How can Jennifer C. Braceras argue that a single letter grade could provide a more “comprehensible and holistic measure of achievement” than a competence-based transcript.
Published in The Wall Street Journal — Feb. 6, 2018 408 p.m. ET
It is difficult to understand how Jennifer C. Braceras could argue that a single letter grade could provide a more “comprehensible and holistic measure of achievement” than a competence- based transcript that maps student achievement onto clear, consistent and detailed standards (“The War on Grades Deserves to Fail,” op-ed, Jan. 30). Nor is her claim that only traditional letter grades can take into account “effort, ability to meet deadlines, or level of engagement” very persuasive. Students who meet rigorous academic standards in a competence-based system don’t do so by happenstance. They must work just as hard, responsibly and with as much passion as their counterparts mired in a traditional grading system that reduces the complexity of human achievement to a single, unexplained letter.
But anyone who has seen the increasingly homogenized transcripts coming out of American high schools with their predictable mix of A’s and B’s has to wonder how a system that provides less information about students and schools is advantageous to high-school graduates coming from schools with fewer resources and connections. In an increasingly competitive college environment in which too many accomplished students look identical on paper, the undeserved advantages of affluence, legacy and social capital are more likely to tip the scale among college admissions officials than a world in which colleges can make principled admissions decisions for which they have rich, detailed information and institutional context about student learning.
Jed Silverstein, Ph.D.
Latin School of Chicago, Chicago
