Educating Parents on SBG

So last night we had an open forum with the parents to educate them on SBG and how we are implementing it at our school.

The parents had many concerns and they were very verbal about them.  Some were concerned with giving kids a 1, 2, 3, or 4 as a grade instead of a number between 0 and 100, which that practice has now been stopped.  Others were extremely upset that their student who up until this year has been making straight A's would be required to go above and beyond to push their grade from a 90 to a 100.  But the biggest push of some of the parents and students was over the concern that it will impact their GPA and class rank.

The problem here in Texas and in our district is that students aren't simply given an A, B, C, etc for a grading period or for a semester grade.  Instead they are given a numeric grade and in our district that number grade is what is used to calculate their GPA as well as their class rank.  And of course in Texas we have the Top 10% rule where the students in the Top 10% of their graduating class are automatically given acceptance to any public university.  I really want to sit down with some of these parents and students and show them how the math doesn't come out to a large statistical difference.

They're so uninformed and we aren't even using TRUE SBG!  We've modified the idea of it to fit our crazy grading system here which keeps it from being the thing that the parents and students are so gung ho against.

UGH!!!!!

Sorry, I just had to vent....