Forget the "0" Fight - Change the Scale!

“We are faced with the irony that a policy that may be grounded in the belief of holding students accountable (giving zeros) actually allows some students to escape accountability for learning.”  - Ken O’Connor

I've been in a little slump on "what to blog about" for the past couple of weeks. I've been riding the wave of excitement after our school's #10TuesTweets sessions. Aside from my new obsession with social media for professional learning, my passion is standards-based grading. I'm a disciple of all the greats. Tom Guskey, Robert Marzano, Ken O'Connor, and several others. I've participated with a team of our high school teachers each year for five years in a regional six-day consortium to study, plan, and implement. I'm all in! And a growing number of our high school teachers are all in as well.

My "what to blog about slump" ended while surfing TweetDeck when I found a news piece from Edmonton about a teacher being suspended for refusal to follow his school's "no zero" policy. I wasn't alone either. John Scammell @thescamdog, Cherra-Lynne Olthof @cherraolthof, and Joe Bower @Joe_Bower as well as several others also responded. All of their responses were excellent. (see the grading and assessment page tab from this blog for links) 

As I read each article or blog post, I experienced a range of emotions that elicited groans, cheers, and "are you kidding me's?" But, all I could think about was the grading or scoring scale. There is all this turmoil, disagreement, insubordination, and strong emotion surrounding the idea of whether it's okay to assign a "0," but no talk about what I see as the real issue - the scale.


Marzano has been talking, writing, and publishing about the need for a new scale that measures learning over time. I highly recommend taking a look at his work. From my perspective, the majority of the controversy on the use of zeros in grading is based on the traditional 100-point scale. Here's a newsflash - this scale was designed during the World War I era to sort and rank military recruits! We don't live in a sorting and ranking kind of world in schools any more! Our job is to bring all kids to proficiency on agreed-upon standards. Marzano's work with proficiency scales and grade reporting methods addresses this and makes the "0" argument a moot point.  Let's start talking about learning goals and a scale based on proficiency and learning, not zeros and voodoo math. 

Can I Get Extra Credit in College?

Can I Get Extra Credit in College? I really want to know. When I was back at ‘ol Mizzou in the late 80s, I don’t remember having the option. And, there were a few times, I would have sold my soul for five or ten points. Memories of my 89% in my Forestry, Fisheries, and Wildlife course (don’t judge, I needed the science credit) came roaring back when I recently read a blog post on how Twitter is improving the 21^st century college classroom. Link to complete post at http://www.sociableblog.com/2012/04/15/college-professors-are-using-twitter/ 

Of the seven ways shared in the post on how Twitter can be used in college, #2 states: “To boost engagement on Twitter, these questions might appear at the end of tests as extra credit or as separate extra-credit assignments, giving tweeters an edge.” If Twitter existed back in 1988 in the one course keeping me from my first college 4.0, you can bet the bank I would have been tweeting.

Fast forward to 2012 where I am now a high school principal. I’m convinced that extra credit is one of the top three evils of traditional schooling and teacher grading practice. I’m all for extra practice and multiple opportunities for students to show evidence of learning. But, extra credit emphasizes the accumulation of points, not proficiency on a learning goal or improving academic performance. When I think about what I really remember from Forestry, Fisheries, and Wildlife, all I can really recollect is the argument I had with the professor: an argument over one percentage point and an opportunity for an extra credit. I lost the argument.

I recently was visiting with a friend whose child attends a neighboring high school. She shared about a grade of a B- in a course, but they weren’t worried. The teacher was also a coach in the district and was offering 10 points extra credit for attending a game and supporting the home team. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I hope the few followers I have on this blog post will come through the laptop at the thought of anything so ridiculous impacting a students’ grade.

As much as I love Twitter, I have greater things in mind than extra credit in college for its effective and responsible use. No disrespect to the idea or the author of the blog post intended. The other six suggestions were excellent.

In parting, I would like to say to all educators, “stop giving ridiculous opportunities for extra credit!” One of the biggest criticisms of high schools is the lack of preparedness for college-level work. My guess is if it weren’t for extra credit, some kids might never have made it to college. But, how sad for the “extra credit kids” when they are sitting in their first College Algebra class and realize all they remember about math from high school was the argument with the teacher over a few points, or how attending a ball game made the difference between a B+ and an A-.