Grades

     It seems like in school, your intelligence and how well you understand the information asked of you can only be measured by your grades. But how exactly can something as complex as intelligence be measured with grades? In my opinion, it can't. Most schools use the system of A-F, with A being a 90-100 and an F being a failure (-68). Sometimes, schools use another grading system, called (correct me if I'm wrong) standards-based grading. Instead of using a percent grade, this system uses grading that some people may recognize from everyone's favorite test, the NJ ASK; Partially Proficient, Proficient, and Advanced Proficient. I think that these grades are much easier for students and teachers to understand. For example, I may consider an A as Advanced Proficient, and a B and below Proficient or Partially Proficient. However, another student may consider a B Advanced Proficient. That's a nine point difference, which is pretty big. The point is, students have different ideas of what grades mean. Partially Proficient, Proficient, and Advanced Proficient give students clear ideas of what they need to work on in order to have a greater level of knowledge in the subject. I think that we should continue to use the 100 scale grading system to some extent; my opinion of the best kind of grading would be to give students an A-F and percent score, but the grade that actually counted would be the Proficiency grade. On their papers that were given to them, for example, it would say "97% (Advanced Proficient)". This kind of grading would be the most accurate to give students.