Teachers often grapple with the challenge of giving report card grades to students with learning disabilities and English language learners. The authors offer a five-step model that "offers a fair, accurate, and legal way to adapt the grading process for exceptional learners." The model begins with a high-quality reporting system for all students…

Since the Ann Arbor (Michigan) Schools created its K-2 assessment process and matching report form, both students and teachers have shown improved performance. Teacher's evaluations of student progress are tied to established outcomes and grouped according to "not yet,""developing,""achieving," and…

Many teachers fear that their chances to influence decisions about their profession are eroding. Principals must change this perception so that teachers feel empowered as school leaders. Drawing on the work of communications consultant William Isaacs, Glover discusses how principals can engage in communication that encourages teacher leadership by…

The evaluation process does not need to be translated into grades. It is time that we found an alternative to grading. (RC)

A Colorado elementary school developed a user-friendly, performance-based report card with the help of students, parents, and staff and adapted it to a spreadsheet. The school sent an explanatory brochure and a detailed survey to solicit parents' response. Fully 65% of parents found the new format to be as useful or better than the old format.…

Parents in Anchorage, Alaska, and Rochester, New York, have been rating their children's teachers. From these report cards arise three major concerns: how well teachers know and care about teaching, about their children, and about communicating with parents. Educators can capitalize on parent reports, on getting credit for what they do well, and…

Letter grades or an equivalent rating system serve a natural, logical, and perfectly defensible function in evaluation and reporting. (RC)

Teachers are receiving mixed messages about assessment. Encouraged to use alternative assessment practices, they are expected to express a student's progress in a single letter grade. Interviews with eight urban middle school teachers participating in the QUASAR (Quantitative Understanding: Amplifying Student Achievement and Reasoning) Project…

Too many report cards have grades and comments that are encoded and not standard referenced. To ease parents' confusion, reports should clearly distinguish between standard- and norm-referenced achievement, express teachers' judgments about student progress, consider longitudinal standards, identify strengths and weaknesses, distinguish between…

Dissatisfied with the mismatch between letter grades and their new (state-mandated) curricular emphases, the Tucson (Arizona) Public Schools began experimenting with rubric descriptions of student progress. The prototype progress report assesses students in two general categories: learner qualities and content areas. Frequent communication with…