The Virginian-Pilot
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VIRGINIA BEACH
A plus sign could make all the difference for Beach students competing to get in colleges and universities across the nation.
The School Board endorsed a plan Tuesday night that would add the grades of B+, C+ and D+ to the scale used in classrooms.
The public will be allowed to vet the plan before the board votes in January. Beach schools plan to survey staff, administrators and parents next month and hold a public hearing early next year.
The current grading scale has no pluses or minuses. A grade of 94 earns an A and a grade point average of 4.0. A grade of 93 earns a B and a grade point average of 3.0.
Board members Rita Sweet Bellitto and Carolyn Weems introduced an alternative scale to address the grade point drop off by offering an intermediary. A B+ grade would correspond with scores of 90 to 93 and earn a grade point average of 3.7.
Laura Aquilino, a parent who started an online petition last school year encouraging the board to change the grading scale, said she endorses its idea.
"I'm very pleased they are at least willing to reward kids for their efforts. I think it'll motivate kids to work a bit harder," she said.
Board member Todd Davidson had worried about diluting standards.
The new plan "allows us to maintain the integrity of our grading scale but allows some flexibility," he said. "I no longer have consternation."
Weems, who has been pushing the board on the grading scale topic for much of the year, said she's pleased with the compromise between the old way and a "10 point" scale in which an A is 90 to 100.
She said Beach students are at the greatest disadvantage in competing for college admissions and scholarships because of their GPAs. The proposed plan would fix that, she said. "Parents should be pleased."
Sandra Smith-Jones, a board member who brought a college grading scale to the table for comparison, said she objects only to the lack of an A+. "There's a difference between students who get a 99 or 100 as opposed to a 93 or 94. They're doing something above and beyond."
The school division plans to post the proposed scale at www.vbschools.com by Dec. 1 and hold a public hearing by mid-January.
Lauren Roth, (757) 222-5133, lauren.roth@pilotonline.com
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It is nonesense.
I went to school with this grading system and it did not deter me from applying to and being accepted at several colleges and universities. Don't blame the grading system if you do not make the grade.
school grading scales
Students will be the ones' to suffer if grading scales are lax, and I don't buy the statement made that parents and school employees (teachers?) are for the change; sounds more like hot air to me.
make the playing field equal
I am sorry I don’t agree, and if we give up this fight we are just giving in! A 90 should be an A and an 83 should be a B! My children take hard classes (AP/ Honor classes), they are smart and I am tired of Virginia Beach thinking they are a better school by keeping their standard! Their not, it's making it more difficult for the students to compete for colleges against other students-that’s all you are doing! My kids have stacks of books and always doing homework, study get up early and do all their work, so don’t tell me they need to STUDY MORE! Oh and what does my one child get for her hard work, she forgot her work in her locker and wasn’t allowed to get it and gets a zero!? What are we running a prison or a school? I am sure nobody in the Virginia Beach school system forgot something in their car for a meeting and had to go back and get it!!! The whole system needs to be fixed starting with the grading system-make it fair!
Wouldn't it be easier if we just blamed the teachers?
We need more teacher accountability. When students do not study or do their homework, it's the teachers' faults. When students don't behave, it's the teachers' faults. When parents are not aware of their child's progress, it's the teachers' faults. We need to hold teachers more accountable by making it easier to fire them so we are continuously replacing the experienced teacher work-force with a novice workforce so we never have an experienced work-force teaching our children. This is the only real solution. We need fewer experienced teachers and more novice teachers in our children's classrooms. This and only this will improve education. Novice teachers are the answer...especially the quick-certification career transition teachers with zero to minimal experience; they always make the best teachers!
a 3.7 is ridiculous for a B+
a 3.7 is more of an A- ..... not a B+ and then what a B is a 3.0? ridiculous....who thought of this? If you are going to give a plus grade, then you have to give a minus grade, otherwise it does not add up. IF they are going to change the grading scale, do it more on the college level .... but not this ridiculous dumbing down of the system yet again.....and do the AP courses get graded on the 10 point scale or the regular scale? I've known some teachers who do it one way, and others who do it the other. That needs to be uniform as well.
I disagree with this system.
I disagree with this system. As a graduate student at ODU, I deal with this grading scale, and it is fine on a college level. but what about all of the high school academy students who have weighted AP courses anyway? People will be graduating with 6.0 G.P.A.'s now. The average student who wants to go to college already has to compete with the student who takes all AP course and gets 4.625's anyway, why make the system easier for the above-average student and harder for the average student who tries their hardest anyway?
Don't forget about the ME-FIRST parents
Don't forget about the ME-FIRST parents who intimidate teachers and administrators into caving and changing their child's 93B to a 94 A to protect their child's GPA. Meanwhile the students who don't have ME-FIRST parents are stuck with what they earned. Again...what about the GPAs from no-student-accountability districs vs GPAs from student-accountability districts??? The Va Beach district puts the pressure on teachers to hunt down students and beg them to make up work and complete missing assignments....the same students who compete with students from districts that do not have the same level of teacher-accountability. Do colleges consider this when selecting candidates?
Gross Oversimplification
I grew up in Worcester County, MD, just across the state line from Accomac County, VA. Once kids were in high school, students on each side of the line would regularly socialize with each other. (See: driver's license) I knew quite a few students from Arcadia and Chincoteague High Schools.
At the time, Worcester used an every 10 point scale, with a 59 or below being an F. On the other hand, Accomac was giving Fs at 74. Since you could figure many of us were applying to the same colleges, the conventional wisdom of this issue would lead you to believe we Marylanders had an unfair advantage.
Hardly: the academic material we were covering was a year or two ahead of that in Accomac. While we could get a better grade with a lower score, we had to push through tougher material to do it.
It's a multifaceted issue that is hardly being given justice in the current debate.
another option
Rather than have the children have to work for an "A", let's just give them all "A"s on their report card and not even require them to attend classes. That would eliminate the teacher and building expense.
94/A = 4.0 GPA ? No Way!
Sandra Smith-Jones has it right. The lower end of the 'A' range is *not* indicative of what a 4.0 GPA should represent (an A+). The 3.7 grade point suggested for a B+ is quite a subtle method of inflating student grades.
A review of ODU's grading key - which is typical of standard college/university grading scales - states that a B+ is equal to a 3.3 grade point. The 3.7 is earned for an A-.
Students given a 3.7 for B grades in Va. Beach will appear to be doing A-level work when applying to college, giving them an unfair - and undeserved - advantage over other applicants.
If Va. Beach is going to adjust their grading scale to *help* students get into college, they should at least keep it honest and align the scale to college expectations.