The Irvine Unified School District has forced teachers to swap to the 4 Point Grading scale in order to provide a system that provides more feedback to students. However, it has caused many students to become even more confused and made it harder to get good grades.

The main flaw of this system is its inability to accurately reflect a student’s true grade. “This system of grading suffers from being unable to accurately reflect a student’s struggles and it also doesn’t reflect a student’s overall ability. A student who receives a three may have only just missed the 4 range, or they may be just shy of getting a two…” according to The Charger Account’s article, ‘Why the 4.0 Scale sets students up to fail’.

This system places more pressure on the teacher to explain exactly where the student’s grade falls and if the teacher doesn’t explain, the students are left completely in the dark on
why their grade is a 3 and not a 4. This also places more pressure on the student, as now they have to confront their teacher, something many students may not be comfortable doing.

The 4 Point Scale also makes it much harder to achieve a 4, as anything below 100% is marked down as a 3.

“Sometimes the feedback can be [difficult] because there are minor differences from a three to a four and it can . . . make it really hard to just be able to get a four,” states Freshman Mia Sadeghian. The impact this has cannot be understated, as maintaining a 4.0 GPA is vital to get into some colleges.

For example, Prep Scholar’s article, ‘UC Irvine Requirements for Admission’ states that, “UC Irvine requires you to be at the top of your class. You’ll need nearly straight A’s in all your classes to compete with other applicants.”

By making it that much harder to get an A, it requires perfection just to reach the standard for a competitive college like UCI.

Some may say the four-point scale can give more feedback to students and helps with the learning process. “[The four-point grading scale] allows for more meaningful student learning and teacher
feedback, and moves away from an approach in which students are seeking to earn points rather than practicing to meet the learning goal,” states Gateway Middle School’s article “Overview of the Four Point grading scale and Standards-Based Grading.”

Using this scale will clarify goals while also helping students progress. However, while students can receive more feedback, their skill is still in the grey area. How does the student know if they were at the high end of the three or just barely got a three on an assignment? The feedback could help but the grading system wouldn’t be effective enough at really tackling the main problem or finding out what the student is truly struggling with.

Another argument is that “[The four-point grading system] helps struggling students to receive a passing grade while also pushing students who are doing well in the class to achieve more,” states the article “The Benefit of the 4-point Grading Scale” by Evelyn Franklin. It could help struggling students, however, the difference between a three and a four is 25% so you could’ve met the standard and gotten a three, but that would only count for 75% making it actually harder to get a higher grade while using the scale.

While there are benefits to the 4 point grading scale, the problems it can cause for students aiming to get A’s are too important to ignore. Instead, what the district should do is re-implement the 100 point grading scale into all honors and AP classes. “The 4.0 scale doesn’t give students a complex grade scale and instead lumps their grades together” says an article by The Charger Account’s article, ‘Why the 4.0 Scale sets students up to fail’ By doing this, higher achieving students can accurately view their grades, while the 4 point grading scale can still provide a cushion for other classes.

This keeps the benefits of the 4.0 grading scale, and reduces stress for less important classes while still allowing the 100 point
scale to give specific feedback in more challenging classes.

Warriors are directly affected by the 4 point scale grading system. The Irvine Unified School District is strictly implementing the use of it next year. Teachers of Woodbridge High must take action to create a better learning environment for all students in the Irvine Unified School District that will be negatively affected.