Schools snub grading system, make up own rules

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Students from the Mikva Youth Council and students from the Safety Council weigh in on the variety of grading scales across CPS schools.

Updated: December 4, 2010 11:46PM

At Chicago's Northside College Prep, the top-scoring public high school in the state, a student who scores a 90 on a test gets an A.

But at another elite college prep, Whitney Young Magnet, that same score merits just a B.

It's also a B at Robeson Achievement Academy -- a school for kids who couldn't pass eighth grade.

Number cutoffs for grades across Chicago public schools are all over the map, a first-of-its-kind Chicago Sun-Times computer analysis shows.

That's because schools are routinely snubbing the grading scales that district officials recommended in 2008 when they introduced a new electronic grading program called Gradebook, the Sun-Times found. In unleashing Gradebook, district officials inadvertently exposed a crazy quilt of grading policies.

Last school year, more than three quarters of the city's high schools were using lower grading scales than the one recommended in Gradebook -- with most allowing kids to pass with as little as a 60, instead of the 75 that Gradebook suggests.

Among all schools -- elementary and high -- half used lower scales than those preloaded in Gradebook, the Sun-Times analysis of Gradebook data showed. Teachers use the program to enter and track grades.

The Sun-Times dug into the numbers behind the grades in the nation's third-largest school system just as Chicago Public School officials have been debating a universal scale for first- through 12th-graders.

Under former Schools CEO Ron Huberman, officials weighed a universal 10-point scale. In that scale, letter grades are separated by 10 points, so an A stretches down to 90 and a D stops at 60. A school could opt for a higher scale with a supervisor's approval under the plan, sources said. Interim Schools CEO Terry Mazany said he has not yet examined the proposal.

The much higher Gradebook-recommended high school scale had been printed for years on report cards sent home to parents, officials said. A's start at 95, D's at 75. The slightly lower Gradebook-suggested elementary scale starts A's at 93 and D's at 70.

Some educators say that a tougher scale can affect not only, on the bottom end, how many kids pass or graduate but also, on the top end, who gets into elite college-prep high schools and coveted universities. Others disagree.

A gathering of Mikva Challenge council students who offer input to CPS officials showed mixed opinions on a universal 10-point scale.

For some, it seems like a lowering of the bar.

"They just want to make themselves look better by lowering their grading scales, but they are harming kids," Curie High senior Sara Martinez said. "They are playing with numbers so they can look better."

"If you lower the grading scale, they'll do less work," said Laurise Johnson, a Sullivan High junior. "I have friends and relatives with low grades and their mentality is, 'I'll do the bare minimum to get a C or D.' "

For others, the 10-point scale makes sense.

Orr High School senior Edward Ward said starting A's at 90 is "a phenomenal idea. It takes off a lot of pressure."

Also, the lower scale would give struggling kids more of a chance to succeed, Harper High junior Lisa Jean Baptiste said.

"Sixty to 70 is a D . . . 90 to 100 is an A. . . . That's what I think all the schools should have," she said.

Kids at a 'disadvantage'-

Last school year, 55 percent of CPS high schools and 15 percent of elementary schools were using the 10-point scale, the Sun-Times analysis showed. And they are not alone.

Although prestigious St. Ignatius College Prep cuts off A's at 93, most teachers at the exclusive Latin School of Chicago and at Winnetka powerhouse New Trier Township High have used a 90-A and 10-point scale for years, officials there say.

Elaine Allensworth, co-director of the University of Chicago's Consortium on Chicago School Research, wasn't surprised many CPS high schools veered from the Gradebook scale because 75 is "usually a midgrade C . . . In some districts that have super-high standards, they will use that [higher] grading scale, but that's more the exception than the norm.''

Donald Fraynd, head of the CPS School Turnaround Office, said he warmed to the idea of a 10-point scale several years ago when he was Jones College Prep principal because "we realized we were competing [for college] with kids who had 90 to 100 for an A.'' College representatives had asked, "Why are you guys using a grading scale that most people don't use any more- That's putting your kids at a disadvantage,'' Fraynd said.

Officials at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University said they generally do not know the numbers behind CPS grades unless a school includes them on transcripts or school profiles.

Christopher Watson, Northwestern's dean of undergraduate admissions, said, "We don't need to know . . . We understand the context. This isn't just a CPS thing. We recognize that scales are different across the country . . . Our job is to figure out what that number means.'' His counterpart at U. of I., Stacey Kostell, agreed.

On the elementary side, a CPS blue-ribbon committee has been pushing a universal scale to ensure a more level playing field in seventh grade, when grades help decide college-prep admission.

"It was a huge concern," said committee member Cynthia Flowers, a parent with children in Chicago public schools.

F's all over the map

The rollout of Gradebook in the fall of 2008 caused such a jolt at some schools that CPS gave principals until Nov. 6 of that year to replace the recommended scale. Scores of principals responded.

By December 2009, 77 percent of high schools and 43 percent of elementary schools had switched to a lower scale, a Sun-Times analysis showed. Once principals chose a scale, that scale was automatically used to calculate all grades in that school, CPS officials say. However, any teacher can ignore a Gradebook grade and insert a different one for an individual student -- or even for the whole class.

Last year, even the city's elite college-prep high schools couldn't agree on the cutoff for an A. This time last year, five officially used 90; one used 92 and three used the CPS-recommended 95, Gradebook data indicated.

At Jones College Prep, teachers agreed to shift the bar below the Gradebook scale but above a much-discussed 10-point one. Jones uses 92 as a minimum A and 65 as the minimum D, Principal Paul Powers said.

Gradebook's recommendation that high school A's end at 95, 80s translate into D's and F's start at 74 "was over the top,'' Powers said.

Among elementary schools last year, data showed, Orozco Fine Arts and Sciences, which holds gifted and neighborhood programs, carried the lowest bar for an F -- a 54. Franklin Fine Arts Magnet on the Near North Side used a 59.

Meanwhile, far less affluent Gregory, an East Garfield Park neighborhood school, used 69 -- as recommended by CPS. After she became principal at Gregory eight years ago, Donella Carter said, she bumped up an A from 90 to 93. She thinks the move gave students "that added push" and helped Gregory more than triple the percent of kids passing state tests. Plus, she said, the higher scale better prepares students for high school grading standards.

"It raised the bar. High expectations -- that's the key," Carter said. "They are saying 59 and below would be an F- For me, that's too much room for students."

'Massaging' grade into A's

Thomas Guskey, a University of Kentucky education professor who has written about grading scales, said if rigor stays constant, lowering a grading scale makes it easier for kids to pass.

But grading scales are "arbitrary," he said, because teachers can easily manipulate them. Merely by asking tougher test questions, "You can set the cutoff at 50 percent and make it impossible for people to pass." Ultimately, classroom rigor is more important to student success than the scale used to measure it, he said.

"A teacher can massage a grade in many ways to get a student to an A or a B or a C," agreed one teacher at Chicago's Lake View High who likes the school's 10-point scale. If teachers want more kids to get A's or to pass, they just offer more extra credit work. Without such carrots, as soon as some kids "get a bad grade, they turn off to the process and getting them back is real hard," said the teacher, who requested anonymity.

On tests, an A set at 90 lets teachers ask more hard questions -- because wrong answers count less -- and lets them get better definition among high achievers, the teacher said. As a result, "That pushes my kids at the top.''