Spangler said. Dover High students don’t have that choice, though their parents may request specific assignments.
For Josh Guessford, the junior whose grades have fallen, the new system has been distracting. Active in school theater and leader of a group that pairs Dover High students who have disabilities with nondisabled peers, Josh said he is among many students who worry that preparing for tests will leave them too little time for extracurricular activities.
"They’re making it harder for us to do what we want to do," he said.
