L.A. Unified to Use Numbers for Grading in Elementary Schools

The Los Angeles Unified School District is dropping A to F letter grades in favor of a 4 to 1 system for all elementary students, officials said Tuesday, calling the new system a more precise gauge of academic progress and an effort to more closely adhere to state standards.

Under the new system, already in use at year-round schools and due to be expanded districtwide next month, a top score of 4 means a student “exceeds standards.” A grade of 1 means “not proficient,” 2 is “partially proficient” and 3 “meets standards.”

A key fault of the five-letter grading system is a tendency for teachers to give out Cs, which don’t clearly indicate proficiency levels in core subjects, said Geri Herrera, the district’s director of core curriculum. “With a four-point scale, either they do or they don’t. It’s much more precise.”

Some parents and education experts attacked the new plan, questioning the district’s ability to implement it and decrying the demise of time-honored letter grades.

“I don’t see what is wrong with A, B, C, D and F,” said Sue Gwin, PTA president at Kentwood Elementary in Westchester. “It’s like new math. We change it each year, but it is still adding, subtracting and dividing. It’s still the same thing, but we are saying it’s different.”

A state education official said numerical grades are not required and have been adopted by only a few districts.

L.A. Unified officials said the new evaluation system is the best way to consistently appraise the district’s 400,000 kindergartners through fifth-graders. (Sixth-graders at 17 elementary schools also would be affected.)

Officials said the plan would eliminate pluses and minuses--officially dropped by the district in the late ‘80s but still widely used by teachers to augment letter grades.

Middle schools and high schools will retain the old system in order to mesh with college admission requirements, officials said.

“The real purpose of this is to have teachers give their best evaluation of whether a student has mastered the particular standard,” said Bob Collins, district assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and assessment. “It is very definite and very precise.”

In the past, Collins said, parents complained when a initial evaluation said their child “shows growth” but the final grade could end up as a D. The new number grades, delivered every four to five weeks, will be more specific than letters in showing whether students are meeting standards for math, language arts and reading.

Some education experts questioned whether the district can pull off such a massive overhaul of its grading system so quickly.

“If you are the LAUSD, with its back up to the wall and the community suspicious about community effectiveness, why wouldn’t you have a press conference with officials, parents, teachers to announce this?” asked Mike Roos, who headed the reform effort LEARN for eight years.

The new number grades will form the core of the district’s “electronic report card,” which will be compiled in March and include all of the district’s students and schools, “telling us instantly how many students are at risk for not being promoted,” Collins said.

Under the new system, most students who receive a grade below 3 in reading or other key subjects will not be promoted.

Number grades are not state mandated, said Doug Stone, spokesman for the California Department of Education. He said the new method can work, but the district must ensure that it is uniformly administered with sufficient teacher training.

Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed to this story.