School without grades? No class war in the classroom

The school holidays are fast approaching, and if they haven’t already, the report cards will soon be fluttering into the house. For many students and their parents, this is the moment of truth: They find out where they stand in which subjects, whether they can be happy or worried.

The results are sometimes harsh, not always fair – but they are clear and comparable. You can build on them. Freely paraphrasing Churchill, one can say: school grades are the worst of all assessment methods – apart from all the others.

Grades are academic performance reduced to a bare number. Critics have therefore long described the current assessment system as “undercomplex”. “Looking backwards”, an “old braid”, also meant left-wing politicians on Monday in a heated debate in the Zurich cantonal council. It was about whether grades should be required by law from the second primary level in the future.

For the council left, however, it was obviously about more. For her, grades are the cementing of “middle-class privileges,” as a representative of the Greens called it. As such, they are “unworthy” of a solidary, cosmopolitan, modern society. Among other things, workers’ children would be discriminated against with the previous grading system.

With this line of argument, the class struggle moves into the classroom – and this must be stopped. The ideal of an egalitarian school system is not only illusory but also harmful. As later in professional life, there should also be differences at school. Not every child is equally gifted, equally diligent or is encouraged to the same extent. The elementary school can and should make these differences clear and not conceal them with cotton candy.

Of course, all teachers have the right to treat their students equally and fairly. But that doesn’t mean they have to judge them equally. Dealing with bad grades in particular prepares the children for later life, where their performance is constantly evaluated. The sooner they learn to deal with it, the better. Critics speak of frustration that spreads among bad students because of low grades. But they forget that even good students get frustrated when they see that effort is not worth it.

In principle, it’s simple: a good grade signals that you’re on the right track, a bad one that something needs to be done. The classification according to numbers from 1 to 6 may seem arbitrary, but it at least provides a rudimentary orientation – also because the scale has been in use for a long time. Why make something more complicated than necessary?

Some educational theorists may judge the current system as under-complex, but at least it is understandable for everyone. In any case, it is more understandable than a jumble of assessments with blinking smileys, colors, rockets or light signals, as is practiced in some schools and confuses many parents.

In addition, most children naturally have a keen sense of competition. Instead of good grades, they compare themselves to the number of asterisks on the examination sheet when they are on the playground.

It is quite possible that there will be a vote on the grading in the canton of Zurich. There could be a referendum. A referendum would be welcome. Such questions, which are central to families, should not only be discussed in the Education Council – a technocratic body elected by parliament – ​​but in the public arena. This also applies to other burning school issues, from homework to integrative support.

Some educational reformers could experience their blue miracle at the ballot box. A recently released one Survey of the Zurich parent committees showed that a whopping 70 percent of the 2,000 fathers and mothers surveyed considered grades to be “important and necessary”. And 65 percent want them to be retained in the future.