Many topics tend to repeat on the gifted forums, and this type of unfortunate grading has been discussed on earlier threads, including
this thread from 2013. Basically, grading may be
subjective and relative to a teacher's expectations for a specific student, rather than being an
objective score or measure of the amount of assigned material which the child knows.
Many parents are not aware that even early elementary report cards may now furnish data into the U.S. Department of Education's "Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems", a summary of whose characteristics can be read on this factsheet, dated July 2009, and available online at
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/slds/factsheet.html.* More on data collection here. US public schools are seeking to close "the achievement gap" and "the excellence gap" among various demographic groups. A variety of grading strategies and techniques can be the tools to generate the same grades for students of various demonstrated abilities... thereby creating a longitudinal database from which reports can be extracted to indicate progress toward the goals of closing gaps. A public school teacher whose class shows gaps may receive a negative evaluation and lose his/her job to a teacher who will help close gaps, and achieve equal outcomes. Here is a roundup of other threads which discuss various
strategies/techniques which have unfortunately been used to generate the same grades for students of various demonstrated abilities: -
requiring 100% on pretests -
selective access to redo opportunities -
announcing "pop quiz" dates to selected students while withholding information from others -
spreading the credentials among a broader bunch of students (at high school level) -
differentiated task demands-
standards-based grading This is not to discourage your son from asking his teacher what he can do to raise his grade from a 3 to a 4. This is just to provide you with information which may help you understand how grades may be used, and provide insight for evaluating any response which your son may report after speaking with his teacher.
Your son speaking with his teacher is the beginning of his
self-advocacy efforts. Before your son speaks with his teacher, you may wish to coach him to remember what his teacher says so you may begin to keep dated documentation at home in case it should be necessary to refer to in preparing for any future advocacy efforts.
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* The U. S. Department of Education "Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems" (July 2009) is archived on the WayBack Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210809095250/https://www2.ed.gov/programs/slds/factsheet.html
