In recent years, due to an expressed dissatisfaction with grades and grading systems by some educators, alternative grading systems have been developed and adopted on an experimental basis. 3 The most common types of grading systems that are currently practiced in the schools are as follows:
1. Traditional letter grades or percentage grades. These are still the most commonly used among all the grading systems.
2. Essay type evaluation and conferences. This is the second most commonly practiced approach, especially in the elementary schools.
3. An advising system. In this approach the students are advised as to their progress. However, grades are given without the student's knowledge and kept on record.
4. The contract system. The student makes an agreement with the teacher that says that if he does a given amount of work he will receive a certain grade.
The student has the option of choosing the amount of work and the grade he wants to work for at the beginning of the contract.
5. The mastery approach. Based on predetermined behavioral objectives the students must demonstrate mastery of the material at a teacher-selected level (commonly 80 percent) before he is permitted to move on to new content.
6. Pass/fail. Normally, the student's grade record is kept by the teacher. However, only pass or fail is entered into the student's permanent record.
Credit versus no credit is another name for this type of approach.
510 Part Two: Practice
7. Blanket grading. Under this system all students receive the same grade.
8. Variable credit. In individualized classes, some schools have adopted the practice of giving credit for the work that the student does during the course of the semester or year. As soon as the student finishes so much material, he receives credit for that work. He may receive credit for more or less than a year's work depending upon the material covered.
9. Credit only. An idea associated with variable credit is to grant credit only. No failures are ever recorded on the student's record. If and when he completes his work successfully, he receives credit for what he has learned.
10. Retaking examinations. Another practice closely related to the recording of credit only is that of permitting students to retake examinations if the scores are unsatisfactory. The justification for retesting is that the primary goal is to get the students to learn the material.
Closely allied to the movement away from the more popular traditional grading system (which Jorstad [1974] says has slowed down considerably) has been the obvious grade inflation that has tended to accomplish the goals of those opposing grades without abolishing the grading system as such. Jorstad (1974), for example, quotes a survey conducted by the Minneapolis Public Schools which found that of the letter grades reported in the senior high schools in Minneapolis, 25 percent were A's. In second-language classes almost 50 percent of the grades were A's. A comparison of grades received with scores received on the SAT examinations indicates a lack of consistency somewhere in the students' educational program.