Kentucky Teacher

By Matthew Tungate
matthew.tungate@education.ky.gov

Fifth-grade teacher Ninya Sallee talks about the Revolutionary War with her class at Pilot View Elementary School (Clark County). The students started by first listing the things they already knew about the war and then the things they would like to learn about it. They followed that by examining the painting Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. Photo by Amy Wallot, Nov. 15, 2012

Just as all ships rise with the tide, better educating all students will fill the achievement gap, according to teachers and principals at schools that made the most progress in reducing achievement gaps on the latest state achievement test.

Principal Steve Jenkins and teachers at Pilot View Elementary (Clark County) pay little attention to whether students are in a group that has traditionally performed lower on state assessments than their peers.

“They don’t look at a kid and go, ‘These are the barriers,’” he said. “We just look at every kid and try to make sure they’re all getting the same education as best as we can give it.”

Principal David Ward said he and his staff at Auburn Elementary School (Logan County) feel the same way.

“The teachers are pretty much ‘blind’ to the free or reduced-price lunch status. We look at all of our students as they learn,” he said. “It’s a priority here at Auburn that every single student, regardless of whether they’re in the gap or not, be pushed to be their best and learn.” Read the full story

By Matthew Tungate
matthew.tungate@education.ky.gov

First-grade teacher Marty White helps Nicolas Phillips sort beans to illustrate addition and subtraction problems at Chandlers Elementary School (Logan County). Photo by Amy Wallot, Jan. 9, 2012

If a team of professors from the University of Kentucky’s College of Education had its way, Kentucky students would be graded only on their academic achievement – not whether or not they turn in all their homework or bring in tissues for extra credit.

The three have worked with dozens of school districts in the state and published an article calling for schools to use standards-based grading rather than a single percentage or letter grade. Standards-based grading requires teachers to list individual areas of knowledge within a subject area or course and assign a level of proficiency or mastery to each area for each student. It also requires splitting grades into academic factors, such as assessment results, and process factors, such as behavior and turning in homework.

Education Professor Thomas Guskey stresses the increased honesty and meaning this brings to grading. With traditional approaches to grading that combine everything into a single symbol, a student may ace the Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) exams in calculus, for instance, but get a C in the subject because he didn’t do the homework, Guskey said. Another student also may get a C by turning in all the homework and being compliant with teacher requests without learning the subject and doing poorly on tests, he said. Read the full story