Don't forget your ABC !

In response to Victorian Government Curriuclum Standards Framework Draft

The use of letter grades is built on historical precedent going back centuries, international acceptance in primary, secondary and tertiary education as well as common language usage.

The CSF and KidMap acheivement scales propose a change to a new, parochial (i.e. Victoria, Australia against the world) and probably shortlived system.

This system propose describing students achevement with a number from 1 to 7 (higher is better) over the year levels Preparatory to Year 12. Parents are being asked to learn to translate the levels back into common usage:

Grade:	CSF Level		Grade	CSF Level	Why ? You may ask ? Well, it's very complex . . . . . . . .
Prep	1		7	5
1	2		8	5
2	2		9	6
3	3		10	6
4	3		11	7
5	4		12	7
6	4

But there's more !

Within each level there are 4 more levels ! And these have both names and numbers, except (wait for it !) the numbers now go in reverse !

Grade:	CSF Level	CSF "progress scale"			Grade	CSF Level			Why ? You may ask ? Well, it's very complex . . . . . . . .
Prep	1	4: Not apparent			7	5	4: Not apparent
		3: Emerging					3: Emerging
		2: Consolidating			8	5	2: Consolidating
		1: Established					1: Established
1	2	4: Not apparent			9	6	4: Not apparent
		3: Emerging					3: Emerging
2	2	2: Consolidating			10	6	2: Consolidating
		1: Established					1: Established
3	3	4: Not apparent			11	7	4: Not apparent
		3: Emerging					3: Emerging
4	3	2: Consolidating			12	7	2: Consolidating
		1: Established					1: Established
5	4	4: Not apparent
		3: Emerging
6	4	2: Consolidating

Needless to say this is not all. In each "Key Learning Area (KLA)" there are a number of different "strands" (English must be different and has "modes"). Parents will not loose much if they translate this new jargon into

KLA = "subject" and

strands/ modes = topic/ skill area

The basic problem is that these numbered levels with numbered progress scales willactually interfere with the honest and clear communication to parents of their child's progress. The system will reduce further the community confidence in the judgement and honesty of government teachers and schools.

We hear the catch cry of professionalism which implies the existence of a shared set of values and practices which we parade as evidence of our commitment to do the best for our students and our community. This is contrasted with the mechanical obedience of the bureaucrat who implements the newest dictate of the system. Yet, we see a mad rush to adopt the CSF reporting system in full just because it is nice and new and we hope the DSE will reward (some of) us if we do it.

We are naturally seduced by the potential perfection of the new in contrast to the known inadequacies of the old. But, a mature professional should be able to pause and reflect before throwing away a practice as old and widespread as letter grades. Of course, there are some (especially politicians and teachers) who regard any practice instituted before their arrival as deeply suspect - both educationally and politically (in fact these people can often see no difference between these the two perspectives).

Let me brutally summarise the main elements of the CSF:

The CSF is an improvement on the Frameworks mainly because its title includes the word "Standards" and it is slightly more descriptive of the content that the Ministry requires us to teach. It still suffers from a near fatal vagueness on the crucial issue of depth and detail of content required for a students to be judged "Level 5.1 (Established)". We are asked to make an "on balance" judgement" from a wide variety of recorded observations. This judgement should be common across the school but is allowed to vary markedly around the state !

The CSF course advice is a commendable compendium of excellent classroom activities that have been around for a long time. It is mainly useful in that it supplies specific examples from which the standards can be inferred. Pity no-one had the guts to actually state these standards rather than dump on schools and teachers the responsibility to develop a "a consensus on their meaning within each school or district".

But, let us remember that the CSF assessment system is the real camel. One might speculate that it was reluctantly created by a confused, coerced and decimated central bureaucracy trying to do a curriculum U-turn in time to save their jobs.

The general advice is full of "parenthood statements" that describe a series of competing demands on assessment and reporting that would make Solomon wield the sword an cleft the baby in twain. In other words, we would have to be superhuman if we were to satisfy all these lovely sentiments. In reality, we should search for the best compromise for our students and our community within our resources (most critically, teacher time !).

The whole forest of advice forgets that the best assessing, reflecting, planning, teaching, assessing cycle occurs within classrooms as we teach lesson by lesson. The type of assessment that is described is for a different purpose as revealed by the language it uses: accounting, auditing, annual reporting. It is a system for collecting summative grades across the state, with a synthetic and unconvincing sweetener that it could be used for diagnostic purposes if we all had laptops !

There is no mandatory requirement to use the symbols 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 in various confusing (but really new !) combinations on reports as opposed to the symbols A, B,C,D,E, UG, F, NA or whatever. All we are required to do is give an indication of student achievement against the CSF. We can do this in our own way.

Once again, instead of providing to parents the information that they want, we are considering the creation of a new system of "eduspeak".

Don't forget your ABC !

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A= the first of a series, alpha 1, 2

A= the best of its kind or class 2

A=the highest grade or mark in school, college or university work 1, 2

A1 = first rate 2

B= the second of a series, beta 1, 2

B= the second best of its kind or class; B motion picture. Grade B fruit 2

B= the second highest grade or mark in mark in school, college or university work 1, 2

C= the third best of its kind or class 2

C= the third highest grade in schools and colleges 2

D= the lowest passing grade in schools and colleges 2

E= a conditional failing grade in some American schools and colleges 2

F=the lowest or failing grade in schools and colleges 2

1. Macquarie Australian Dictionary i.e. Australian usage

2. World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary i.e. US usage

3. Shorter Oxford Dictionary i.e. English usage