Re: FW: Grading Alternative

["John E. Purchase, Ed. D." <jopur@muskoka.com>]

The Moderator wrote:
"Grades and grading is one of the topics that can rapidly
morph away from our Deming-based Aim here on the DEN.  It is certainly a fertile
topic for discussion.  When I was moderator of TQM/CQI in Higher Education, the
discussions "raged on" for years.  Here -- we need to remember our aim and
work to keep the discussions in context."

And the discussions will continue to rage on for years in educational, government, and business
circles because not enough people understand the aims of the process of evaluation .   I return to
my original premise, namely, that Deming was not decrying measurement and evaluation, of which
grading and rating are a part,  but the abuses of the process.  One of the reasons the process of
evaluation (defined elsewhere as "the process of delineating, obtaining,  and providing useful
information for judging decision alternatives.") is that too many people only think they know what
is involved.

The problem with evaluation is that a lot of educators, performance appraisers,  and their various
"clients" know little about the process except as it was carried out on their learning
achievements.   The psychology of that is, since many had bad experiences along the way due to abuse
or misuse of the process,  that marking and grading elicit  negative feelings.

If there are alternatives to evaluation in general, or its components in particular,  what are
they.   If they exist, do the meet the criteria:  a) based on clearly stated objectives,  b)
mutually meaningful to the persons reporting and the persons using the information,  c) the effect
on further learning is more positive than negative,  d) detailed enough to meet diagnostic needs but
efficient enough to work and the operations are time and cost effective,  e) promotes exchange of
information between evaluator and performer,  and f) understandable and agreeable to other
stakeholders, hence promotes good public relations.

If there are no acceptable alternatives and marking and grading are bad,  then the billions of
dollars spent annually by agencies of the state in the name of accountability testing constitute a
collosal waste of public funds.   I, personally don't believe that to be the case entirely,
although there are undoubtedly plenty of poor grand scale evaluations of educational systems and
students and misuse of the information under way at the present time.

John E. Purchase
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