Persuasive Essay: Badges Over Grades

In the article, “From Degrading to De-Grading”, by Alfie Kohn he discusses the harmful effects grades have on students. Kohn argues that there are better ways to assess students’ progress other than letter or numerical grades. Grades are a great concept but they tend to be more hurtful than helpful. Cheating can become a problem, students won’t take challenges, and they develop unhealthy competition between one another. There have been many studies conducted over the years that support Kohn’s argument.

The city council is considering banning the use of cellphones in privately owned businesses at the discretion of the owner, subjecting those who violate with a fine. I stand against them on this issue. Although the proposal entails benefits,, it violates the rights of the consumer, and many businesses would not even institute such a policy.

Alfie Kohn discussed multiple fabulous points in his article, “Degrading to De-Grading”. The author suggests more effective ways to assess students’ progress other than numerical or letter grades. Kohn goes into detail about why our current grading system is flawed. Grades can cause students to lose interest in learning which causes them to stop taking challenges. If students are not engaged and interested than they are not retaining the information they are being taught. The grading system can also cause students to develop unhealthy competition with one another for instance, “I got a better grade than you!”. Indeed, grades are a wonderful concept, but they tend to be more hurtful than helpful. In some cases, grades can have positive effects on students. For example, setting goals for various assignments, or receiving help where they are struggling. Though, there are alternatives that could make positive changes in the system.

School is slave labor. Rather than enjoying or learning from their classes, students are forced to do useless work that will often be forgotten immediately. Grades are meant to show much a student understands a class, but instead are used as a scale of how well a student can regurgitate answers onto a test. Students only work for good grades because of the threat of being punished for failure, and the promise of reward for passing. The punishments in this case are detention or trouble from teachers, and the rewards are making the honor roll or getting bragging rights. The real reward for learning should be having new knowledge, but this is not taken into consideration. Jerry Farber, a professor at U.S.D, made the strong claim that grades are useless and harmful in his essay, “A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System.” I wholeheartedly agree with Farber’s objection to our current grading system.

Handing out more A’s to those who have earned it could allow for parents to see that they are able to do well and they just need to work a little harder to do well in all of their

Have you ever accomplished something and to the extent that words couldn’t describe how happy you feel. Others would disagree with this idea. In some ways they are right to disagree. On the other hand, grading can have a positive effect on students. As said by Jerry Jessness, “In the short term, floating standards makes everybody a winner.

Alfie Kohn discussed many fabulous points in his article, “Degrading to De-Grading”. The author suggests more effective ways to assess students’ progress other than numerical or letter grades such as, portfolios or narratives. Kohn goes into detail about why our current grading system is flawed. Grades can cause students to lose interest in learning, this causes them to stop taking challenges. If students are not engaged and interested than they are not retaining the information they are being taught. The grading system can also cause students to develop unhealthy competition with one another for instance, “I got a better grade than you!”. Indeed, grades are a wonderful concept, but they tend to be more hurtful than helpful. In some cases,

Throughout my high school career, I chose to challenge myself in the classroom. Rather than taking the basic route to earning a high school diploma, I chose to seek an even high honor of obtaining the honor's diploma. Throughout my years, I was told by various people that the honor's diploma was unnecessary, colleges won't care about it, and that it's just for bragging rights. Although some of these statements may be true, I didn't let the negativity get in the way of my goal. I was set on working towards and honor's diploma and no one was going to stop me.

How Could a pass or fail be determined? It will have to deal with numbers and percentages from Grades that the students receive as a grade. How would the students know what's a pass and what's a fail. How can students set goals for the next time to do better? It would be much easier to determine a students grade by a letter. Competition is a good thing for students, they perform better wanting to get a better grade than others as long as the students is competing in a good way and not cheating. There will all ways be a student better than others. People would want to know a doctor had the highest grade in medical school. or that lawyer had the highest gpa in law school. people wouldn't know that if the doctors only had a pass or fail grading system. Letter grades should not be replaced with pass/fail system ,they are not specific enough to determine a students performance in his or her class. People would have no way in differentiating students with all A's and a "C" student, it would also be easier to correct a letter grade if there's an error.

Let us start by considering this: Awarding students higher grades helps to develop more self-esteem and greater feelings of pride if they have something to work for. Whereas if they are continuously receiving low grades this could lead to pupils thinking they’re not ‘good enough’ or ‘smart enough.’

Historically, letter grades have served as a tool to rate educational intelligence. By looking at the progression of a student’s grades over time, people are able to determine whether or not the students are developing skills in certain areas. Using a one letter grade to determine progress has received many critiques as a common system used in America’s education. Critics claim letter grades cause students motivation and creativity to decrease because grades shift students focus from learning the material to obtaining a good grade.

Did you know? Each course failed in 8th grade increases the odds of non-promotion by 16%. Putting this rule in place adds an extra incentive for students to do well in classes, and that should lower the amount of failing grades. Raising the level of expectation raises the level of grades; higher grades equal better chances of doing well in high school classes. This new rule may result in higher test scores too. Students can be better, if we just push them to do their best. We can make failing grades almost nonexistent. Let’s increase the pride in better grades and strive to do the best that we

Eric Bettinger from Stanford University says that so much of our society nowadays are based on incentives and it became important to accomplish our goals. It has been proved that getting an award motivates them to do better and makes a purpose to achieve something. For example, on the Texas Advanced Placement program, students that took AP tests increased their grades steadily when compared to schools not providing cash. Also when students go through the process of getting better grades, without a doubt, they can learn more about what they have studied for the

Teachers have always used grades to measure the amount a student has learned. This practice is becoming ineffective. Many students have a wide range of grades, which show that grades may not show what a student really knows. Therefore, the standard grading system should be replaced. Some reasons why grades should be replaced are bad grades can hinder a child’s performance, grades define who a student is in the classroom, and grades are not an effective way to see if students have learned the material. The current grading system should be upgraded and every school should incorporate the plus/minus system in their method of grading.