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In grading and testing systems, are there terms
used by teachers that confuse you?
You’re not alone! Grading and testing systems differ from district to district, but most use variations of the following terms: standardized test, percentile rank, percentage score, grade equivalent, stanine, and rubric. For example, standardized tests such as the Stanford 10 or
Mastering “Grade-Speak”
Rubric. A rubric is a list of the skills needed to master a subject at a particular grade level. It is meant to clarify to both the child and the teacher exactly what is expected of the child by the end of the school year. Rubrics are usually broken down into four scoring levels:
1 = not proficient
2 = partially proficient
3 = proficient
4 = advanced
Sometimes the rubric score is used as a grade, especially in early elementary years. For older children, rubrics are used as "scoring devices" that are a partial basis for letter grades. There is no nationwide standard for rubrics—sometimes the school district provides them and sometimes teachers devise their own.
Percentile rank. Percentile rank is a way of comparing a child's scores to those of children in a "norm group" who took the standardized test when it was being developed. If your child has a percentile rank of 80, it means that 80 percent of the children in the norm group got a lower score than your child. Being in the eightieth percentile does not mean that your child answered 80 percent of the questions correctly.
Stanine. The word is short for "standard nine" and refers to the nine sections of a bell curve into which a child's test results may fall. A stanine of 1, 2, or 3 is below average; 4, 5, or 6 is average; and 7, 8, or 9 is above average. Each stanine number indicates a range of performance, not a specific score.
Percentage score. A percentage score is the amount of material the student completed or achieved correctly on a given assignment or test. It is different from a percentile rank.
Grade equivalent. If Suzi scores a GE of 4.7 in reading in the second grade, it means that Suzi can read her second grade material as well as a student in the fourth grade can read the same second-grade material. It does not mean that Suzi is ready to be advanced to reading material at the fourth grade, seventh month.
Standardized Test (Stanford 10,
If test scores, class work, and your child's behavior are all worrisome, the teacher will certainly give you a heads-up. However, if only his/her test scores are problematic, it may simply be that s/he is stressed out about taking standardized tests. Many young children are. Ask the teacher how other children are doing in comparison to yours, and ask if she thinks your child needs extra help.
Unfortunately, people expect standardized tests to tell them everything they want to find out—either about a student’s progress and potential or about the teacher’s work and the curriculum. Parents and teachers need to use their own observation and discernment to evaluate progress, taking into account factors such as test-taking skills, maturity, and so on, and recognizing achievements in untested fields such as art, music, philosophical values, and higher order thinking skills. One test should not be used alone to determine a student’s grade placement, course grade, or a curriculum’s value.
Test scores do not indicate whether children are learning to think from God’s point of view or whether they enjoy what they are doing and are starting on the path of lifelong learning. And tests cannot tell the overall story of how a child’s experience in school is preparing him/her for life. Such results—the results that matter most—must be evaluated by parents and teachers along the way, using a multitude of tools of which a standardized test score is only one.
Much information was taken from James Deuink’s article, “What do Tests Really Tell?” in Teacher to Teacher, a publication of Bob Jones University Press, Greenville, SC, December 1999.
