Why We Should Not Have Letter Grades

“By doing away with letter grades, you would be penalizing the achievers,” (Maushard quotes MacCumbee). Numerous parents think this way about letter grades, but why do they assume letters grades are good? By focusing on letter grades, parents overlook the deeper problem of actual learning. Over the years letter grades have been the main focus in schools, when in reality, learning should be the main focus of schools. “So whether or not a student completed a homework assignment is separated from how well he or she understands the concepts.” (Long). I disagree with Diana Chetelat, a concerned parent of a student, who states, “Taking away concrete grading takes away what is inevitable. In the real world, students can’t say they had good check marks”, because letter grades aren’t being replaced by check marks. There are many different forms of assessing a child’s learning: portfolios, parent/student/teacher conferences, summaries, etc. Anyways, the concern about letter grades is that it takes the focus off of learning, so if we implement different types assessments, even if check marks, its about the actual learning not ranking. I agree with an elementary school teacher named Karen Gronau when she states, “We don’t want to foster
When we send children to school, we expect them to learn, and if we want them to learn we need to encourage the process or learning rather than the end result of an A to get a good GPA. When kids feel pressured to get a good end result, for example an A, they are more tempted to cut corners, sacrifice ethics, and take easier courses (Crouch). Of course we will need teacher involvement, as well as parent involvement, “…ask yourself and your child, what do these grades tell us about your learning?”