Summary: This is an entry for educators and ethicists. The surface subject matter is a familiar one to teachers: grading. The initial question: "What are fair grading practices?". Interesting and important to teachers and students. More interesting, perhaps, if we realize that underneath we have a question of social or distributive justice. I'll explain each below. First basic questions about grading; second a dissection of those problems in terms of justice. Third -- a sketch of our present scheme of social of distributive justice as it applies to teacher pay.
(The following quoted material... as well as issues delineated in the table that follows are drawn from Deustch, M. (1978) Distributive Justice, Yale University Press, pp 2-4.)
Basic Questions About Grading:
Distribution of grades in a classroom. What is the meaning and value of a given grade? Is there a limited supply of high grades available so that only few students can get high grades no matter how many excellent students there are? Has there been grade inflation so that the quality of an A has been debased?
Grades are generally distributed by teachers to students and students usually do not grade their teachers. Clearly there are other possibilities; for example, students might grade one another, the students and teachers could grade each other.
Some teachers provide grades to their students only at the end of a term; others provide thier students with information only about their own mark; other times students have access to information about all studdents. In some courses, the factors dermininag a student's grade are clearly defined and explicitly communicated to the students, whereas in other the whole procedure is clouded in mystery.
4. A teacher could use any of [a set of values], singly or in combination, in distributing grades among students. He or she might, for example, decide to give grades so as to produce equal outputs of student motivation, giving a high-ability student a lower grade than his performance warranted, and a student with low ability a higher grade than his performance warranted. The teacher might believe that this would be the most effective means of motivating maximum learning from each of the two types of students. Or the teacher might decide to give high grades to those who need them the most; for example to those who needed them to avoid military conscription. Or the teacher might decide to give them to those who work the hardest, those who accomplish the most, or those who help others the most.
5. Suppose, for example, it is widely accepted that "merit" should be the basis for distributing "grades", or some other valued good; what are the criteria for defining "merit"? Shall it be defined in terms of the quality or quantity of work, in terms of the actual accomplishment, in terms of the improvement over prior accomplishment?
6. [How will whatever is the basis for grading, for example, merit, be defined and subsequently measured.?]
7, [How are grading decisions made; specifically, who is involved, and how, in the process?]
8. Scope of the Moral Community [Nothing under grading for scope of the moral community.]
9. Effects:[No speciic application to grading mentioned.]
The distribution of grades is one familiar example of the distribution of a "good" amongst varying members of a community. In thinking about grading and how to do it appropriately we are thinking about a system of social or distributive justice.
To analyze the system of justice-- I'm taking Deustch's example (above) and his categories (plus excerpts of his explanations of those categories) adding another arena...teacher pay. Your question: examine the ninth item in the left hand column and then speculate about various social system effects of the present and altered systems of teacher pay. Are alterations of this system of social justice needed and/or worthwhile?
| General Issue Involved in a Distributive Justice Concern |
General processes, concerns and issues of this aspect of the distribution model |
Topic of Distributive Justice Concern: Student Grading |
Topic of Distributive Justice
Concern: |
| 1. The nature of the good or harm being distributed: its content, quality, and quantity. | Pay, recognition, promotion, free goods, protection are benefits. Physical punishment, torture, insults, slander, taxation are harms. |
Every student will receive a grade for each class. It is distributed at the end of each semester. Grades indicate quality as judged by the teacher and vary from F (failure) through D, C, B and A with the last indicating excellence. |
Pay and benefits (health insurance) distributed to individuals who are employed as teachers within a school district. |
| 2. Roles involved. | Who distributes the good or harm, who receives? Or is it mutual? | Teacher distributes grades and students receive grades. Elementary and middle school grades are used as a comibination of motivator and merit signifier for parents and students. High School grades are summed and averaged for the purposes of making graduation and college placement decisions. Similarly, college grades play a significanat part in post college employment and an even larger part in acceptance/rejection by graduate schools. |
School district distributes the pay/benefits; teachers receive the pay/benefits. |
| 3. Styling and timing of the distribution | How and when is it distributed? Secretly or publicly? With or without explanation of its meaning and possible consequences? | Some teachers provide grades to their students only at the end of a term; others provide their students with a more continyous evaluation of their work. In some courses the factors determining the student's grade are clearly defined and explicitly communicated to the students, whereas in others the whole procedure is clouded in mystery. | School districts and teachers can arrange to have pay distributedto teachers in 9 or 12 equal payments. Teacher's are able to spend what remains of payments after taxes and possibly partial payment for benefits have been substracted. There are extra noninstructional duties that may or may not receive extra pay and which may or may not be voluntary; these components of take home pay are not further discussed in this column). |
| 4. Values: Justice has been viewed as the treatment of all people | so that they have equal "inputs" (for example, so each student has equal educational resources available to him) |
The appearance of grade inflation can be created by a philosophical shift from grading by the curve (in which a fixed percentage of a given student population get a certain grade) to grading the quality of output according to an objective and duplicable standards. Assume that this 'equal outputs' orientation is the case: instruction is constructed in order to develop a certain minimum competency(for example all will silently read a 500 word passage and accurately answer 85% or more of interpretive questions ). Under these conditions, when competence sufficient to some situation is the aim of instruction, then failing grades (say F and D) will occasionally occur... but not with the same frequency as in testing and instructing scenarios where grades are given out based on the assumption of a more or less random distribution of achievement. In this example the combination of an instructional focus upon equal outputs (leading to varying instructional investment based on need), grading based on performance combine to produce a particular orientation to instruction and distribution of the reward (grade) |
Roughly equal instructional effort is assumed by teachers and does not figure in differences in pay. The norm, for public school teachers, is to receive pay based on degrees received and experience within a school district. (Teachers who transfer between districts often lose a portion of their experience pay. For example, teachers may well lose all but 6 years of credit for years of teaching experience if they move between districts. Thus, pay prejudice against transfers operates after the 7th year in any given district). Teachers are NOT paid for differentials in need, output, ability/potential, efforts/sacrifices or any other of he conceivable factors that would differentiate between one teacher's work and anothers. |
| so that they have equal "outputs" (for example, so that each student has the resources necessary to enable her to achieve a given level of educational attainment even if some students require more inputs than others) | |||
| according to their needs | |||
| according to their ability or potential | |||
| according to their efforts and sacrifices | |||
| according to their performance or improvement in performance | |||
| according to the social value of their contributions | |||
| according to the requirements of the common good | |||
| so that none fall below a certain minimum | |||
| according to what others choose to do for them | |||
| according to the principal of reciprocity | |||
| 5. Rules or criteria for defining the values. | …Although there may be a high degree of consensus with a group about which value shall be the basis of a distribution, there may be a considerable sense of injustice about the criteria or rules that are used to define the value." | "Suppose, for example, it is widely accepted that "merit" should be the basis for distibuting "grades" or some other valued good; what are the criteria for defining "merit"? Whall it be defined in terms of the quality or quantity of work, in terms of the actual accomplishment, in terms of improvement over prior accomplishment? | Present pay status is clearly defined and is relatively easy to determine from simple, noncontroversial records. |
| 6. Measurement Procedures | How are the rules or criteria operationalized and implemented? The implementation of the criteria may be invalid, unreliable or insensitive. A sense of injustice can be aroused because one feels that a fairly implemented. | If, for example, achievement is the central measure upon which a grade depends: a) how frequently is achievement determined, b)is feedback to student and parents linked to it, c) do students and parents have input into nature of assessment d) is instruction tightly related, loosely related or unrelated to the test content |
Measurement in the standard teacher pay situation is clear cut (see above).
There are behavioral and norm-referenced tests which could be calibrated to reflect achievement of learning objectives by individuals or groups. This is not generally attempted.
|
| 7. Decision-making Procedures | The actual procedures may be seen as fair but may have been determined in 'injust' manner. …people are more apt to accept decisions and their consequences as being fair if they have participated in making them. | Do students and parents have input into the nature of assessment or has the assessment procedure and its relation to grading been explained to parents? | There are often multiyear contracts between a school district and its teachers (frequently represented by a union) which specify dollar value of base pay(and annual base pay increases for inflation), education and experience. |
| 8. Scope of The Moral Community | What is the scope of the
distribution system? For example does the value of 'equal educational opportunity'
also apply to the child of a migrant worker? The the child of a rich parent?
To the child of a criminal? The narrower one's conception of one's community
the narrower the range of situations in which one's actions will be governed
by considerations of justice. |
Are the standards for grading the same for all students? Do parents of migrant workers and special education students have the same input into grading procedures as to parents of "normal" students, as do wealthy and/or influential members of the parent community? | Generally speaking the moral community of those receiving pay (according to rules described above)from a district consists of those certified teachers on 'contract' to the district. Substitute teachers, long-term substitute teachers and aides, while also involved in instruction receive pay on less favorable terms. Administrative personnel are generally paid more than teachers.How much more an administrator is paid is often more market dependent; that is, it depends on the district and the availability of administrative personnel in the area or region. |
| 9. Effects of distribution system on individuals, groups, group-individual relations, overall cohesion and productivity of the entire system. |
If we are to design our distributive justice system, would we not design it so that the values and ideals of our political system were served? And if we are starting wih existing systems wouldn't we check for compatibility between values and distribution of harms and goods, reforming as signalled by discrepancies? We would have a discrepancy if our justice system produced results which are incompatible with our value system. Such a discrepancy would lead to thoughts, perhaps actions, of reformation. The scope of such analyses and reformative efforts could be world-wide, national, or for smaller systems (e.g., for a corporation, a business or a family). |
To what degree does the school system study effects of grading on the general cohesiveness and productivity of the school system? If there are susch studies how well do such studies target and estimate the effect of the present grading system (and conceivable alternates) upon: a) teacher morale and effectiveness, b) successful college admissions rates c) student and parent satisifaction with grading practices, d) job placements of students within the community, e) the degree of success of transitions between elementary and middle school, between middle school and high school? |
1. Some teachers will leave teaching for administration because of the pay differential between the areas of competence. 2. The design of the pay system works against pay differentials based either on student learning for the year, or for variations of this formulation based on related variables such as: entry skills, prior learning rate, unique learning needs, etc. An obvious result of this is that teacher's end up working to contract rather than working for maximum student learning. Difficult students are given cursory or routinized instruction because, while it is admitted, in principle, that each may be equally deserving as, say, a gifted student, there is no pay 'bump' for what would be clearly additional effort and/or additional teacher skill, if the student were to accelerte learning growth to a previously unachieved "average" rate. Also, there is no "bump" for enhanced depth or rate of learning for average or gifted students. Since there is no fiscal recognition of either the devotion or the skill that would have had to been involved in such enhanced student depth or speed of achievements (on the average). In the case of the 'gifted' the simple fact of the assignment of teaching them is argued to be sufficient reward. |
[After Table: the Equity, Equality, Need Breakouts (see PurpleSlurple number 48 for paragraph involving these terms (from Deustch) as basis... then review Corning's Fair Shares system]
