Uintah, Utah School District Cuts Extra Credit From Course Grading

Forget about that last-minute extra book review or lab report to push that B+ to an A-.

Students in the sixth through 12th grades at one Utah school district will no longer be able to complete extra credit assignments to boost their grades.

A new course grading policy, approved by the Uintah School District Board of Education early this month, prohibits teachers from awarding extra credit. According to the policy, "all students will be given multiple opportunities to demonstrate proficiency within the grading period ... which will affect the final outcome of a student's grade."

Those multiple opportunities, as stated by the district's overall grading policy, are composed of no more than 30 percent "daily practice" -- such as homework and group assignments -- and no less than 70 percent "formative assessment/summative assessment" -- such as testing and other forms of evaluating progress and proficiency.

Officials say that prohibiting extra credit shifts course goals away from simply achieving high marks and toward better learning and improving coursework understanding.

"This better defines how we can help our kids, how we can intervene with specific knowledge and separate academics from actual academic," USD Student Services Director Kevin Dickson told the Vernal Express. "One of the problems I see is those students that because they are a good student and a nice kid don't get identified that they have a math problem, this will do a better job at identifying that."

Do you think students should still be offered the opportunity beyond the syllabus to play catch-up on grades? Weigh in below.

Quick Poll

Should students be allowed extra credit?

Yes! They should have one last chance to boost their grades at the end of the semester.

No! They should have to perform well throughout the semester on regular assignments to earn good grades.

Share your vote on Facebook so your friends can take this poll

Related Video...

Comments

[Waubay]

10:30 AM on 08/29/2011

I have a simple policy for dealing with extra credit. Extra credit is available to students who have no missing or late assignments. I am more than willing to give hard working kids the opportunity to boost their grade.

[Michelle Polcaro]

07:43 PM on 08/30/2011

I have the exact same policy. I don't see the benefit in letting students do nothing all during the marking period to then be able to work their butts for one week and get a passing grade. I will occasionally give an assignment to all of my students that can be used for bonus points on a test. That's about as close as I'll get to extra credit.

[stopnlisten]

02:35 PM on 08/28/2011

That's too bad. If used well and properly you can motivate a lot of kids. Gifted kids can be challenged with it and students right on the line with grades can make the grade if given MEANINGFUL extra WORK. The bottom line is earning it and learning it.

[cachew]

05:26 AM on 08/28/2011

A teacher's grade book is private and while the district may boast its policy it has no say in how a teacher grades. However, most districts have teachers enter grades onto a computer system that eventually produces the report card. The system has "open windows" when teachers may enter grades. Middle and high schools may reopen the window to allow teachers to change grades. The changes are usually due to extra credit. Some administrators hate the delays this causes. I'm guessing they're no longer reopening their system for teachers. BTW when the window is closed grades are absolutely final.

[TORSTEN HUSVEDT]

04:17 AM on 08/28/2011

extra credit is crap in a leaky bag, the only thing close to it I ever liked was a good prof I once had that would let you take a more difficult version of a test at your own convenience.

[giono]

09:14 PM on 08/27/2011

In my experience most of those asking for extra credit ....don really need it and are just trying to pad their grade to look good on their transcript

[Americatheteenager]

12:54 PM on 08/28/2011

In my experience extra credit is requested by kids who don't put any effort in studying, fail the tests, and then whine about improving their grades... My advice, do the work that is assigned and study for the tests... No need for extra credit unless you have been absent due to medical reasons...

[Rationality4all]

07:15 PM on 08/27/2011

Extra credit where I am is a boost of less than .5% at the end of the grading period provided the student tried their hardest, had good attendance and behavior, and did all the work. And only a few teachers will do that. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but what do you think?

[Nopinky]

03:13 PM on 08/27/2011

So tank the final because you had the flu and lose a grade - that's fine, but make it up by working independently and taking the initiative to learn and produce on your own and that's cheating? What? This just reminds me so much of that show Hoarders. The educational platform in this country is so out of whack that our kids can barely function, and this is the solution? It's like the lady who has to look at every single receipt in the box while her ceiling collapses. WAY wrong focus and a policy that seems determined to make sure as many kids fail as possible. This is just defeatist and demoralizing for a kid who hits a subject or a time period where he slips a little ... it says "you didn't do well enough at everything, so you're just not good enough". Either grades matter and let them do extra credit, or they don't matter and stop knocking them down over homework assignments.

[Ghoulish]

05:13 PM on 08/27/2011

Did I miss something in the above article? I don't recall it saying anything about students not being able to make-up work missed due to an illness or an emergency. Make-up work and extra credit are two different things. Students who choose to slack during the semester should not be able to turn in "extra credit" to boost their grade when they find it's not as high as they would like.

[Nopinky]

11:03 PM on 08/27/2011

a) I wasn't talking about making up work - I was talking about making up lost ground due to a poor test.
b) why shouldn't they be able to do the work to pull up their grades? Are you saying that if they're doing independent work, they're not learning anything? That's just silly. I would wager that kids learn more from doing independent extra work than from staying up til 1 am completing busywork worksheets just to keep up. Nor do I think that kids who did stay up til 1 am doing homework but bombed a big test because they didn't feel well or had some other thing going on should get a C because of it rather than let that kid work for a better grade.

This whole thread seems to have gone right back to "grades are the only things that matter and they measure learning and work ethic" even as the interviewee asserts that this "only your grades matter" policy is a way to tell kids that it's not all about grades but about learning ... which we can judge by your grades and you only get one shot at it. So weird.

[sharon elin]

09:58 AM on 08/27/2011

Extra credit can be abused, just as testing can be unfair and inaccurate reflections of knowledge. My concern is having a way to allow credit recovery for students who struggle with success but are sincerely trying to improve their performance. Students are human and their lives and performance vary according to a complex mix of life conditions, prior knowledge, learning style/speed, teacher effectiveness, etc. I had a student whose parent was diagnosed with terminal cancer during my summer course. He was understandably distracted and got behind in his work. He worked hard and did a remarkable job catching up, but some of the opportunities he missed (group projects, for ex.) could not be made up. Extra credit, targeting the actual concepts he needed to learn, was the only way he could recover the credit that would accurately reflect his mastery of the concepts being taught -- without the extra credit option, his grade would have been unfairly low based on missing work. Extra credit based on bringing Kleenexes and watching the Learning Channel is NOT acceptable, but in my opinion, extra credit based on the target objectives and standards can be used to allow credit recovery in legitimately deserving situations. (P.S. Last-minute grade remorse by lazy students does not qualify as "legitimately deserving.")

[rtgmath]

07:48 PM on 08/26/2011

I am generally opposed to extra credit. Show me that you are willing to put as much effort into learning the material as you are in trying to convince me to give you points for nothing!

Students should not expect to make all A's. An A should mean that the material was comprehended at a level well above what the course expectations were. So no. No extra credit. No brownies, no cookies, no sweet talk. If you work hard and succeed, that is the reward I want. If I let you "succeed" when you really didn't, I have cheated you and cheated me as well.

[Lsharp03]

12:45 PM on 08/26/2011

Fine by me. I am tired of hearing my kids come home and say things like, "If I bring the teacher a box of Kleenex, paper towels, or wipes, I get extra credit!"

[wstrvlr]

11:53 AM on 08/26/2011

The best education was had using the old-fashioned ways of teaching, discipline & giving consequences for good & bad behavior alike. Consequences handed out quickly seemed to get the very best results. Students come to realize they're in school to learn, read, write, do basic math, use manners & be polite. Schools today seem to want to entertain kids all day versus doing what they are there to do: Teach.

Many kids today cant't read, write clearly, do simple math, add money or make change. They have the manners of a barnyard feeding frenzy, are rude, impolite, disrespectful of their elders & others. Kids are like this because they find that CPS lets them get away with it all. Many parents & teachers alike are afraid to discipline kids.

Half of the battle in teaching is having control of the classroom. If you cannot discipline & demand order in your class you cannot teach. Chaos, disrespectfulness to elders & others & immmorality in ones life is the result of not being allowed to discipline youngsters early on.

The results of the past 25 years has come back to bite society. Govermental agencies butting in folks business & telling you what is best for your family, immorality running rampant, lack of common sense & discipline is the result of this failed social experiment. This CAN be reversed, but things are going to have to go back to old-fashioned ways. Those ways produced some of the brightest minds, exciting times, as well

[Dram214]

11:10 AM on 08/26/2011

Someone must have really been abusing this.

[deathintheafternoon]

10:49 AM on 08/26/2011

How ridiculous!!!!!

[bobtrain]

10:37 AM on 08/26/2011

Previous comments indicate the elderly (AOL subscribers) are still able to think. Regarding testing, homework can be considered a form of testing and should be graded and considered in the evaluation of students. Multiple choice tests, where the answers are provided, do not provide the student an opportunity to "show his work", or the teacher to evaluate the students knowledge (answers may be guesses). Further, there seems to be a spate of "cheating" by teachers and administrators who change answers on multiple choice tests to raise scores for salary or budgetary reasons. The only good thing about multiple choice is that it is easy to grade; however, it doesn't provide feedback to the student.
I learned to read in order to find out what was happening; I learned to write (english composition) by reading, not by diagramming sentences; I learned mathematics and science by doing "real world" problems and experiments. How could my skills be evaluated by multiple choice tests?

[gcymru5491]

10:05 AM on 08/26/2011

Bush got to the WH w/ extra credit grading. ....rich parents, political connections, legacy admissions to every post he ever held, boosted into the TX Guard ovfer more qualified candidates....,