Standards Based Reporting

Many school districts have adopted standards based report cards at the elementary school level to more closely reflect the standards based instruction that has been implemented in response to No Child Left Behind.  The greatest benefit of standards based reporting is to provide parents with additional information about their student’s achievement. 

Every state has adopted a list of skills/standards that students are expected to learn at each grade level from kindergarten (pre-school in Massachusetts) through high school.  The list of skills/standards in our state is known as the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework. Teachers are responsible for teaching the skills/standards listed for their students’ specific grade level. How the skills are taught is left to the discretion of each school district.  Standards based report cards list the most important skills in all subject areas for each grade level.  The mastery of the skills/standards listed on the report card is anticipated by the end of the school year.  The example below is taken from Mendon Upton Regional School District’s Second Grade Report Card in the area of Mathematics:

·         Counts, identifies, compares, and writes numbers up to 1,000

·         Skip counts by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, up to at least 100, starting at any number

·         Adds and subtracts up to three-digit numbers accurately and efficiently using conventional and non-conventional methods

With standards based reporting, rather than receiving a “traditional” letter grade, students receive a mark that indicates the level of mastery for each specific skill/standard.  Instead of quantifying a grade through the averaging of various scores collected across a predetermined period, the teacher asks the basic question, “Has the student mastered this specific skill as of the end of this marking period?” If the answer is yes, the child receives a “3”.  In many cases, mastery of grade level skills/standards will not occur until the second or third marking period.  Students who are working toward mastery will receive a “2” until the skill is mastered.  Students also receive separate marks for effort and work habits.

In the past, students often received one grade for each subject area (i.e. reading, math, science, etc.).  On a standards based report cart, each subject is divided into a list of specific skills/standards and knowledge that students are expected to master.  Students receive a separate grade for each skill/standard listed. In addition, standards based report cards provide more consistency between teachers and schools than traditional report cards because all students are evaluated on the same grade-level skill/standard.  Parents are better able to identify which skills/standards that their children have mastered and where additional practice may be needed.