Today I was at a day long meeting on report cards. Our district is looking to align our report cards to Common Core. I was brought in to sit with the 6th grade team. We have 3 elementary schools that have 6th grades at their sites. We also have 2 middle schools with 6th grade. This year, my 6th grade elementary teachers are becoming aligned with the 2 middle schools. And because I’m from the middle school genre, I’ve been an integral part of the transition. Same textbooks, same curriculum maps, just different locations.
Back to the report cards….so coming into today, I knew my teachers wanted to do whatever the middle school was doing. And I was there to advocate for them. Game on!
We first made a “hopes and dreams” list. They wanted consistency with middle schools, letter grades, and simplicity. But then we looked at report cards from surrounding districts. We realized that not many surrounding districts have 6th grade at their elementary schools. However, one particularly interested me and it looked like this…..
And this is started a lively discussion. Should the standards of math practice be on a report card? Why are they on a report card? How does this district formally assess for this?
One of the team said that it seemed similar to “math reasoning.” I asked them how they graded for that. They told me it was dependent on word problems and application. Interesting.
And then I took to Twitter.
Loved the feedback. And all of the tweets validated my initial gut reaction. I don’t think the standards of math practice should be on report cards. Report cards are designed as a communication tool for parents to see academically how their child is progressing. The content is what I (as a parent) would be concerned about. The SMP’s or the “how” they are taught/presented is for the teacher’s use.
Agree/Disagree? Please feel free to share your thoughts.
Kristen