America is known for having policies or systems unlike other countries, and its education system is no exception. America not only adopts its own imperial measurement system but also embraces its own grading policy.
America uses a 100-point system, often translated to letters A through F, to grade students on the quality of their work. This often places weight on the shoulders of high school students, including those attending Communications High School (CHS).
According to Cross River Therapy, the U.S. ranks first as the country with the most stressed students. While Europe also uses a system based on letters A through F, these letters correspond to levels of proficiency, such as A for “excellent” or F for “failure.” Grades equivalent to skill in the class changes perspective on how stressful a course should be.
Courtney Van Arsdale, a Spanish teacher at CHS, is actively trying to help her students embrace trial and error when it comes to language learning.
“In the world according to Courtney, no one would have a number grade for anything skills-based, like P.E., art or language. It’s just how much you’ve improved and what you can do with it,” Van Arsdale said.
Sophomore Giada DeMaio of Middletown agrees that grading policies should be dependent on the course a student is in.
“I would say for some classes, like physics, yes. But for the other, easier classes, like reading comprehension or math, I feel like you should be graded on the work you put out,” DeMaio said.
Junior Sophia Losche of Freehold believes that evaluating a student’s proficiency throughout the duration of the course would be beneficial to CHS students.
“Grading them separately and then putting them into the same policy I think would be a good idea so people’s grades would be higher on average,” Losche said.
CHS students would benefit from having skills-based courses be graded on their progress while technical courses be based on their knowledge. Imagine having a school system where students would be able to make an error and still be able to walk with their heads high the next day. A simple mistake or two should not threaten to ruin the student’s grade or confidence level.
“Everyone starts at a different starting point, and therefore everyone’s goalpost is at a different yard line,” Van Arsdale said.
