GRADES...Good? or Not?

         Grades are a major part of school.  The purpose of grades is for teachers to test students' abilities by giving them a number from 0-100%, so they know what skills the student has and what skills he/she doesn't have.  Thus, the student will know what their average is on that particular subject. This can help the student, as well as the teacher how the student is doing in a subject.  With grades, the student will have an idea on what subjects to work on and study more and which subject they are good at.

          In my opinion, the current grading system is okay.  This is because I think the number grade is fine because 100 is an even number which is easy to grade off of.  However, I don't really agree with letter grades because I think that they judge a little bit.  For example, 90-100=A, 80-89=B, 70-79=C, 60-69=D, and 59 below=F.  This shouldn't be compatible with the numbers because they make the grades seem worse than they really are.  For instance, if a student gets a 50% with a letter grade (F), the student just feels bad, but if the student gets a 50% without a letter grade, the student knows that they only understand approximately half of the material that was taught and they would try to work harder.  Without the letter grade, most students wouldn't really count it as failing, but actually needing more work or studying harder.  I think there shouldn't be letter grades, but only number grades.

            According to me, the current grading system is not always accurately testing our knowledge and skills.  It is okay, but needs a little improvement.  For instance, the grading sometimes depends on the teacher.  This happens mostly on writing prompts because the teacher has to grade the paper based on their own interests and knowledge about the topic.  For example, in my writing class last year, a boy in my class got a very low score on his personal narrative because he wrote about skateboarding and the the teacher did not know what some of the terms that he used were.  That was unfair because he definitely did not deserve that grade.  The grade was dependent on the teacher and her knowledge, not the boy's knowledge.  Because these bad experiences may happen, I think the teacher should also get some input from other students because they might understand kids in the same age group better.  On the other hand, the grading system is pretty accurate when it comes to multiple choice or short answer responses because there is only one answer that something can be.  Fair grades are very important in this competitive world because they decide what courses you can take in school and what college you get accepted into.

           In conclusion, I think that the grading system should be a combination of both the standard-based grading system and the current point-based grading system.  They should use the standard-based grading system for some assignments and the point-based system.  All in all, the points-based grading system is not exactly compatible for some assignments, so teachers should use the standard-based grading system for those types of assignments.