grow and show what they know. If the
be—doing the work. Students are now
King and Antigone. When they took
goal is for all students to master essen-
required to complete missing work dur- their summative assessment for the first
tial learning, the philosophy teach, test,
ing their lunch periods or before school. play, some students demonstrated a
and move on should be replaced with
teach, test, and now what? The essential
We also stepped up communication;
teachers phone parents of struggling
sound understanding of the play itself
but performed poorly on a specific
question that each teacher should ask
students every three weeks to report on section dealing with passage analysis.
after every assessment is, Now what do progress.
I do for the students who didn’t get it?
This combination of increased
In Minnetonka, the only unacceptable
student accountability and improved
answer is “move on.”
home-school communication has
When the answer is to provide a
produced dramatic results. The num-
retake, the most important step is what ber of Fs in grades 9–12 has dropped
The students requested a retake. Sarah’s
dilemma was how to balance the need
to start the next play with the fact that
students had not mastered the skill of
passage analysis. Knowing her students
well, she was concerned that they would
happens between the first and second
63 percent, and the number of Ds has
spend much of their time working on
test. The purpose of retakes is never for dropped 32 percent from 2009 to the
the old material and fall behind with
the student to simply show up and hope current term. When an entire faculty
Antigone.
for the best. Corrective instruction must implements this consequence and
Sarah’s solution? During study of
occur between the test and retest.
For example, Polly, a social studies
teacher, requires students to review all
moves away from practices that deflate
grades—and hope—an entire culture
can be transformed.
the second play, she continued to have
her students practice passage analysis
through intensive formative assessments. When they took the Antigone
Behavioral infractions are legitimate concerns
and should be addressed—just not with grades.
summative assessment, students who
had previously struggled with passage
analysis had the option to complete an
extra section in which they applied this
skill to the new play. Sarah replaced the
incorrect answers on the original assess- Professional Development
ment and find the correct answers.
Next, the student must come in and
To sustain the fundamental kind of
grading reform undertaken by Min-
students’ previous results with their new
scores.
As a result of this strategy, more than
65 percent of her students increased
work with her to complete review
netonka, educators need meaningful
their scores and demonstrated a
pages. Only when it’s evident that the
professional development. They not
higher level of mastery of passage
student is ready to be reassessed does
only need to study grading research, but analysis. Sarah said that her students felt
Polly offer a retake. The new score
they also need new learning opportuni-
empowered by this experience.
replaces the old one—there’s no averag- ties around effective classroom manage-
For the reluctant teacher, the argu-
ing or limit to what the student can
ment, assessment, and instruction.
ment that “retakes are great, but
earn. This is not letting students off the
Minnetonka created the High School they won’t work in my classroom” is
hook; it’s holding them accountable for Instructional Leadership Team to
diminished when colleagues like Sarah
mastering the information.
redesign professional development in
show how they’ve used retests with
Each year, we have refined and more the school. The team works to set the
good results. This timely professional
deeply implemented our new grading
agenda and professional development
development has transformed our
philosophy. At the end of the 2009–10 for all monthly staff meetings and other school and sustained our grading work.
school year, we posed the question
to staff, “What if no student failed at
teacher work days. During each meet-
ing, teachers share research as well as
Minnetonka?” In analyzing the data, we their own experiences.
discovered that the primary reason for
For example, in a recent meeting,
A Culture Transformed
Parents, students, and teachers had been
comfortable with the old system, with
course failure was not lack of under-
Sarah described an experience concern- its cushion of “free” points from extra
standing of the material, but missing
ing her 9th grade English students. Dur- credit and homework completion. We
work. We decided that the conse-
quence for not doing the work should
ing the second semester, the students
read two Greek tragedies, Oedipus the
spent much time during the first year
educating parents and students about
