Standards Referenced Reporting Pilot Begins in Monticello Schools
By Gretchen Kriegel
Over the course of the past four years Monticello Community School District teachers have been engaged in professional learning focused on the alignment of standards, assessment and classroom instruction. Professional learning has ranged from vertical curricular content alignment to the creation of assessments, rubrics and proficiency scales that align to content area standards. As a part of this alignment work, a group of teachers at Monticello Schools have embarked on a pilot to implement Standards-Referenced Reporting in their classrooms this school year.
Grant Wiggins (1993, 1996) and Marzano (2010) describe standards-referenced grading(reporting)as a system in which teachers give students feedback about their proficiency on a set of defined standards and schools report students’ levels of performance on the grade-level or content standards, but students are not moved forward (or backward) to a differentset of standards based on their level of competence.
At Monticello Schools students in a Standards-Referenced classroom will be provided either intervention or enrichment on standards based on their level of proficiency. Meaning if a student or group of students are not making progress towards proficiency they will be provided intervention or re-teaching in order to learn content. If a student or group of students can demonstrate proficiency they are provided with opportunities to enrich or extend their knowledge and skills.
Parents of students in a Standards-Referenced Reporting classroom may notice that proficiency is reported on a 4-point scale, or that there is an adjusted percentage accuracy grading scale. Parents may also notice rubrics or scales that outline required levels of learning or skill acquisition for each category defined within the rubric or scale. In a Standards-Referenced Reporting classroom students know exactly what knowledge and/or skills teacher instruction will focus on and what they need to do in order to demonstrate proficiency.
A student’s ability to meet classroom expected behaviors will be measured using the Iowa Core 21st Century Employability Skills and will not be factored into a student’s overall grade. Teachers separate classroom knowledge acquisition from classroom behavior using rubrics or scales based on employability skills. This deliberate separation of knowledge and behaviorprovides students and parents feedback on how effectively a student is meeting classroom expectations. In a traditional grading system knowledge, skills and behavior are typically averaged together to create an overall grade, which does notclearly communicate the learning taking place.
The intent of grading student performance has always been to report to students and parents what learning has occurred in the classroom. With the Standards-Referenced Reporting pilot, teachers and educational leaders want to determine if moving towards a Standards-Referenced system will better communicate student learning and assist in providing students a higher quality educational experience which in turn leads to increased student achievement.
The following grade levels and/or courses are engaged in the Standards-Referenced Reporting pilot at MCSD this year.
Elementary – Reading, Mathematics & Employability Skills
Kindergarten – 2 classrooms
First Grade
Third Grade
4th Grade (Mrs. Ryan’s Classroom)
Elementary Specials
K-4 Elementary Music
Middle School
6th Grade Science & Reading
7th Grade Science
7th/8thGrade Science & Health
High School
Science 9
Chemistry
Spanish I
Business Education
Algebra I