Sorting, Sifting, and Reporting

Having enjoyed a leisurely Saturday morning that consisted of a sleep-in, a yoga session, and breakfast at our favorite diner, the afternoon turned to the weightier matters of report writing. If you factor in a car wash and watching a few extraneous football games, you might even say that I was procrastinating. You might be right, but not for the reasons you may think.

While I appreciate that in education there is a need to track student progress, record and report that progress to parents, students, and educational authorities, there is something fragmented and counterproductive about this process. Most schools adopt a system that requires sorting and sifting- placing grades and percentages on work done to date. There are undoubtedly good reasons for following this precedent, the most compelling being the university admissions process and the granting of credits.

Middle school teachers are not bound by the same constraints, yet most schools follow a system that is similar to high school. This seems counterintuitive to developments in education that call for differentiated ways of assessing student work, and longer projects that add relevance and rigor to learning, but are more complicated to assess. I favor frequent, but varied assessment of student work and a less rigid way of reporting student progress in a timely fashion. I expect that most schools, even innovative ones like my own, grapple with the right balance of reports, updates, and opportunities for encouraging student success and learning.

It would be great to hear what other schools are doing by way of change in this important area of school life. Meantime, it is time to turn off the distractions, and get back to sorting, sifting, and reporting.