If grade level was a good metric, students of the same age could be in different grades. But they can't. Therefore grade levels are not a good metric.

Suggested revisions:

"How, you ask?"

"its last test??"

"If grade level were a good metric,"

Effective teachers use quizzes, tests, oral presentations, and large projects to measure learning, whereas grades merely reflect the quality of work over a broader spectrum of in-class work, participation, completion of homework, and performance on tests.

I love Ackoff. Please read more of his work. :)

You haven't shown that schools aren't "about" learning. You have simply shown that schools are not in the practice of systematically proving that they are about learning (incidentally, I have had classes with before and after quizes.) Are you proposing students go out of a classroom with the exact same knowledge base they went in with?

By primarily focusing on the task of grading, schools, like all resource-limited entities, optimize the system to that end.

There are three major schooling systems in our country. 1) Public Schools 2) Universities 3) Community Colleges.

1) Public Schools were created to assess and grade individuals so as to place them correctly in the marketplace. The original intent was to teach remedial reading, writing and math skills and to differentiate the students based on their skill level in those areas. This is still, unfortunately, the primary goal of the public school system. The goal should be the individual self realization of each student. That means that the schools help the students become the positive contributing members of society that the students want to individually become.

2) Universities come from the model of old-world universities like Oxford. The model is that professors do research and also lecture on the side. The primary goal is research not learning.

3) Community colleges, I agree with Peter Drucker, are one of the most important parts of what has made the USA the formidable economic power over the past 50 years. They are about helping the students learn salient, real world skills in the area that the student themselves decide.

With limited resources, if you're doing this, you're not doing that. That people learn while in school is inevitable, most of your learning skills are hard wired into your biology. Schools certainly don't teach you HOW to learn, that's way way beyond language and math skills.

That schools now use a variety of measures to grade, is to quote Ackoff "doing the wrong thing, the right way". More of which, makes things more wrong. I also love Ackoff.

Thanks for everyone's well above average contributions!! We love it!

Please keep up the discussion.

Farb - you really live in la-la land. You say "The goal should be the individual self realization of each student." Now, please enlighten us. How can schools allow for individual self realization when they don't even turn out students with basic reading, writing, and mathematics skills. If you understand capitalism, you should understand that the vast majority of people will have relatively boring jobs. Even in your start-up, some people will have interesting jobs but as you scale (I kind of doubt you will because I don't get the point of your company and your logic has serious errors), many jobs will be repetitive. This is the same at the macro-level.

Students need to graduate high school with basic skills that will allow them to communicate intelligently and hold a job that requires basic skills. Imagine if everyone went to Montessori - we'd be living in la-la land with little innovation, few people entering technological and scientific fields, and most of us becoming professional bloggers and YouTube producers. There are only so many people who can become successful and sustain a living in artistic, journalistic, or creative trades. The vast majority of us still need to build things, heal people, teach people, heal things, engineer things, etc.

Furthermore, you claim that schools are about grading and not learning. Let's take US history as an example. A student enters 11th grade and takes AP US History. Students enter the class with some basic level of knowledge but let's say as a % of total material in the AP US History text, students level of knowledge varies between 0 and 2%. That's a fair assumption. The occasional student may know a lot more, but that's rare. Students then take the class and learn. Some students learned and others didn't. The grade is a reflection of how much they improved.

The idea that a grade doesn't reflect learning is silly. Whenever a student says "Oh I got a C because I was trying to really learn", I laugh. Oh really? What was the student trying to learn? Learning is measured by outputs and grades are a way to measure it.

The historical and current primary goal of schools is to assign grades to students. Learning is also a goal. But you can only measure learning by measuring the delta before and after the learning experience. Schools don't do this.

My ideas and goals come from real world application in effective and successful classroom environments.

And while everyone is entitled to their own opinions, saying that something won't be successful while having no knowledge of it, is not logical. It is an opinion based on imagination.

Thanks for reading our blog!

@ Farb - you have completely missed the point of my argument. I said that measuring the delta is meaningless when everyone is starting near zero.

Let's take a simple example. I want to teach people enough Spanish to score a 3 or higher on the AP Spanish exam. One student starts the class knowing the words "hola" and "el bano" while the other one knows nothing. If both of them score a 3 or higher, my class was a success regardless of the delta since the knowledge base prior to beginning the course was next to zero for one student and zero for the other.

Furthermore, since your fundamental assumption is wrong, your assertion is incorrect too. The primary and secondary goal of a school is to deliver learning. Your arguing semantics and failing at it. I'm sorry if you are the product of a school where learning wasn't the goal.

It's not a bad thing to dream but just be prepared to discuss and debate. I'm not sure of what process companies like yours have to go through to obtain an investment from venture capital companies but I'd guess they'd ask some questions. I know nothing about business so I'll avoid that topic but I'd hope you were able to debate with them and not say "Thanks for listening folks" to defer the fact you can't address arguments.

I wasn't a product of a school where learning wasn't the goal.

I never said that, but you state it like it's a fact. So, I can't really discuss reasonably with you, because you make unsupported and false statements. Especially in the light of my comments about loving my school experience, what you say makes no sense.

I constantly discuss and debate with VCs and others. So, your advice that I be prepared to do so, is of no value, unlike at least your spelling advice.

Nothing you've said has made any sense to me or the several folks I've shown your comments to and I was honestly trying to get people to explain to me your logic. Everyone just seems to think you're angry.

But again, feel free to point out typos, spelling errors, grammar errors, fact errors etc...

Hey bro, if I may say, no grading on the planet is worse than the grading in ART EDUCATION.

I can remember taking an art class in high school.... slaving my butt off.... and continually getting C's! Why? Well, because I am not a naturally gifted artist, that's why.

The grading in art education is so subjective! I worked just as hard as some of the other students and they got A's while I got stuck with C's simply because I lacked God-given artistic ability.

This would be the equivalent to a gym teacher giving out C's to all of the students who weren't very good at sports! (How would you like that, ladies?)

In sixteen years of schooling, never once did I take an art class where they evaluated my artistic abilities BEFORE the class started. Instead, the grading went like this: If the teacher had a high OPINION of your artwork, you did well. If the teacher had a low OPINION of your artwork, you did poorly.

How's that for a grading policy?

Farb... I am an educator too (the previous commentor is definitely a defender of the status quo, or "realist") I couldn't agree more about much of what you've written...Please check out Robert Marzano's Transforming Classroom Grading (It's not nearly as boring as it sounds.) I also believe that technology can change the current paradigm.... Please send me your email address because I'd like to share a private document

Fellowbloggers, as much as i enjoyed the discourse between Farb and the "Educator" i have to say that both made some good points with the greater value going to Farb. Learning is clearly more than grades and after 35 years in the classroom, my own education as well as my students made us greater learners IF a)they came away more enlightened than when they entered and b) if not a "higher" grade but a greater love or appreciation for the subject taught, they were winners in my book. I have had several students walk up to me in the mall and say "thank you, I failed your class, but you inspired me to really go on..." If its just about grades, then what is life meant to be after the school days are done? In reality, we have and will always need "LIFE LONG LEARNERS" who come with passion and personal motivation to never stop using the gift on their shoulders. The challenge of most schools are today is to create balance: a)measured, quantitative assessment but also, and maybe even more importantly, creative, innovative handson, project oriented teaching that fires the imagination and passion of its students. When 8th graders know that you care, then they will care about what you know and be motivated to read, even though there is not a book in their house?