Why an 80 Should Be an A — And a Missing Assignment Should Be a True Zero
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder argues for compressing the grading scale so that an 80 is an A and a missing assignment receives a zero that doesn't disproportionately drag down the average.
Key Takeaways
- The current scale is mathematically broken - On a 100-point scale, failing grades occupy 60 points while passing grades occupy only 40
- Compressing the scale fixes the zero problem - If an 80 is an A, then a zero for missing work is proportionate to other grades
- This is a better solution than minimum grades - Instead of giving fake 50s, fix the scale so zeros are fair
Transcript
We've got our grading scale all wrong.
An 80 should be an A, a 60 should be a B, a 40 should be a C, a 20 should be a D, and you shouldn't get an F unless you get 19 or less on an assignment.
And here's why.
Virtually every school uses the 10-point grading system, right?
Where 90 to 100 is an A, there are 100 points total, and anything less than a 60 is failing.
But this system is a very messed up system for a lot of reasons.
Everybody's also familiar with the GPA system, right?
Where a 4.0 is straight A's, zero is straight F's, you know, 3.0 is straight B's and so on.
And since our grades that matter, you know, the grades that get reported for college are on that four point scale, we've got to make our system for grading assignments on that hundred point scale line up with that a little bit better.
And I didn't really understand quite what was wrong with the 100-point grading scale until I read this article from my colleague Dr.
Douglas Reeves, which he wrote back in 2004.
In this article called the case against the zero in Phi Delta Kappan in 2004, Doug Reeves basically lays out the math and says, this is messed up.
He says, if we were to convert to that 4.0 GPA style scale, a zero for a missing assignment really counts like a negative six, right?
We would, we would say like, you shouldn't get credit for work you didn't do, but you should get a zero, not a negative six.
So check out that article at Google, The Case Against Zero, if you want to read that argument and the math behind it for yourself.
But here's what I think this means for us.
Grading is complicated and controversial, and changing grading procedures is really hard, but I think it would be a pretty easy change to just say an 80 or higher is an A, a 60 to a 79 is a B, and so on, because what that would allow us to do is keep our 100-point grading scale, but stop overly penalizing kids for missing assignments, right?
It's super difficult to come back from even one missing assignment because they carry way too much weight in that grading scale.
You You have to get so many perfect grades to make up for even one missing assignment.
And as Doug says in the article, that leads to a lot of kids falling behind, failing classes, and ultimately dropping out.
And we don't need to have such a cruel and unusual punishment for missing assignments.
So let me know what you think about this.
I don't think we should give kids points for work they didn't do.
I think you should get a zero on something that you didn't do yet until you do that assignment.
You should have a chance to do that assignment and bring that grade up, but you shouldn't get what's effectively a negative six for work you didn't do.
So let me know what you think about this and let me know what you think about switching to an 80 is an A grading scale.