Stop MBL/SBG in Moscow Schools

This was a poor idea from the start and teachers warned administration about the problems long before it was implemented. They knew it would not work for many subjects and pushed it anyways. That is poor leadership and it is impacting the children and our community very negatively. It is causing way too much stress for everyone.

I do not believe there is anything good coming from reforms imposed from the top down. The experts are the teachers. Anything that concerns students and teachers should involve them as well as their parents.

I, having children in the elementary, Middle, and High schools in Moscow, do not believe that the MBL is beneficial for my children. While I cannot attest to the facts listed in this petition I am greatly concerned about the use of MBL in our schools. I also do not see how this is beneficial, particularly for High school students, as it may hinder their ability to get into college. I do not remember any discussion about MLB with parents who's children are attending the schools here before it was implemented, and such drastic changes made so secretive and swiftly are very alarming to me, a parent with 4 children in Moscow Schools.

Support our MSD teachers. They have the best knowledge of what works for our students.

Hi, Just throwing some things 'out there' as I'm unsure if I can attend the parent meeting tomorrow. 1) Mastery-based learning (MBL) is a concept that has been around for almost 60 years, and yet there are few if any studies that have investigated MBL over a period longer that a few months-- that I can find. Before yet another learning/teaching/evaluative model is used on our kids (Common Core, WASL, No Child Left Behind, etc), shouldn't we have some long-term data that it actually works? 2) Conceptually, it seems to me that MBL is not compatible with our traditional K-12 grading system. Traditional teaching methods (TTM) and MBL create a Time/Achievement dilemma. TTM-- time to teach a concept is constant, which creates differing achievement-- hence the usual letter grades, A through F. Achievement is the bell curve. MBL sets achievement as constant-- all students achieve mastery, which is 90% or more, essentially an 'A' grade. So time to mastery between students becomes the new bell curve. So how will this system not punish the hard-working or the talented? If a student does not achieve mastery of a subject, how can they move to the next grade level? If a student achieves early mastery of their subjects, will grade level be a barrier to their education? Essentially, it seems for MBL to work, grade levels essentially vanish or become more fluid-- for example, a 9th grader is at his grade-level with reading, but is easily doing 12th grade math. What if a 10th grader finishes all the 12th grade requirements? Do they graduate and move on to college? 3) If everybody gets an 'A', how will colleges adapt to a selection process where everyone has the same grades? 4) Lastly, how will MBL students adapt to university academics which are most definitely traditional in nature? University curriculums are already remedial because high school standards do not 'make the grade'. Will MBL make this problem worse? In my opinion, hardwork

Although SBG has many positive pieces, I disagree with the way MSD planned and implemented the move.

Please stop and take the needed time to think about this radical implementation into the Moscow School District. There should be open communication with parents, teachers and staff before this goes any further.

Help kids to learn and thrive

Don't do it!! Focus more on practical education (real world skills) so that the students can be functional adults!

Why am I hearing about this now on FB? I went to open house and nothing said there. No emails...no paper home. The kids are telling me seniors are not affected as bad as freshman. It sounds like they themselves do not understand the point system and how it converts to a letter grade. They are clearly frustrated because they care about there grades. Sounds like they worry they could get behind because as they retake something....the class keeps moving along. We leaving our children behind on this experiment? I can’t imagine being a teacher and having to keep regrading old assignments. This new policy needs to be explained to parents. This needs to be rectified and soon!

How are we to motivate kids to get better when they can’t really see how grades look. Our 13 yr old 8th grader hates it.

I am a student at MMS. Honestly, I think standards based grading is awful. It lets teachers choose what grades I receive as opposed to real percentages representing my grades. Also, this new system raises the lowest performing students to average- while at the same time lowering high performing students to simply average, “3” grade students. If I ever want to get into a good college, I can’t, Because average students don’t get into good colleges. In addition to that, I don’t even have any idea what my grades are anyway. I have a green and yellow bar followed by a long list of vague and meaningless sentences beside numbers ranging from 1-4. In the past, I could pull up Powerschool and know exactly what grades I had earned. I would know that I needed to work harder in English, but I was doing well in Math. Now, I have a multicolored bar that means almost nothing to me. Every “4” (Exceeding proficiency) in my grade goes in to the bar exactly like any “3”- just another few green pixels. Why should I should I strive for excellence if all I earn is the same grade as someone who puts in half the effort into learning? My last reason is that SBG allows for infinite retakes on any assignment so that a student can achieve “proficiency in that learning target”. This means that students can forget studying for tests or working hard. After all, they’ll just get another attempt on that particular assignment. In turn, teachers are completely overloaded with regrading assignments. For example, the average class size at MMS is about 25. Teachers teach 6 classes total, so about 150 students total. If each of those students redoes each test once, the teacher then must grade 300 tests as opposed to 150. This new grading system effectively increases teacher workload while lowering student effort. In conclusion, SBG is a horrible idea that will never work in Moscow. I believe that this new grading system will negatively effect my future and must be removed.

This will be used in MHS and has already begun, though is not fully implemented. Teachers will need to ‘construct’ traditional letter grades for college transcript purposes. The administration has made the assertion that many colleges no longer need a 4.0 GPA scale and are increasingly depending on standardized tests. This can easily be proven false by speaking with those who specialize in college admissions, or colleges themselves.

As a former Moscow teacher, I find this appalling. Over the years we have reinvented the while many time to a system that has always worked. Ask the teachers in the classroom what works effectively. They see it every minute of the day. When teachers are eliminated from the classroom decision making process, disaster follows. When was the last time an administrator was teaching? Moscow is to great a district to tamper with.

Agreeing with the halt.

STOP.

This is showing our kids it’s ok to just do enough and be average. There is absolutely no accountability and allows kids to do only do what needs to get to get by. I, as a parent don’t know if a 3 is an A, B or C. The transition to high school and the real world will be a real eye opener to our kids

Unlimited do-overs??? This whole thing sounds nuts.

This is truly outrageous! I hope all see the wisdom of and sign this petition to protect our students' futures!

Also, closer to home the Federal Way WA district's state proficiency scores were released just yesterday. (They adopted MBL and related curriculum two years ago.) According to the state of Washington, math proficiency on the state assessment dropped from 22.6% to 18.3% between 2018 and 2019. Language arts (note it’s a very diverse district, primary language wise) dropped from 55.6% to 54.5% 2018 to 2019, down from 64.3% in 2016. The experiment though only in its second year, is thus far… not successful. Outcomes and real data matter. WA statewide average scores continued to rise. https://washingtonstatereportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/101186 https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/districtprofile?chort=1&sub=MAT&sj=XQ&sfj=NL&st=MN&year=2019R3