ACER Chief Executive says A to E Reports Fail Students

The Advertiser, 15 August 2009; The Age, 15 August 2009

The Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Council for Education Research (ACER), Professor Geoff Masters, has argued that the use of an A to E grading system in schools fails to demonstrate how children’s learning progresses over time and can lower students’ self-esteem.

In an address to the ACER research conference, Professor Masters argued that students learn better when they are able to see the progress that they have made in the past and when they receive feedback on what they need to do in the future.

Professor Masters claimed that A to E grading systems that rank students against expected performance ‘can influence and reinforce students' views of their capacity to learn’ and that ‘their underlying growth is masked’.

He also argued that, where students were not meeting expectations or making progress ‘then this needs to be made very transparent...I don't think we should hide the fact that a student is not making progress, but some children are performing below their age peers yet they're still making good progress. That needs to be recognised.’

In the ACER media release Call to Reconsider A to E School Reports, Professor Masters argues the ‘a first problem with A to E grades is that they can influence and reinforce students’ views of their capacity to learn. Not surprisingly, a student who receives a ‘D’ this year, a ‘D’ next year and a ‘D’ the following year may conclude that there is something stable about their learning capacity: they are a ‘D’ student…The message we should be sending to every student is that they are capable of successful learning.’

 

 

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