Some B.C. parents unimpressed with removal of letter grades

Education experts and stakeholder groups like the BC Teachers Federation have often criticized letter grades, saying they create an atmosphere of competition in classrooms where we don’t need it.

So, they’re all in favour of the move to include Grade 9 students in what’s called the “proficiency scale.”

But many parents commenting online think the ministry deserves to sit in the corner and reconsider its decision.

“It’s already rolled out for my Grade 8 this year. It’s terrible. It’s completely subjective & doesn’t give the student a clear idea of how much they need to improve,” one mom on Twitter said.

The scale, which slaps a label of either “emerging,” “proficient,” or “exceeding” on students instead of A through to F,  has been in place for several years for primary school students and was recently expanded to those in Grade 8.

Related Article: Vancouver schools test new report cards, scrapping letter grades for elementary students

Introduced to Vancouver schools in 2019, one director of instruction at the school board at that time described the proficiency scale as “a new way of assessing students … to reflect changes in the curriculum, which emphasizes communication, thinking and social competencies.”

“Frequently what happens with a letter grade at the end of a term, is it signals the end of some kind of learning,” Richard Zerbe said at that time. “This system enables teachers to tell a narrative about the student’s learning journey and where they are.”

Many parents, however, say it’s not preparing kids for the real world.

“It’s ridiculous. Are they afraid little Johnny’s feelings would be hurt? This was the problem 20 years ago with sports day – everybody gets a ribbon. It sure as hell didn’t affect us if we did poorly – we understood,” one person wrote on Twitter.

Some also question the rationale behind the decision, which will go into effect in the fall of this year.

“If not going on to post-secondary this is OK. Otherwise, how is this preparing youth to handle university? Grade 8-12 should have letter grades,” another said.

Another suggests it won’t give students or their parents a decent metric to allow them to actually measure progress.