Should Grading be Replaced by Testing?

Now more than forty years old, Paul Goodman’s essay ‘A Proposal to Abolish Grading’ still enjoys wide circulation. In it the author, a professor and writer whose views were popular among students in the 1960s, makes a radical proposal to do away with one of the sacred institutions of higher learning. This is an excerpt from the essay:

‘I suggest that universities should abolish grading and use testing only.’ For most of the students, the competitive grade has come to be the main thing in their studies. At the same time the great majority of professors agree that grading hinders teaching and creates a bad spirit, going as far as cheating. The grading, however, is inevitable; for how else will the Universities, colleges, the corporations know whom to accept, reward, hire? I doubt, however, that many employers bother to look at such grades; they are more likely to be interested merely in the fact of a Harvard, etc. diploma. The grades have most of their weight with the Universities – here, as elsewhere, the system runs mainly for its own sake.

It is really necessary to remind of the ancient history of Examination. In the medieval university, the whole point of the examination was whether or not to accept a candidate. It was not to make comparative evaluations. It was certainly not to pit one young fellow against another in an ugly competition.

Many students are lazy, so teachers try to threaten them by grading. In the long run, I think, this must do more harm than good, because laziness is only a way of saying ‘I won’t learn’.

(P. Goodman. A Proposal to Abolish Grading. )

Answer the following questions.

1. What are Goodman’s main objections to grading? Are Goodman’s ideas still popular?

2. Do you agree that a) grading prevents you from learning b) grading fosters competition, not learning? If so, say whether you support Goodman’s claim by reporting what your own experience has been. If you disagree with Goodman, say what the benefits of grading are.

Do Co-Educational Schools Encourage Healthy Attitude to Life?

Co-education is the education of male and female students at the same institution. The opposite for a co-educational school is a segregation school. Opponents of the idea of co-education claim that boys are cleverer than girls or vice-versa, that’s why, they may say, learning separately means streaming into groups of more or less homogeneous (зд. однородный) ability. Those who support co-education put forward a number of defensive arguments. They may say the following:

1) Boys and girls are given opportunity to get to know each other, to learn to live together from their earliest years.

2) Boys and girls are given opportunity to compare themselves with each other in terms of academic ability and many of the extra-curriculum activities.

3) A co-educational school offers children a chance to realize the difference in roles a society expects them to fulfill. In this respect, it helps children to overcome the so-called ‘gender gap’. Boys and girls perceive the world differently, so, going to the same school will surely help them to accept and respect these differences. It also encourages their healthy attitude to life.

Answer the following questions.

1. What is the practical advantage of a co-educational school according to the text?

2. What are the possible arguments for a segregation school?

SO THAT NOBODY HAS TO GO TO SCHOOL IF THEY DON’T WANT TO

Roger Sipher, associate professor at the State University of New York, puts forward arguments for abolishing compulsory education. He is no doubt aware that his proposal will strike many readers as a radical one.

Adecline in standardized test scores is but the most recent indicator that American education is in trouble.

One reason for the crisis is that present mandatory - attendance laws force many to attend school who have no wish to be there. Such children have little desire to learn and are so antagonistic to school that neither they nor more highly motivated students receive the quality education that is the birthright of every American.

The solution to this problem is simple: abolish compulsory-attendance laws and allow only those who are committed to getting an education to attend.

This will not end public education. Contrary to conventional belief, legislators enacted compulsory-attendance laws to legalize what already existed. William Landes and Lewis Solomon, economists, found little evidence that mandatory - attendance laws increased the number of children in school. They found, too, that school systems have never effectively enforced such laws, usually because of the expense involved.

Private schools have no such problem. They can fail or dismiss students, knowing such students can attend public school. Without compulsory attendance, public schools would be freer to most students whose academic or personal behavior undermines the educational mission of the institution. Has not the noble experiment of a formal education for everyone failed? While we pay homage to the homily, ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink,’ we have pretended it is not true in education.

Abolition of archaic attendance laws would produce enormous dividends.

First, it would alert everyone that school is a serious place where one goes to learn. Schools are neither day-care centers nor indoor street corners. Young people who resist learning should stay away; indeed, an end to compulsory schooling would require them to stay away.

Second, students opposed to learning would not be able to pollute the educational atmosphere for those who want to learn. Teachers could stop policing recalcitrant students and start educating.

Third, grades would show what they are supposed to: how well a student is learning. Parents could again read report cards and know if their children were making progress.

Fourth, public esteem for schools would increase. People would stop regarding them as way stations for adolescents and start thinking of them as institutions for educating America's youth.

Fifth, elementary schools would change because students would find out early that they had better learn something or risk flunking out later. Elementary teachers would no longer have to pass their failures on to junior high and high school.

Sixth, the cost of enforcing compulsory education would be eliminated. Despite enforcement efforts, nearly 15 percent of the school-age children in our largest cities are almost permanently absent from school.

Communities could use these savings to support institutions to deal with young people not in school. If, in the long run, these institutions prove more costly, at least we would not confuse their mission with that of schools.

Schools should be for education. At present, they are only tangentially so. They have attempted to serve an all-encompassing social function, trying to be all things to all people. In the process they have failed miserably at what they were originally formed to accomplish.

(New York Times, December 22, 1977)

Notes

1. to pay homage to the homily –отдать должное старой истине;

2. recalcitrant students –недисциплинированные студенты;

3. to flunk out - “вылететь” (быть исключенным) из учебного заведения.