National 10-point grading system needed

By: Kent McCarty

Moving to a new school during the middle of high school is hard enough for most students, and the last thing a student has on his or her mind when starting at a new school is what type of grading system the new school uses.  That is, until the student realizes his or her GPA has fallen by several tenths of a point because the new school operates on an outdated grading scale with no concrete pattern.  This problem has affected many students throughout the United States, where there is no national standard for calculating grades.  At least one student at Oak Grove has been adversely affected by this flaw in our national education system.  Nolan Johnson, an eleventh grader who recently moved to OGHS from Arkansas, saw his GPA drop several tenths of a point in a matter of the few minutes it took to enroll at our school.  His previous school in Arkansas operated on the much simpler, more widely used 10-point grading scale, which awards A’s for grades 90-100, B’s for grades 80-89, C’s for grades 70-79, D’s for grades 60-69, and F’s for grades below 60, whereas we operate on a complicated system that matches only a handful of other schools outside of our district.  The problem lies in number grades that earn one letter grade in one school and a different letter grade in another.  For example, a 92 would have earned Johnson an A in Arkansas, but only a B here.  This confusion and over-complication could all be eliminated with a simple national change to a 10-point grading system.

The lack of a national 10-point standard for grading not only affects students while they’re in high school.  When applying for college, students who attended a high school that used the 10-point grading system are at an unfair advantage to students who attended a school like Oak Grove that has a stricter grading system.  Many people assume that colleges recalculate GPAs based on a uniform scale, but unfortunately this is not the case.  While a small handful of schools will recalculate a student’s GPA, the vast majority leave the GPA as it is when they receive it.

Convenience is not the only reason for a national 10-point system.  In 2007, the United States Department of Education released a study containing a report card for each of the high schools in the U.S.  The report included a comparison of each of the major grading scales, and placed the 10-point system at number one.  The report also revealed that the vast majority, around 70% of schools, operate on the 10-point grading scale, and that 33 of the top 45 schools in the nation used the 10-point system.

There are many models currently in place on a state level that allow us to see the benefits of an all encompassing grading system.  The state of Florida is one of several states that adopted a statewide grading scale.  Florida officials chose the 10-point grading system for its simplicity and popularity among schools throughout the nation.  Two years after adopting the policy, state officials in Florida released the impact of the statewide system in a detailed report.  The figure drawing many states to consider a statewide mandate similar to that of Florida’s is the sharp decline in the dropout rate; it plummeted 22% in the first two years of the statewide 10-point system mandate.

Clearly, the nation is in need of a uniform grading system, and with all the praise the 10-point system is receiving, it’s the perfect choice for schools across the nation.