The new SKHS grading system

               After the recent Presidential election, I think most RIers would agree that there are consequences when much of the electorate knows little about civics, about foreign affairs, about environmental concerns, etc.  The USA is the most powerful country on Earth, its President the most powerful person on the planet, who has access to the “nuclear codes.”  Do high school grads have sufficient background content so as to be able to understand political debates on climate change, nuclear proliferation, migration from Central America, Islam, ISIS, etc?  The RI students coming to my URI International Politics course do not have this background, although SK students do far better than most!.

            After 2 decades teaching Social Studies at South Kingstown High School, I went “across the pond”, to teach a year in England on a Fulbright teacher exchange (1997-98).  I thought I would learn all sorts of first class educational strategies, assuming that the Europeans had comparatively better educational systems.   I was wrong!  Although I thoroughly enjoyed my year in England, the teaching was, quite frequently, frustrating.  I couldn’t wait to get back to my teaching position at SK, where I could really teach! 

            I retired from SKHS in 2009, and since then I’ve taught in the Political Science Department at URI, and in the Education Department at Salve Regina.  I have been supervising Social Studies student teachers in a variety of RI high schools.  During the past decade, I have witnessed many well- meaning reforms in RI secondary schools, which remind me of why it was so difficult to teach effectively in England.

            First off, in 1997 what really mattered in England was how you did on national standardized tests.  There were no course grades, no transcripts, no GPA, no class rank.  How students did on standardized tests determined what type of school they’d be able to attend, and how teachers and school systems were assessed. The tests were the same irrespective of which of the three “academic sets” the student was in.  Therefore, the tests had to be low hurdles so that lower set students could succeed.  The curriculum was narrowed, and teachers would constantly review what they had already taught, “teaching for the tests.”  They were discouraged from teaching lessons which would not be tested.  Their passions were irrelevant; their morale very low.

            As a result, the top and middle set students were not very challenged, and they were frequently the most ill – behaved in class.   On the other hand, the lower set students did not experience as much failure as do “lower set students” in the US, because the hurdles were “jumpable.”  A recent South County Independent headline stated that the “new (SK) grading policy makes it hard for students to fail.”  This is commendable, but what are the unintended consequences? Who loses out with this new policy?                  

            In 1997 England, homework was more-or-less optional.  It was not graded.  Rather, teachers would give written feedback to parents 3 times per year that would review homework completion, effort, class participation, etc. The teacher would predict how they thought the student would do on the standardized tests, which was what parents really cared about.  As a result, I found out that only a minority of students would do the homework.  I also found out that many teachers had given up, and rarely assigned homework.  Now, I understand the argument that homework is frequently “busy work” and that some Math and Language students, for example, may not need to do homework if they understood the concept in class.  However, in Social Studies, homework can frequently be used to learn new things, enhancing the breadth of material covered in the course.

            So, here is a dilemma I faced in England, which will ring true with many RI Social Studies teachers.  Let’s say you’re teaching a mini-unit on World War 1.  On Monday, you teach the students about the long term causes of the war.  For homework, you assign a reading and writing assignment whereby students would learn reasons for the outbreak of the war (alliances; the assassination of the Archduke, etc.), as well as the course of the war (trench and gas warfare, US delayed involvement, etc.)  On Tuesday, you plan on teaching the results and significance of the war but, when you collect the homework, you find that only 5 of the 25 students did the homework.  Problem!!  Do you go on with your plan, leaving 20 students behind, or do you fully review what 5 students learned about in the homework?  If you choose to review, the collateral damage is that all 25 students may not do the homework next time, and the teacher may conclude that it’s not worth assigning homework.  I would imagine that the new SKHS homework policy will result, not only in less homework done, but it will also result in less content covered in the course.  Other “trending” policies which, I imagine, result in teachers tearing out their hair, are the flexible homework deadline and “re-do” policies.  In the above example, what would happen if the students could turn in the homework two, three or 15 days late, or if they could re-do it after a meager first effort?

            My major concern is that many of the new reforms are the result of a “less is more” educational approach.  Supporters of this approach are not concerned with the breadth of material taught; rather, their focus might be more skills oriented, or they may favor less topics, and more depth.  The US has the shortest school year in the Western world, and now we’re reducing content covered by reducing the importance of homework!  Having said that, I was happy to read Principal Mezzanotte’s comment in The Independent that he is “not in the business of micromanaging teacher’s gradebooks.”  I firmly believe that homework policy should be decentralized.  England has changed some of the policies previously mentioned.  I expect we’ll do the same when the pendulum switches.

At this point, I assume that significant portions of the RI electorate favor greater content covered in high school classes.  Our democracy is dependent on it!