What's Fair and Meaningful for Grading Students with Disabilities?
Grading students with disabilities can present a Sophie's Choice for educators:
Failing students with disabilities who have shown tremendous effort and progress clearly seems unfair. Giving passing marks to students who have not met prescribed performance standards also seems wrong.
In fact, as Thomas Guskey and Lee Ann Jung write in "Grading Exceptional Learners," when students receive inflated grades based on material that is not appropriate to their skill level, they actually lose motivation (Ring & Reetz, 2000).
How can educators create fair and meaningful grades for students with disabilities, those receiving intensive intervention in an RTI model, or even students struggling because they are English language learners?
At ASCD's Teaching and Learning Conference, Gusky and Jung demonstrate a five-step model (PDF) for grading and
