You and your friend have gotten relatively the same grades throughout the entire school year in the same subject and leveled class. Both of you sit down to open up your end of year report card only to notice your grades are drastically different. This happens because teachers often vary in the ways that they weigh assignments and calculate final grades.
I’ve heard many students talk about certain teachers and how they are strict when it comes to grading. Variances in assignment weights including classwork, homework, participation, and tests or quizzes can contribute greatly to this. This causes issues and complaints when it comes to different teachers that teach the same class and level but have different grading systems and weights.
Weighted class averages can affect anything from students being wrongfully compared to their peers by colleges to students’ accomplishments being undermined. While thousands of students are applying to the same colleges every year, those colleges have only a certain amount of slots to fill. Therefore, they have to be very meticulous when choosing applicants. One way colleges do this is by comparing students to one another to see who is the better fit applicant. Class averages can become an issue when comparing students in the same school because even though colleges may heavily compare students’ grades in classes, they do not look at specific teachers. This may cause problems because one student may have worked extremely hard and gotten around the same assignment grades as another student, however, because of the way their teachers weighted the assignments in their class, they may not have gotten into the school while their peer may have.
Students’ accomplishments and work ethic can also be undermined due to the harsh weighting system. This occurs because one student may excel in tests and quizzes while another student may excel in projects and hands-on activities. Weighting one of these over the other can have a negative impact on students because if tests hold more weight in a certain class than projects do, some students are not going to do as well as students in that same class that may be an excellent test taker and vice versa. In either scenario, tests being weighed over projects and inversely, some students are going to have to work twice as hard as their peers in that class because the teacher and weighting system is not catering to all students’ learning methods.
The real issue in this is that there may not be any change within the weighing system currently or down the road. The system’s inconsistency needs to be fixed so that in the future students are not having the same problems as the students today are. However, still the matter is mostly about teachers picking their own class weights, but another thing that comes into question is whether or not the weights that they put on their classes are fair. This could be solved if more departments meet and talk about all of their opinions and ways of teaching to come up with a collective range and fairness for the weights.
“I appreciate the autonomy as a teacher, but I also think that people within departments that are teaching the same courses should have some kind of consistency with how they’re actually weighting. I can understand why it’s unfair for students,” history teacher Amanda Everett said.
Some departments already meet to discuss weighted averages and certain departments are already pretty consistent when it comes to how they weigh assignments. However, if every department in the building meets separately and discusses what range the weights should be, it could decrease student concern. I understand that many teachers have different teaching styles from their colleagues and that that may play into how they weigh their classes. Still, every teacher should be relaying the same information and knowledge to their students, so meeting together to compromise on a weight, or weight range, should be focused on ensuring students are meeting the same benchmarks and levels of understanding. This should directly result in more consistent weights because even differences in teaching will still cumulate to the same level of understanding and proficiency with the material.
Already the advanced placement (AP) English Literature & Composition classes and the math department are rather fair about their weights. All three AP Literature teachers have the exact same weights for their classes, 25% for participation, 60% for major writing assignments, and 15% for quizzes. Likewise, according to math teacher Stacey Craven, typically in the math department, all teachers who teach the same class at the same level have identical weights and the department works hard to guarantee this. These are perfect examples of how teachers communicated and came to a compromise on the weights they would put onto all of their classes to make it fair for their students.
I understand in many classes, especially in humanities classes, it is hard to come to a complete compromise that will meet all teachers expectations, given certain curriculums’ leeway for teachers to pick different ways to teach. However, even if the weights are a mere 5% apart it could alter students grades especially when it comes to differences in weights for major assignments, like tests, quizzes, and projects. Throughout classes with the same subject and level, if major assignments were all weighted the same while simultaneously giving teachers the flexibility in teaching style, both students and teachers needs could be catered too.
“The weighting system should be equal among all teachers,” sophomore Saachi More said. “I know teachers have their own preferences, and ways of doing [certain things], but I [also] think, in terms of similar grades, it is just not fair because you could be working harder than someone and get a worse grade than them just because of the way the weighting system works.”
On the other hand, I also understand that many teachers enjoy the license to choose their own class weights. I know that many teachers with class weights are only trying to do what is best for their specific class and emphasizing what they believe to be most important in the curriculum. Moreover, teachers may have varying ideas about the necessary level of understanding on certain units which would also influence the difficulty of specific quarters for classes. However, some students might not give much thought to the class weights because they possibly have never encountered a situation where it really affected them.
“Across the board, they all end up doing it pretty similarly. I definitely have [had] a few different teachers here and there [but there have been] very rare instances where I think a teacher weighs things [unfairly],” senior Hailey Phan said. “In theory, I [also] think when teachers are teaching the same class [at] the same same level, the grade should be made up of the same assignments.”
With all that said, weights for classes do not necessarily have to be the exact same throughout all classes in the same department and at the same level. However, it would be more fair if the weights would stay relatively the same among classes. I dislike comparing teachers weighing systems only to find out that they may have ‘easier’ weights, lower weights on tests and quizzes or higher participation weights. On the other hand, I completely understand that some teachers feel strongly about being able to pick their own weights especially to compliment their teaching styles. Still, to keep it fair for the students, whole departments should communicate and make the weights together so as not to cause any problems or confusion in the future.
“I certainly think [departments meeting about class weights] would make classes more fair for students,” Everett said.
