“No More A’s for Good Behavior”, grading on MASTERY NOT COMPLIANCE

[mtnmomma]

<p>

If a student wants to retake a test (ie do extra work) until they actually understand the material, I’m all for it. It would be easy enough to do something like averaging all the scores together for the final grade. Perhaps it would need to be phased out Senior year of high school or even Junior year but, my goodness, I know my math skills would much stronger if I had been given second chances instead of falling ever farther behind.

</p>

<p>The part of this that concerns me is is why do students want to do extra work “after” the test? Students need to be able to assess their level of understanding before the test (middle school and high school). That being said, there are always cases where a make up test is in order and in the best interest of the student (after all learning is what we want)–it should just not be the norm.</p>