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I was a kid who thrived on the positive reinforcement of being an “A” student; to this day, I can count on my hands the number of “bad grades” I received during my K-12 education. There was the “D” on a math test in fifth grade when I moved to a middle school where students were at least a year ahead of me academically. There was the only “B” I ever got on my high school transcript, which I chalked up to a teacher who didn’t like me. I remember the sting of these grades much more than what I learned, or what I needed to learn.
That’s because letter grades are antithetical to the actual process of learning. They’re highly subjective to the teachers and systems doling them out, and they don’t provide information on what a student has learned and where they need to go next. Grades discourage students from learning how to take feedback and improve. Instead, they instill fixed mindsets and identities like “I’m an A student” or “I’m a bad student” — identities that are challenging to break out of. Whether in K-12 or higher education, there is widespread documentation of the link between the demands of letter grading systems and serious mental health issues in students.
There are now a plethora of alternative evaluation models — from portfolio systems to competency and mastery-based systems — that actually support learning and have been tried, tested and adapted to meet the needs of every type of school system out there. Letter grades are an ineffective relic of the past that are an impediment to learning itself, and it’s time teachers and school leaders replace them with tools that support the learning process.
Letter Grades Miss the Point
My grievances with letter grades are a result of more than just my disappointments from childhood. Cognitive science tells us that effective feedback is essential to building new skills, and that students’ beliefs about their intelligence have an impact on their learning. Letter grades accomplish the opposite of that.
Feedback that is useful to learning has to be specific and actionable. Telling a student, “You consistently support your claims with evidence, but you need to keep practicing varying your sentence structure,” is an example of feedback that supports learning. Giving a student a “B” on their report card is not, especially when that letter could represent anything from “I showed up to class and participated sometimes” to “I finished the extra credit,” none of which signifies actual learning.
Some students figure out how to work within the system and achieve the grade, while others struggle to meet teacher expectations. These patterns become part of students’ identities in an unhealthy way. The message they get is that they’re either smart kids or not. What they should be learning is that with the right tools, coaching and motivation, you can learn most things. When I was a student, this might have meant the difference between a debilitating fear of getting a bad grade and a healthier perspective on how to actually incorporate feedback and grow.
The rigidity and finality of letter grades makes this sort of mindset difficult to foster. Combine that with the fact that they don’t say anything about the skills a student has built, and it’s no stretch to see how universally biased and meaningless the system is.
I’ve heard of students who were driven to panic attacks over points deducted on exams because of eraser marks or paper tears. Those seemingly small point deductions had a big impact on the final grades they reported on college applications, causing undue levels of stress. I’ve heard of teachers who refused to change grades even after admitting to errors they made while creating the assessment. Or of students who were offered irrelevant “extra credit points” for bringing in donations for a food drive — a misguided intention that unfairly disadvantaged students who couldn’t afford to contribute.
Feedback That Builds Skills, Not Labels
The good news is, there are many alternative options to letter-based grading systems that can help shift educators’ mindsets from “What does this student need to get a better grade in my class?” to “How do I adapt my instruction so this student can develop the skill, and how will I know they’ve learned it?” One powerful example is the mastery-based system we use at my school, Red Bridge, which we call learning credits.
Through learning credits, we’ve broken up the skills and big ideas in our curriculum into badges. Students are guided to determine when they have practiced enough to try for a credit. If they earn it, the credit goes into a portfolio; if they don’t yet earn it, we coach them on how to continue practicing and try again. Some badges are earned individually, and some are earned as a group or learning community. Three key aspects of this system turn letter grades on their head and instead support the actual process of learning:
- Success is tied to demonstrating skills, not averaging assignments: Students earn learning credits when they show, for example, that they can fix run-ons or analyze data in a bar graph. The credit denotes what they’ve actually learned, rather than being an average of random class assignments and conflating things like turning in a paper on time or bringing in food drive donations with actual learning.
- Students know what they are working toward and how to get there: With learning credits, students build metacognition about their skills. They can say, “I earned my decimal rounding learning credit. I can round decimals and explain what the rounded amount represents,” or, “I haven’t yet earned the run-ons credit, so I need to keep practicing.” Compare that to, “I got an A in math class” or “a C in writing,” statements that give no insight into learning or next steps.
- Students can always try again: There shouldn’t be an expiration date on showing growth. Letter grades force students to move on even if they didn’t learn the skill. With learning credits, if a student doesn’t earn their badge, we tell them how they can keep practicing and try again. It seems unfathomable to me, after having worked in this new system for six years, that in most schools, students wouldn’t be given clear pathways to try again if they don’t understand something the first time around.
It’s Time for Letter Grades To Go
Students love the learning credit system at Red Bridge, and are eager to talk about their learning and where they can go next in a way I’ve never seen elsewhere. The system turns the evaluation process into being about the learning itself, rather than pleasing the teacher or earning random extra credit points. Students as young as 5 years old are able to speak to what they don’t know yet and what they want to keep practicing, which is precisely what the point of an evaluation system should be.
Alternatives to letter-based grading systems have become increasingly popular in the last decade, and I’m glad to see this shift toward systems that keep students engaged in the process of learning instead of snuffing out their natural drive. I urge educators and schools everywhere to push faster toward these alternatives. We owe it to every student whose enthusiasm for learning and potential to improve were hampered by the finality of a grade.