Often the cause of much worry in a teenager’s life is the grade received in an academic subject in high school. Most of this stress can be traced down to a desired acceptance to a college, which includes a student’s grades as a part of its criterion. It is clear that grades of such importance need to be accurately based to assure colleges of what the student is capable of. However, is this need met typically in schools?

A grade in a subject should reflect the student’s understanding of the curriculum being taught by the teacher. This usually falls along the lines of tests or quizzes, which (when created based on a subject’s curriculum and made to assess student understanding) check only for an understanding of what has been taught. This way, colleges can accurately assess in which subjects the evaluated student has strengths or weaknesses in and be able to then decide whether the student is fit for the college. In other words, the grade in a class should represent and demonstrate the student’s ability to understand a subject, which tells a college that the student has the ability to understand the subject at hand and can earn a degree in that subject based on their understanding.

School grades are usually much different than that. Often, they are a weighted mix of different components, such as participation points, which judge a student’s ability to be active in classroom teachings, completion points, which are given when assignments are completed (regardless of accuracy), and/or assessment points, which test a student’s understanding of curriculum. Usually, components are graded based on their importance, with tests having the largest impact and participation/completion points being smaller.

From this, we can see that grades are a mix of different components instead of one central component, which unfortunately makes them a biased measure of student understanding. Even when grade components are weighted based on importance, they all can still affect the overall grade substantially. Because of this, it can be unclear what a grade means when given a letter description. For example, a student could receive an 80% grade in a class which includes test grades, completion grades, and participation grades in its overall class grade. Without further information, this grade could represent a multitude of student ability. The student could have completed their assignments, participated in class, but received a below average grade on a test to earn an 80%. By the same token, a separate student could have not completed their assignments, not participated in class, but received a perfect score on a test to earn the same grade. This creates turmoil for colleges, as based on the grade they can see that both students understand the subject to the same degree, though it is clear when analysing the separate grade components that the latter student understood the subject more. In addition, with the lenience of grade composition across classes and schools, grades are differently judged and therefore represent different things depending on the governing teacher’s demand. With a matter of such great importance, it is a shame that grades represent a mix of different components under different circumstances that represent totally different things.

“Grading is subjective. A student’s language arts grade might include the work they did on writing assignments, but it might also include a few points for their effort and a few more points for extra credit. Homework can be factored in, though there is no guarantee the student was actually the one who completed the homework. Teachers might also take into account family situations or other at-home factors and grade more leniently based on that,” author Howard Pitler from inservice.ascd.org said.

I understand why grades are based upon multiple components other than one central component. Often times, a student does not understand a subject when they do not participate in classes and do what practice is assigned to them. However, the fault in composing a grade this way lies within the fact that most evaluations included in a grade are merely steps to understanding, but not understanding itself. Completing assignments and participating in class contributes to a better understanding, but the important fact is that grades should examine the end result, and not the means required to reach it. A common case of this is when a student already understands the information being taught in the class and because of that doesn’t participate or complete homework because it simply doesn’t benefit them. They can receive a good test grade, but are weighted down overall because they started at a different level that those which didn’t know what was being taught prior to taking a class, though at the end they are at the same level of understanding as one who earned the same test grade but did what the class suggested.

“To talk about what happens in classrooms, let alone in children’s heads, as moving forward or backward in specifiable degrees, is not only simplistic because it fails to capture much of what is going on, but also destructive because it may change what is going on for the worse,” said author Alfie Kohn from alfiekohn.org.

In this way, the composition of a grade in a class effectively has its purpose as (and perhaps has been changed towards creating) more of a motivation for students to understand rather than a measure of understanding itself, as in the case of components such as participation/completion points. Sure, student motivation in classes is important, but the composition of grades in a way that fixes this need for student motivation unfortunately has its detriments in creating inaccurate data. While grades definitely have a strong impact on students, they must not be confused for a solution to student drive towards understanding.

In conclusion, the grade layout of today has mangled meaning. While they should exist to show colleges what a student is capable of in the evaluation of their understanding in a similar class, they place focus on a variety of different components. While usually the main focus in their composition, test grades, show student understanding of a subject, other smaller factors such as participation and completion points exist as a motivation for a student to understand, but don’t actually show what the student understands, which in turn creates an inaccurate piece of data for colleges to evaluate. Though grades may be engineered to fix the common lack of motivation towards understanding from students and their varying abilities, above all it is most important that grades accurately represent to what degree students understand a subject, and nothing else.