New Talbot Grading Process Seems Like Smoke and Mirrors
There's an old saying that “A camel is a horse designed by a committee.” The quote is used to show how ridiculously stupid solutions to simple problems can be, particularly if the problem-solving process is not about truly solving the problem, but more about displaying the mental gymnastics to pretend that an actual problem is being solved.
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The Talbot County Public Schools may want to consider that quote as they unveil a new grading AR (Administrative Regulation) to the public. They have created a grading policy that is both convoluted and ridiculous. Not only that, by doing so they have proven their slogan of "Transforming and Performing" has nothing to do with academic achievement and excellence. It's more about "Pretending and Placating." And mediocrity. A ton of mediocrity.
The county's new AR regarding STUDENT PROGRESS REPORTS TO PARENTS/GUARDIANS - was unveiled April 9th on the county website. Get it right, it's NOT a grading policy per se, in fact it is not a POLICY at all. It is an AR (Administrative Regulation) regarding student progress reports. Why not a "policy?" Simple. Policies have to be voted on and approved by the Board of Education. Administrative Regulations do not.
It's a nice end run around having to deal with the ONLY group in the Talbot County Public Schools that is truly accountable to taxpayers, the elected Board of Education. With an AR, the county administration only needs to let the board know what they are doing. They don't need their approval. Just ask the county's expensive attorney who helps the board navigate these hurdles.
For the BOE, they can sit in meetings, smile, nod their heads, and affix their rubber stamp of approval while making sure not to rock the boat. They won't be held responsible for this new AR. They will shrug their shoulders and collectively say "Our hands are tied."
One look at the AR and anyone can see why the administration didn't want to have Board approval. First, recent meetings have proven that many of the Board members were both confused by and unhappy with the proposed changes to TCPS grading practices. It's likely they would not have quickly approved the various schemes promoted by the county's senior leadership team. with good reason. None of the schemes presented, including the one recently shared on the TCPS website, do anything to either promote or measure student excellence and achievement. In fact, they do precisely the opposite.
Our recent story describes the marathon session regarding grading:
Talbot County School Board Tackles Controversial Grading Policy Changes - The Easton Gazette
What Are The Changes For Pre-K Through 5th Grade?
So now there is an AR regarding progress reports to parents. The first ridiculous section involves Pre-K through 5th grade reporting to parents, which can be found here: 9.25AR - Student Progress Reports to Parents_Guardian(s) 4.10.26.docx
Student progress on clusters of skills within each subject area will be assessed based on the
following criteria:
SP Student’s skills and understandings are surpassing proficiency in this area.
DP Student’s skills and understanding are demonstrating proficiency in this area.
AP Student’s skills and understanding areapproaching proficiency.
EM Student’s skills and understandings are emerging in this area.
NM No Mark
Imagine sitting down with your child's fifth grade teacher expecting to hear their grades or at least a concrete assessment of his/her achievement. Then, the teacher gives you the word salad above regarding four different levels of "proficiency," The AR describes "proficiency" as:
... a student’s attainment of established grade-level standards meeting
expectations for the by the academic end of the year in the student’s current grade level. Expectations
for mastery are aligned to the instructional timeline indicating when specific content and skills are
intended to be learned. depending on when the content is expected to be mastered.
A student demonstrates proficiency when they consistently and independently apply, transfer and
demonstrate the skills and knowledge associated with grade-level standards across a variety of
contexts and assessments. (This is exactly how it is published online.)
Huh? Even without pointing out the typos, this definition means nothing.
It sounds like we are at the interview portion of the Miss South Carolina pageant. Note the similarities:
Are we sure that this young lady doesn't work on the TCPS Leadership Team?
If the explanation for proficiency is so bad, imagine what "emerging" will sound like.
These muddy explanations serve no real purpose in honestly informing parents how their child is doing in school. In fact, they seem to be used to do the exact opposite.
Changes In Grade 6-12
While the Pre-K through 5th grade portion of the AR is bad, the 6th-12th grade is even worse.
Whereas Elementary teachers will be spending their time explaining ambiguous and cryptic versions of "proficiency" to parents, secondary teachers will be telling parents that their child who actually achieved a "B" is now getting an "A." Here is the new, out of the box, kinder, gentler, more ridiculous grading scale:
E. Letter grades will be used for interim and marking period reports for all courses in which
a student is enrolled in grades 6-12. The letter grade will reflect the level of student
achievement as outlined below
Standard For Learning Grade(s) Score Range
Distinguished A+ , A, A- 3.25 - 4.00
Proficient B+, B, B- 2.50 - 3.24
Developing C+, C, C- 1.75 - 2.49
Minimal D+, D, D- 0.75 - 1.74
Learner In Need F, I, M 0.00 - 0.74
M - Missing, I - Incomplete
Yes, you read that right. An "A" range is from 3.25 to 4.0. If you are confused because you have never seen this wide range in defining a grade of "A," you are not alone. Not only is this a drastic deviation from a grading scale that has been in place for decades, it is also much different from the systems colleges and other educational institutions know and understand. Briefly, this will confuse the heck out of everyone.
Perhaps the county's TCPS Local Accountability Coordinator can present another two-hour plus marathon explanation of the "math" behind this.
Here is what the previous range scale was: (strikethrough is on the published document)
One might look at this and say," What's the big deal? It's a .25 difference." It's just one more small, incremental step in the slide toward lowered standards and student achievement. Put it together with what will be the new State tests that are ready to go online, and we could see the best example of educational magic ever as both grades and test scores make a miraculous "recovery."
Maryland describes the new testing changes like this: The new Maryland state tests will differ from the current MCAP in three major ways: they will be adaptive, more focused on growth and equity, and delivered on a single integrated platform beginning in 2026–27.
MSDE Selects New Statewide Assessment Vendor – Maryland State Department of Education
How Will New Grade Standards Effect Colleges?
When a college looks at a student's high school transcript, they expect that an "A" average is a "4.0." That is what previously has been used to determine a GPA. At the very least it was a "3.5" which is halfway. Technically, it seems like fraud when a low "B" average student (3.25) is now described as an "A" student, and ridiculously called, "distinguished." In what world?
Imagine the various highly selective universities and even the service academies accepting a student with a 3.25 GPA because that student has been described by the school system as an "A" level "Student of Distinction."
And, look what that change does to other grade determinations. It bumps them all down to a lower point value.
The stupid labels assigned to each level are also listed. What is the point of those? Do parents not know what it means to get the various grades? Is there anyone on the planet who doesn't know what an "A" is versus a "C?" Well, at least prior to this crazy grading scale.
Are the labels supposed to make students feel better when they realize that their "F" is just because they are a "learner in need?" The label of "Minimal" is even worse.
The question here is which problem is the school system trying to solve, making students feel better about themselves or actually communicating student achievement? Was the old system that much of a problem, or was it created by administrators who heard ideas at a conference and sought a way to make themselves stand out in the system?
Or maybe they just don't want to deal with parents who desperately want their child to be an "A" student whether he/she is or not.
Is This Happening Across The U.S.?
Talbot County is not alone in making up these ridiculous changes. All across the country, educators (not teachers but the highly "educated" administrators) are grasping at straws to make declining student achievement look better. They figure if they can wrap the "turd" in pretty language and "new, out of the box" thinking, they will be viewed differently by the taxpayers who fund public schools. Research shows that these practices, which are generically labeled as "grade inflation" are widespread:
Indeed, school districts throughout the country are in the throes of contentious debates about whether and how to change grading standards, with many teachers reporting an increase in practices that lower grading standards and raise grade inflation. (Alex, 2022; Randazzo, 2023; Graham, 2017; Las Vegas Review-Journal Editorial, 2023; Griffith and Tyner, 2025).
The article continues with an explanation of the long-term effects of having a teacher who participates in grade inflation:
Being assigned a higher average grade inflating teacher reduces a student’s future test scores, the likelihood of graduating from high school, college enrollment, and ultimately earnings.
The cumulative impact is economically significant: a teacher with one standard deviation higher average grade inflation reduces the present discounted value of lifetime earnings of their students by $213,872 per year.
In other words, the type of grade label manipulation being proposed in Talbot County will have negative repercussions on future student achievement while making graduation rates and other district metrics look better. But what is the value of a high school diploma if the grades are not accurate reflections of student achievement?
Grade inflation can be particularly troubling in the context of college admissions, where high school GPA
(HSGPA) is used as one (and often the most important) indicator of academic readiness for
postsecondary education. In this context, we can consider the effects of rising HSGPA without
concurrent improvement in academic achievement as demonstrated through standardized test
scores. Grade inflation raises a question about the validity of HSGPA as an indicator of college
readiness and academic potential (Sanchez & Moore, 2022).
In other words, research shows this can misrepresent actual mastery and reduce the predictive value of GPA for college success.
But, if it makes the students feel better, that's all that matters, right?
Except most students know the truth. In my decades as a teacher, I found that students, in most cases, knew better than anyone which grades they deserved and which they didn't. It was the adults, i.e. parents, in the situation who had a distorted view. A grading practice like the one Talbot County seems ready to adopt, will only add to that problem.
It appears that the 50% minimum for just being enrolled in a Talbot County Public School has disappeared from the practices, meaning that students will no longer get that grade just for sitting in class. That's to be applauded. Due date practices and assessment retakes have also been modified slightly.
What Is The Bottom Line?
The bottom line is that the Talbot County Public Schools, like many American public schools, are changing grading so that they can make student achievement appear higher, but these attempts won't achieve that goal and certainly will not improve student academics and learning. Aside from creating grades that are less reliable indicators of student learning, these processes are creating a generation that is irresponsible, unable to deal with deadlines, and less accomplished than the generations before them.
All the while the schools ask for hundreds of millions in more funding. As we have seen in Maryland, the extra spending has not helped our students learn and succeed.
And Talbot solves a problem that doesn't exist, wasting time and money to do so.
While so many in the state school districts crow about how the State Superintendent of Schools, Carey Wright participated in the Mississippi Miracle, they institute processes that go directly against what was done in Mississippi to improve student learning. The "miracle" was no miracle and Carey Wright had little or nothing to do with it. However, the basic premise was very good. The state instituted practices that included not promoting students to the next grade level if they couldn't read on grade level. This is what made their testing cohort smaller thus only testing students who could read on grade level.
Maryland Superintendent: Just Another Feckless Ideologue? - The Easton Gazette
However, it also set a standard that students had to meet in order to pass to the next grade. It challenged teachers to make sure they did their best to get their students to that level. We wrote about Maryland's return to a similar strategy in 2024:
Maryland Returns To Strategy Of Retaining Students Who Are Not On Grade Level - The Easton Gazette
If Maryland has indeed returned to a strategy of requiring students to meet certain standards to be promoted and to graduate, it seems Talbot didn't get the message as they institute these jumbled, watered-down grading processes. On the surface it may look like Talbot students are doing better.
In reality, it will just be another sad illusion.
It seems instead of bringing students up to standards, TCPS is bringing the standards down to students.
SIDE NOTE: While we are on the topic of improving Maryland Schools, take a look at this article published by Better Maryland Schools. It lists REAL, EFFECTIVE, COMMON-SENSE solutions to problems in the state's public schools:
A Better Way for Maryland Schools - Direct Line News
