Educator Angela Spencer was used to giving students letter grades on their report cards before she started working in Arlington ISD.
Spencer, a first grade teacher at Crow Leadership Academy, had to learn the district’s new approach to grading elementary students. Instead of wide-sweeping A’s, B’s and C’s in subjects, students would be graded on their progress in specific skills and knowledge.
Spencer now swears by the grading method known as standards-based report cards.
Arlington ISD has used standards-based report cards for around six years. Parents have more transparency in their children’s learning, district officials said. Arlington ISD provides insight into what Fort Worth ISD parents can expect, as administrators plan to swap grading systems.
“For kindergarten through second grade, this is an awesome system and I think all schools should do it this way,” Spencer said.
‘Master those foundational skills’
Arlington ISD switched to standards-based report cards during the 2018-19 school year. Previously, the district had report cards for pre-K through second grade students that were based on skills, said Danielle Reynolds, the district’s assistant director of curriculum and instruction.
A standards-based report card is based on the curriculum standards from the Texas Education Agency. The standards are called Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS.
Each of the lessons that students learn has two parts: knowledge and skills.
For example, Reynolds pointed to a first grader being required to learn how to read grade-level text with fluency and comprehension. A teacher can measure a student’s progress on that specific TEKS. Instead of receiving a traditional letter grade, the teacher instead notes the level of the student’s progress toward the established standard, Reynolds said.
The report card will still show a letter, but not the traditional ones.
“A student can earn an M if they’ve mastered that standard. They can earn an A if they’re approaching mastery of that standard or a B if they’re beginning the mastery of that standard,” Reynolds said.
Each level has its own nuances, Spencer said.
Her class recently had a lesson in coins. To get mastery a student would have to tell Spencer the name of each coin and how much it is worth. They also would have to do one more thing, she said.
“The part that kind of gets them — where it’s hard to give a mastery — is they have to be able to tell me that there are five pennies in a nickel and two nickels make a dime,” Spencer said. “That would be a reason that a student would get ‘approaching’ versus ‘mastery.’”
Standards-based report cards do a better job of measuring student progress throughout a year, Reynolds said. Tracking growth is especially important for students in pre-K through second grade because they are learning foundational skills in all subjects.
“It is essential to ensure that students have mastered those foundational skills so when learning becomes more complex, they’re ready for that learning,” Reynolds said.
‘A better understanding’
Fort Worth ISD is planning to switch to standards-based report cards for early learners as a way to be more communicative to parents, Superintendent Angélica Ramsey recently told the Fort Worth City Council.
An A in math doesn’t really tell a parent what their child is learning nor improvement areas, Ramsey said.
Instead of using letters like Arlington ISD, Fort Worth ISD plans to use a scale of one to four, Ramsey said.
“Moving to a standards-based report card provides parents on a scale a better understanding per Texas standard of how their child is doing,” Ramsey said.
Karen Molinar, Fort Worth ISD’s deputy superintendent, described a standards-based report card as more parent friendly. At a January forum, Molinar said the new report card would bring a new level of transparency.
“This is how your child’s reading. This is what we’re doing. This is what you can do at home,” Molinar said.
Communication key to switch
Arlington ISD switched over to standards-based report cards in one year and for all grade levels between pre-K and second grade, Reynolds said. The district had buy-in from teachers, principals and parents after spending time communicating the changes with the district’s community.
Fort Worth ISD plans to roll out standards-based report cards for pre-K through fifth grade over the next two to three years.
Effective communication and goals contributed to Arlington ISD’s successful roll out of standards-based report cards, Reynolds said. The district provided training and plenty of guides for teachers. Outside of school, officials communicated with parent groups to ensure they understood the shift and the new report cards.
One piece Arlington ISD emphasized was that students would not be measured if a standard was not taught during a grading period. Kindergarten through second grade has a six-week grading period, and pre-K has a 12-week grading period.
Instead, teachers would put an asterisk next to the standard to tell parents their child hasn’t been taught a particular lesson yet.
Communication has not stopped because the report cards are fully rolled out. Instead, improving it is a constant and ongoing process for Arlington ISD, Reynolds said.
Spencer, the first grade teacher, tells her students that they are learning, but together they will set goals and make progress throughout the school year.
Their report cards reflect that.
“I’m able to put on their report card that they’re reading on grade level, but at the beginning of the year, I could not give them that yet,” Spencer said. “Because it’s the ‘power of yet.’”
Jacob Sanchez is an enterprise journalist for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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