Standards based grading is horrible. It gives no feedback for a kid performing really well and honestly gives no feedback for a kid who is not performing well.

Our school uses a 1-4 system of --

1- I forget the term, but way below standards essentially
2- approaching standards
3- meets standards
4- exceeds standards

My profoundly gifted kid, who finished 1st grade reading at a 6th grade level and doing mutiplication/division/fractions/square roots received all 3's on his final report card. How that possibly described him as a student in any way is beyond me. I had a long, hissy email conversation with his (horrible) first grade teacher until I just gave it up as pointless.