In the recent years MCPS has changed and introduced several new policies related to grades. However, with them, it is clear that the county is trying to get students to succeed: not by making their students better, but by making their standards lower. These policies, such as the new grading system, and getting rid of semester exams are very unpopular with teachers. In my school, many of my teachers constantly express their discontent with MCPS’s grading policies and complain about grade inflation. MCPS’s lenient grading does not help its students. It will hurt them when they go to college to realize that it isn’t so easy after all.
Bringing back exams must be the first step. This is not a radical idea, as we had them just four years ago. Exams teach us how to recall old information or learn it again—skills we will need in college. Without semester exams, we do not need to know the content for long term, but instead only until the unit tests. In college, there are exams, and regardless of them, we will have to know large quantities of information from our class for tests. Semester exams help students learn how to do that.
MCPS must change the grading system by making it quarterly, not by semester. With current setup, we could do well first quarter and worse on the second, but still technically do well overall. For many students, getting an A or a B is not about wanting to try hard now, but it is about not wanting to try hard later.
Personally, I have seen people take advantage of MCPS’s ridiculous grade system. What I saw was that for quarter one, another student got all A’s and B’s, but then in quarter two, in almost all his classes, his grades dropped a letter grade. But that did not matter, as only the higher letter grade counts. It doesn’t work like this in college, where we have to give constant effort and continuously work hard. Changing the grading system to a per-quarter system will require that we always care about our grades. With this system, if we get an A for the first quarter, we still cannot just slack off for the second quarter of the semester. It might be convenient to us now, but it won’t help us in the future. Colleges should see a full analysis of how we have done in high school, regardless of whether it helps or hurts us.
The last policy that MCPS needs to change is the retake policy. Although there are strong arguments for allowing retakes, it does more harm than good. Many teachers say that retakes help students because it gives them a second chance to learn the material, which is true. However, the ultimate goal of high school is to prepare us for college and life. In life, second chances are rare . When we have jobs, we most likely will not get a second chance if we miss deadlines or mess up. It is better that students learn to succeed and deal with the consequences right now instead of having to do that in the future. Getting rid of retakes might seem harsh and unfair, and it will make students lives more stressful, but again, as I said before, it is better that they learn to do it now in high school that figure it out later.
Teachers and even students know that its grading policies and exam policies are not smart or helpful. To prepare its students for college, the county must stop making it easier for students. This will improve and raise the standard for students so that they do not panic as they run into reality at college.
Article by Justin Lafontaine of Walter Johnson High School
Graphic by Sophia Li of Takoma Park Middle School