Recently, during a teacher book group discussion on Myron Dueck's Grading Smarter, Not Harder the following question was posed: Should our district have a district-wide reassessment policy? What follows is my response! Enjoy!
Short answer: No.
Long answer: In my mind there is a huge difference between reassessing and redoing. If students do poorly on an assessment and there is no additional revisiting of the material along with reteaching, then there is no point in giving the reassessment. I like the concept of making students work for their reassessments- making it somewhat more challenging and/or inconvenient. However, at the core the idea of reassessments is the idea of measuring the most current level of student understanding and, with this in mind, the two supplemental articles posted are actually not that far apart.
In the "no retakes" piece shared with the group, the author points out that failure is important but even more important is the grit and growth in content learning as well as learning how to learn that takes place to improve to get the A''s and B's at the end of the term instead of the C's and D's that were earned at the start of the term. In the second piece, "retakes=compassion," the author points out that reassessments can be used to more accurately measure student learning when discrepancies between formative and summative assessment occur as well as to help students improve and grow in their understanding. The end result of both approaches is the same: student growth. These two approaches, however, are not that different; the "no retakes" article seems to suggest that the student learning at the end of the unit/term is more important (perhaps even weighted more) than the student learning at the start of the term/unit. If this is, in fact, the case, then the end result is effectively the same as allowing reassessments.
To the question at hand... I think the two supplemental articles and Dueck's ideas demonstrate that there are many ways to address accurately measuring student learning; I think how that happens in each content area is best left up to the individual teachers or, at the next level, up to the department because reassessing in math is very different than reassessing in social studies. In my classroom, if a student is missing major components to a paper after navigating through a supported research and writing/review process, I would make suggestions and give them the opportunity to improve their response. However, in math, students do the homework, get feedback on their skills, then they take a quiz (reassessment) which is followed by feedback, and then students take a test (reassessment). The reassessment and learning process is in place throughout! To then fault a math teacher for not allowing reassessments would be inappropriate and inaccurate.
The bottom line is, I think, this: mandating a district reassessment policy is not a good idea. Attempts to be as inclusive and all-encompassing as possible when writing a policy often results in an ineffective policy What is a good idea? - Empowering and encouraging (or even incentivizing) teachers to improve in their professional learning and practice (through things like a book group!! or taking classes, etc.) and treating them as professionals and when applicable, experts, is going to result in high quality instructional and classroom practices that will include holding students to high standards, acting with compassion, and focusing on student learning toward high quality learning outcomes. As teachers work toward improving their practice, it is vital that the district support teachers by allowing time to work on not only learning to improve their practice but also time to implement the improved practices. This is super-duper important, especially in a small district where teachers are teaching a number of different courses that would make head's spin for our counterparts in large districts.
