frogger -- No problem, glad you could make it.

Sigma40: You clearly do not comprehend the grading system. My son is in private school & this is what they do. I find it incredibly helpful when I go to parent teacher conferences to be able to sit down & look at multiple things vs. A in Math, B in this... It puts me in a position as a parent to say hey teacher - what does this mean? How would you recommend I go about helping him improve in this area? Gee thanks teacher that is something I hadn't thought of. I think it's great & gives a much better picture of strengths/weaknesses. It also goes hand in hand with my advice for parents: be involved.

jax- so sorry I was late!

What advice would you give to parents to help their children succeed in school?

Be involved with school and your child! School is not your babysitter!!

Grading System.
.
As long as the system recognizes excellence and has a mechinisim to find the students that need help, I don't care what it looks like.
.
How much of the educators time is spent administering/learning this system? This should be closely monitored and steps taken to make it easy to administor.
.
Parents? Encourage excellence! Demonstrate excellence to your children... When parents get home at the end of the day, the couch/tv is not the proper destination... Our job is not complete until we serve our children by, leading, teaching, unteaching and PLAYING with our kids...
.
You would be surprised with how much more willing a kid is to do homework *AFTER* playing out in the yard with dad for a while.

Its just window dressing to make people think they are doing something. This makes absolutely no difference. It is just a fad. Perhaps the grading system is more lenient and makes students look better, in reality their education has not been affected one bit.

If parents have trouble following this new grading system, they should have their heads examined.

Birdman - I knew lots of kids in school who had parents that were concerned about grades. More about grades than actual knowledge learned. I got paid for good grades so It was something to keep an eye on. I also found it stressful to concentrate on other subjects when a math teacher assigns you a ton of 10 step math problems that I already knew. So the time consuming work of writing all the math out took away from other areas. Which I never did anyways.. If you've never met a student who was influenced by grades you must have been the loner kid sitting by yourself. Atmosphere has a major part in teaching and also if you are learning for a reward (grade).

Good luck in the coming new school year, jaxstaff3. With all the nonsense churned out from new administrators who have no significant classroom experience, plus the Big Guns such as Doctor Kim masterfully creating profession obfuscation, it must be maddening! Your stomach must churn at each new staff meeting as you await the Next New Idea!
. . .
Grades have always been averaged using numbers, whether on a percent scale or letter grades. Your "A" may have been worth four points, "B" was a three, and so on. What I find appalling is that there is now a top score, but it will be seldom awarded because of the silly notion that the student must have something more for which to strive. Bollocks! Kids at the top, like athletes at the top, know that they must strive to maintain that excellence!
. . .
With this new system, I fear our Parents will find it almost too busy, and perhaps too confusing. But even before the folks at ESC came out with this new gem, we had excellent educators carefully explaining to moms & dads the details of a child's skills, mastery, or shortcomings.
. . .
Tip o' the Hat to those terrific men and women who, even today are preparing their classrooms for the onset of the new school year. Gotta love 'em.

One has to wonder what Sigma40 must have "suffered" during school years . . . or perhaps events of someone close to him . . . that it should be said that measuring school progress "...impairs the insecure." I have never once met an individual who professed to having been scarred for life by his/her report cards. To use the cliche of young people today, "REALLY‽"
. . .
And from what extensive training in the fields of Education or Child Development (including bona fide research) does he make the assertion that "...it makes it harder to concentrate and learn..." because children are stressed due to receiving school grades?

hg - it's not just changing from letters to numbers. The entire report card is changing. It has much more detailed information for parents. The new report card is based on the standards adopted by the State of Wisconsin. It is designed to drive instruction so there is consistency in instruction throughout all of the elementary schools.

The first thing that comes to mind is from the statement, "If Janesville uses them faithfully, district officials believe they will help improve learning and resulting test scores." I wonder how changing from letters to numbers will improve the "learning" when it is the same child, the same teacher, the same style of teaching, etc. The only thing that changed is the letter to a number. It may "on paper" look like it is improving but will the child walk away knowing more just because they received a number instead of a letter for a grade? I believe that this is just a way to make it look like our children are learning more and in reality the only thing that has changed is the letter to a number. Just another false sense of improvement the way I see it.

When the teachers are done, teach your children HISTORY...not the watered down, fabricated garbage taught in our public educational system.

Greg - first word - Classses?!?

I don't see the point in numbers vs. letters either. No mention of how much it is costing to get all new grading forms, training, etc. to switch to a new number grading system.....it's just silly. Advice to parents? Pay attention! Read to the little ones, read with the big ones, and make homework a priority.

Why even use a grading system? All it does is put people in ranks and it impairs the insecure. They should either pass.....or not. Know the material....or not. Also eliminate 90% of homework. It stresses them out and it makes it even harder to concentrate and learn when you are stressed. Changing the grades from letters to numbers does nothing at all seeing everything was graded in numbers and then converted to a letter grade anyway....now back to a number... What are we gaining? Nothing.

I find it interesting that this blog was posted at 3:51 p.m. and not one of the usual bloggers have any advice for parents...but usually have plenty to say about teachers. My advice to parents is be involved in your child's education.