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Guskey said teachers are moving away from the traditional single grade and are giving multiple grades. Instead of giving a single grade for achievement in an English or language arts class, they are giving separate grades for reading, writing and speaking. That way, parents know more clearly what kinds of problems their children might be having.

Young said high schools switching to standards-based grading have more details to work out. That's in part because high school students are critiqued by colleges on the basis of a grade point average.

The data also indicated that if students take part in leadership early in their academic careers, their retention rate is higher.

Parks says with the metrics from the co-curricular data, department chairs, deans and institutional researchers are able to “mine down on the level of experiences” the students in a given major or degree program are having.

Parks adds that the data can even reveal the level of engagement by advisor, adding that if you control for other factors like a students’ living and learning community, it appears that advisors have a “pretty significant impact” on students’ level of engagement.

“Here’s this 100 plus year-old thing, formally produced, tracked and managed by basically every university that nobody uses," he says. "There’s an interesting question embedded in that—why not? And if it’s not used, what’s wrong with it? And if there’s something wrong with it, well, maybe we should do something about that. Maybe that should be better.”

For all the effort, time, and best intentions teachers invest in those reams of grade reports, we are lying to ourselves and to our students’ parents, cheating our students out of clear and accurate feedback on their academic process, and contributing to the greater illusion that grades are an accurate reflection of skill mastery.

What should the mark really represent? Should the mark be based upon ability or performance, or even upon zeal and enthusiasm? What is the best set of symbols to represent ability or achievement?

This approach is known as standards-based grading. It is a system of evaluation that is formative, meaning it shapes instruction in order to fill in knowledge gaps, and measures mastery based on a set of course objectives, standards or skills.

Many notions I had at the beginning of my career about grading didn't stand up to real scrutiny. The thorny issue of homework is one example of how the status quo needed to change. I once thought it was essential to award points to students simply for completing homework. I didn't believe students would do homework unless it was graded. And yet, in my classroom, students who were clearly learning sometimes earned low grades because of missing work. Conversely, some students actually learned very little but were good at “playing school.” Despite dismal test scores, these students earned decent grades by turning in homework and doing extra credit. They would often go on to struggle in later courses, while their parents watched and worried.

Teaching and learning with an eye toward mastery of a defined list of competencies circumvents many of the pitfalls that points-based grading causes.

While a shift to standards-based grading from the traditional, points-based system sounds daunting, now is the perfect time to make the transition.

Next, these outcomes were rewritten in student friendly language and then provided to the students on the first day of class.

here were no "trick questions", just simple questions that would assess "Can the child demonstrate this outcome, on their own, as a basic level of understanding?"

I would write comments only on them, and either a "Outcome demonstrated" or "Need to learn" for each outcome assessed (Not on the overall assessment). 

ext, if the child received a "Need to learn" he/she must do the following: 1) Demonstrate the understanding of the questions given at a later date.  This usually occurs after a lunch session, a quick conversation, or multiple conversations with the child. 2) A conversation explaining how he/she made the mistake earlier and how their understanding has changed now 3) Write another assessment on the outcomes.

After 5-7 outcomes have been taught, then each child is assigned an open ended project. 

I simply take the number of outcomes and projects completed (at the end of the course) and divide by the total number of outcomes and projects.  This is not the best strategy, but it seems to work for me at this moment.  I do weigh projects twice as much. (I have 20 outcomes, and 5 projects, so the total is (20+5x2=30)

In an ideal world, teachers would be empowering students regularly with feedback that isn't aligned with grades but rather with mastery standards, offering multiple opportunities for growth.

Here are things we can do differently today:

When we think about preparing students for the world we live in, accountability is important, but teaching students to be accountable in a way that works for them that also helps us know where we need to adjust practice to better suit their needs.