Practical Solutions for Serious Problems in Standards-Based Grading

"The book combines research, critical issues, and creative solutions in a concise and easy-to-read manner. While there is little doubt that educators today face a myriad of critical issues, this book allows educators to believe that they can be agents of change for students and for the profession."
―Sammie Novack, Vice Principal
Curran Middle School Bakersfield, CA

Implement standards-based grading practices that accurately and equitably report student achievement!

Standards-based education poses a variety of challenges for grading and reporting practices, especially for ensuring that the grades assigned to students are honest, meaningful, and fair. Many traditional methods, such as limiting the number of high grades or defining "C" as "average," no longer work in a standards-based environment. This edited volume examines critical issues in standards-based grading and provides specific suggestions for improving grading policies and practices at the school and classroom levels.

With contributions from prominent educators and researchers, this groundbreaking volume:

• Describes traditional school practices that inhibit the implementation of standards-based grading
• Addresses how teachers can assign fair and accurate grades to English language learners and students with special needs
• Examines legal issues that influence grading and reporting policies
• Discusses why report card grades and large-scale assessment scores may vary
• Fosters consistency in grading across states and districts
• Offers effective strategies for communicating with parents

This solution-oriented book offers teachers, principals, and administrators practical strategies for implementing grading policies that benefit all students.

Thomas R. Guskey, PhD, is Professor Emeritus in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. A graduate of the University of Chicago’s renowned Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistical Analysis (MESA) program, he began his career in education as a middle school teacher, served as an administrator in the Chicago Public Schools, and was the first Director of the Center for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning, a national educational research center. He is the author/editor of twenty-seven books and over three hundred articles published in prominent research journals as well as Educational Leadership, Kappan, and The School Administrator.

Dr. Guskey served on the Policy Research Team of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, and on the task force to develop the National Standards for Professional Development. He was named a Fellow in the American Educational Research Association and was awarded the Association’s prestigious Relating Research to Practice Award. He was also awarded Learning Forward′s Outstanding Contribution to the Field Award and Phi Delta Kappan′s Distinguished Educator Award. Perhaps most unique, in the 158-year history of his undergraduate institution, Thiel College, he is one of only three graduates to receive the Outstanding Alumnus Award and be inducted into the Thiel College Athletic Hall of Fame.

His most recent books include Implementing Mastery Learning (2023), Instructional Feedback: The Power, the Promise, the Practice (with Smith & Lipnevich, 2023); Get Set, Go! Creating Successful Grading and Reporting Systems (2020), What We Know About Grading (with Brookhart, 2019), and On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting (2015). He may be contacted by email at guskey@uky.edu, Twitter at @tguskey, or at www.tguskey.com.