The first part of this article uses mathematics as the focal point but the principles elaborated upon can be applied to other subjects.  At the end, there is a summary of what I believe desperately needs to be done to improve aspects of the system.

Ranking Students in Senior Mathematics

Description of the system (2009 Year 11)

Within the school’s control

Step 1: Examinations and assignments are set and graded by the teachers

When the examination or assignment is set each question is rated by the teacher. A student may be graded as a ‘C’ on a ‘C’ question which means the student has a complete and correct solution. Now if the question has been rated as an ‘A’ question and the student is graded as a ‘C’ then they do not have a complete solution.

There are three criteria on each examination and assignment:

1. a.  Knowledge and Procedures (relatively straight forward questions)
2. b.  Modelling and Problem Solving (applications of the information)
3. c.  Communication

Step 2: The data is combined to give an overall grading (A to E) for each of the three worded criteria.

Step 3: After all the assessment has been completed, the marks are combined and the teacher

positions the student somewhere on one of fifty rungs.

Step 4: The teacher then ranks the student on a scale from 200 to 400 (an S.A.I. score).

Outside the school’s control

Step 5: S.A.I.’s from five subjects are scaled using the Q.C.S. results and an OP of 1 to 25 is awarded.

A good system should:

1. 1.  Be highly repeatable
2. 2.  Be understandable and transparent to students and parents
3. 3.  Not take massive amounts of time, stress and energy due to its unnecessary complexity

What the system actually is: 

1. 1.  The system is not highly repeatable. Teachers can at times struggle to ‘sleep at night’ (due to stress) because they know the importance of the final S.A.I. score and the long and at times hazy process (in assigning grades and combining scores) they were forced to go through to arrive at this score.
2. 2.  The system is very complex. A teacher struggles to implement the system and to plot their way through the maze to assign an S.A.I. score. The system is very difficult for a student to understand and would be totally incomprehensible to most parents.
3. 3.  A massive amount of time is needed to devise an assessment system and there can be seemingly endless debates with other teachers and panels.

An assessment system is usually introduced with very vague (and changing) guidelines. After devising a system, teachers are readily told; “Well that’s not really what we wanted!”

Teachers want to have more time to prepare their lessons (this is not an unreasonable request!) and less time on devising and implementing complex assessment systems that are not highly repeatable nor easily understood by students or parents.

Replacing Numbers with Letters

This drive to eliminate numbers from the assessment process has been going on for years.

Firstly, I would like to say: “We have been able to position a man on the moon using the power of mathematics but for some unknown reason teachers can’t use mathematics to position a student in a class of twenty students!” 

The disadvantages of using letters

You can’t add up letters. That’s why we have numbers! With numbers we can weight tests. With letters (A to E), teachers are usually forced into equal weightings of questions / assessment items and translate the letters back to numbers anyway to get a rank order.  In the end, teachers have to come up with an S.A.I. (from 200 to 400) so using only 5 letters is not a good way to start.

Now this is not to say letters can be used in certain situations if you desire to. But it is almost beyond belief that a philosophical position has become entrenched that states that “numbers should not be used to position students.”

How is such a system presented to teachers as being better?

1. 1.  The presenters at meetings say that “the research backs up the idea that we should use letters not numbers.”  Well I think it is time for teachers to have a close look at this research!
2. 2.  When teachers point out that the system is not a good one, the presenter says “you need in-service and you’ll develop the skills.” Teachers may feel inadequate as they have no experience with the new system and think “well maybe it will be effective.” Usually there will be someone who has tried to implement the new system and will say (not always with total conviction) “I think we can make it work.”
3. 3.  The presenter will say “teachers are professionals and we can make these judgements.” Yes, teachers are professionals and that is why they worry about a system that uses letters instead of numbers and has the disadvantages mentioned in this article!
4. 4.  The presenter will label anyone who has opposing ideas as “unwilling to change.” This is seen as the ultimate insult and supposedly the end to any educational debate that is going on!

I was at a large seminar in Brisbane which was promoting the use of letters to rank students in Physics. A sample of a student’s work was given to about 20 teachers many of whom were highly experienced. The levels came back from C plus to A minus! I rest my case! (Note: it is OK to use the mathematical symbols of plus and minus!) What is needed is not days of in-service on the system but for the system to change back to using numbers.

1. 5.  The argument put forward against using percentages is; “Can you really know a student is 78% and not 79%?” Well maybe … maybe not, but anyhow the above is not an argument for introducing a system that will cause teachers be unsure if a student’s work is somewhere between C plus and A minus!

The longer the use of numbers is pushed out of the ranking process the longer teachers, students and parents will suffer.

Pushing the use of letters to another level

In Mathematics, the introduction of a student being ranked as a ‘C’ on a ‘C’ question or a ‘C’ on an ‘A’ question is introducing another layer of insanity.

Pressing Issues: What needs to be done.

An overall review of the system

The following ideas were introduced in the late seventies and early eighties and continue to ‘boldly march on.’ The words in italics are the ideas referred to.

1. 1.A teacher’s time being consumed with complex ineffective assessment systems.

Release teachers from endless, energy sapping debates about whether a question is an ‘A’ question or a ‘B’ question etc. etc. etc. so they can have more time to talk about their particular subject material! Release teachers from complex ineffective assessment systems so they can more confidently rank students with a system that can easily be explained to students and parents.

1. 2.Every school has to write their work program from scratch.

By all means a school can write their own program from scratch if they wish to but don’t insist every school HAS to write it. Give schools samples of approved programs and if they wish to adapt them then they can do so and then re-submit them.

1. 3.Every school has to write their assessment items from scratch.

With any syllabus, a supply of a wide range of quality assessment items should be made available to schools. More experienced teacher may be able to improve on some of the items and less experienced teachers (for example, a second year teacher in a remote school) will know what is required of them. Teachers may even be able to spend more time preparing their classes!

Since the introduction of Radford in mid 1970’s, there has been very little in the way of a dynamic bank of assessment items and support materials that had been made available to all Mathematics teachers which shows the full range of levels and applications. This situation is an appalling state of affairs and must change.

1. 4.A textbook should not be used.Each teacher / school should write their own resources fromscratch.

By all means a teacher can write all their own resources if they choose to but a good textbook which took thousands of hours to compile is a brilliant resource for teachers and students. Teachers should be encouraged to use good quality textbooks in their classroom and adapt them where necessary. Forcing teachers not to use textbooks has in many cases resulted in hours of wasted time to produce a poor disjoined curriculum or at best a curriculum no better than one achieved by using a textbook.

Teachers always seem to be fighting to get structure into the curriculum. The tens of thousands of teacher hours over the last 30 years spent on writing work programs from scratch, writing assessment items from scratch and making resources from scratch would be better used for things like preparing lessons. The in-service time needed to understand complicated assessment schemes could be used on in-service in specific subject areas with a bank of materials and assessment items being provided.

A concerned Mathematics / Science teacher

(31 years of experience, presently on a Mathematics B panel, ex-Physics Panel member)