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"Given those disparities, the district plans to recommend that, as long as students participate, teachers should revert to their previous progress grades. Students could potentially improve those scores, but they wouldn't be penalized. "I don't want to give everyone an A because we're just trying to be nice," said Patrick Keeley, the principal of the district's single high school. "But we don't want to ruin people's chances in the future, either," especially when it's due to factors outside of their control. Contrast Mountain Empire's context with that of the Salem City district in Virginia, near Roanoke. The district serves a small, fairly compact city. Every student in grades 3 through 12 has a Chromebook through its one-to-one program. Salem has about 200 "hot spots" for WiFi connectivity, and a cable company has agreed to provide free internet access for students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunches. So when its spring break ends on April 13, the district plans to make a legitimate go at covering the most essential of its remaining state standards via online learning-and to continue issuing letter grades for students' work. "We realize that if we tell kids today, 'Hey, your grade can't be any lower than it is now,' or if we tell them we're not going to grade them for the rest of the year, we're going to have a big chunk of kids check out," said Curtis Hicks, the district's assistant superintendent. "And that's not healthy for them for the short run, and it's not healthy for the long term, if students are underprepared for what comes next.""

" Is grading the focus, or is learning the focus? Yes, grades should and can reflect student learning, but often they can get in the way and actually harm student learning. The Dreaded Zero"

"The move from middle to high school is proving to be a critical transition, one in which students must deal with great changes in academics, responsibility and social structure all at the same time. Recent research showing a strong correlation between failing classes in ninth grade and not graduating puts an even stronger emphasis on making sure the eighth-to-ninth-grade transition goes smoothly - and puts added pressure on the 14-year-olds making their way from a more nurturing environment to the "Wild, Wild West." Formal structures for helping students transition smoothly appear to be relatively uncommon, leaving the work to already overburdened counselors and families, or sometimes no one but the students themselves. Yet two particular standout programs - one in Boston, one in St. Paul, Minnesota - are trying to help connect the dots for freshmen, and may serve as a model for other schools and systems to create a strong bridge over the rough waters from middle to high school."

"Unfortunately, students are expected to learn how to avoid plagiarism by some kind of osmosis. As they progress from grade to grade, they are expected to already know how to weave research into their writing in original, elegant, and ethical ways, but far too often, they don't have this skill set. Not at all. We need to explicitly teach these skills, and we need to do it more than once if we want good results. How? First, we need to help them identify plagiarism. When students are shown different examples of plagiarism and taught-even through basic lecture-the many forms it can take, their understanding of what constitutes plagiarism gets much more sophisticated (Landau, Druen, & Arcuri, 2002; Moniz, Fine, & Bliss, 2008). Then we need to give them practice in correctly citing their sources. When students get hands-on practice with paraphrasing and correctly citing sources, especially if that practice comes with instructor feedback, plagiarism is significantly reduced (Emerson, Rees, & MacKay, 2005). Below I have outlined five exercises you can do with students in grades 7-12 to give them a much better understanding of what plagiarism is and how to correctly integrate research into their own writing."

"Low-stakes writing is a tool to help students build comfort with sharing and developing their thoughts through writing. A defining element of low-stakes writing is how it's graded -- the grade doesn't carry a lot of weight. This removes much of the pressure from having to do the assignment a certain way, putting value instead on student thought, expression, and learning, rather than punctuation, grammar, or getting a correct answer the first time. "The most important thing about it for me is that it's not censored, and it's not too highly structured," explains James Kobialka, a UPCS seventh-grade science teacher. "Students aren't being told exactly what to do. They're allowed to have freedom, and they're not so worried about it that they try to write what they think they want me to see, or that they're tempted to plagiarize. It's about them getting their own ideas down, and then being able to interact with those ideas, change them, and revise them if they're not correct." Low-stakes writing: Increases students' comfort with expressing their ideas and empowers student voice Creates more investment and ownership in student learning Prepares students for high-stakes writing and testing Is adaptable for any subject Allows for differentiation"

A few years ago, my principal called me into his office and explained that too many students were failing my honors language arts class. I deflected his comments as no fault of my own. "They're not putting in the effort it takes to master the content," I said. "It's an honors class." How many teachers have had similar conversations and responded defensively like I did? But I taught the material! The kids aren't trying … don't have the basic skills … didn't meet deadlines … need to learn responsibility. And so forth. There is often truth to these statements. But I have come to believe that great teachers accept responsibility for motivating their students. The most effective educators establish an environment where kids not only want to succeed but feel that they can. Here are several ideas teachers can implement to transform grading practices for motivational purposes while protecting the rigor of instruction:

What - there's a Google app that will grade my assessments for me?!

Yep! Check out Doctopus as well.

Some interesting ideas on how to handle late work and other issues involving grades.

simple ideas to improve grading and learning

"In the middle of the school year, I always regret my choice of becoming an AP and Honors English teacher. Not because I hate to teach, but because I'm always swimming in essays that I have to grade. In order to accommodate the load, I adapted the elementary way of thinking and formed a writers' workshop for my own classroom. Once they participate in the workshop, students are able to learn how to revise their own essays. Because of this, the time it takes for me to grade essays is literally cut in half. Suggestions for Implementing a Writers' Workshop in Your Classroom"

"Some high schools are now giving parents the ability to constantly check up on their children's grades online, and it has already become a source of stress and debate for parents and students. Lahey, a former teacher, is one of many parents who have chosen not to use the services for fear of creating a sense of distrust between her and her son. "For the time being, I choose to trust in the power of open communication and my son's emerging sense of responsibility and character," Lahey writes.

"The adoption of the Common Core could usher in a new era of standards-based grading."

"Students who write for their teacher write for a grade. Students who write for an audience write to connect, to argue, to entertain, to inform. And when they have other purposes for their writing other than a grade, they begin to care about the craft, choose carefully their words, shape thoughtfully their sentences. Isn't this the goal of writing standards? So the question is: Does your school provide or cheat your students out of an audience? Or, to cut to the chase: Does your school actively support a newspaper or broadcast program? If it doesn't, please stop going on about how you're meeting the Common Core standards. Because in spirit you're not."

A newly released study by the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers (ALSCW) strongly suggests that two factors-a fragmented English curriculum and a neglect of close reading-may explain why the reading skills of American high school students have shown little or no improvement in several decades despite substantial increases in funds for elementary and secondary education by federal and state governments. Three major findings: (1) The content of the literature and reading curriculum for students in standard or honors courses is no longer traditional or uniform in any consistent way.  (2) The works teachers assign generally do not increase in difficulty from grade 9 to grade 11. (3) Teachers do not favor close, analytical readings of assigned works. T 

""They're all great readers," she said, noting that nearly 90 percent are reading at grade level. "But I have a hard time getting them to engage with the text, read for understanding and deeper meaning. I have a hard time getting them to read and think and write critically about fiction and nonfiction alike.""

"A new musical explores life in high school in a way that's eerily familiar. It's called Ranked, and it's set in a dystopian world where your class rank - determined by grades and test scores - governs everything from where you sit to what your future holds." This musical, written by a high school teacher, explores some really interesting questions inspired by the students including: "How do we know the difference between who we actually are and what people want from us?" Usually, Granite Bay announces its spring musical by posting headshots of the performers in the hallway. But this year, it tried something a little different: Holmes asked students to anonymously submit personal text messages, exchanges and emails that depicted the pressure the students were under from parents and counselors. One text exchange reads: A: How was the test? B: I got an 86%! A: Oh no what happened? Another: A: I'm watching you B: Where am I currently then A: Failing class They used the messages in a collage that included headlines from recent news stories ("The Silicon Valley Suicides," "Is class rank valid?") and hung it in the hallway instead of the headshots. A banner at the top reads: "Pain is temporary. Grades last forever."

"In Karen's very clear standards for students about points, grades, and keeping score, one sees a belief that school is about work and that students must be coerced or bribed into learning through the use of grades. In this chapter, I'll explore five belief sets that act as action theories and lay a foundation for our expectations in learning groups. They can either facilitate a culture of thinking, though they can never fully ensure it, or act as an inhibiting challenge to that development. The five belief sets are as follows: * Focusing students on the learning vs. the work * Teaching for understanding vs. knowledge * Encouraging deep vs. surface learning strategies * Promoting independence vs. dependence * Developing a growth vs. a fixed mindset"

"It's especially powerful because students identify the topics and carry out their own explorations, rather than teachers determining everything in advance. However: while the effort usually concludes with students presenting their learning through videos, blog posts, multi-media presentations, demonstrations, genius hour advocates often conceive these final outcomes primarily as students "showing what they've learned," essentially to evaluate the work and give it a grade. There's certainly nothing wrong with this approach, and teachers and students in many schools enjoy the energy, creativity, and learning that genius hour generates. But there's also so much more waiting to be unleashed if the products involve a larger purpose that just a grade. What's especially valuable is the potential of geniur hour as a gateway to student civic involvement."

"How one teacher quit "hanging a grade-based incentive over my students' heads" and offered different, more inclusive ways for students to participate. "

"Teachers can rethink their grading practices to make them more mathematically fair for students and allow for redemption for a missed assignment."