Nearly all states have standards for student learning and they have assessment programs to measure students' proficiency on those standards. But schools within each state nonetheless are left to develop their own standards-based student report cards as the primary means of communicating information about students' performance. To address the…

This paper describes a major initiative in the Commonwealth of Kentucky to develop a statewide, standards-based, student report card for reporting the learning progress of individual students at all grade levels (K-12). Led by a team of researchers with expertise in grading and reporting, 36 educators from three diverse school districts created…

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…

Walker-Grant Middle School has moved from the traditional failure-oriented method of measuring student progress to one that measures continuous student progress. The concept of standards for each grade and subject was replaced by the concept of "taking the child where he is and working from that point." Under the old system, a student's…

Discusses the narrative report, which is an alternative to the traditional report card for reporting children's development and progress to parents. Examples of entries in a narrative report are included. (BB)

After reviewing the controversy over traditional grading systems, the pros and cons of various grading systems, and recent practices in reporting and marking pupil progress, the authors present the results of a survey in which 341 districts responded about their reporting and marking practices. The results are broken down by the size of the…

After reviewing the controversy over traditional grading systems, the pros and cons of various grading systems, and recent practices in reporting and marking pupil progress, this report presents the results of a survey in which 341 districts responded about their reporting and marking practices. The results are broken down by the size of the…

This guide introduces a program of foreign language instruction intended for a wide variety of students with various interests and competencies. The program provides for a basic course, two strands (The State Diploma and the Local School Credit) and several options. During the basic course, a diagnosis is made of individual students' aptitudes and…