B.C. parents weigh in on letter grades, descriptive grading in schools: survey

Parents and caregivers with children in B.C. schools are finding the new descriptive grading terms to be confusing and many say they would like to return to a letter grade system.

A new survey from the Fraser Institute, which commissioned a series of polls from Leger, found that letter grades on report cards were “significantly clearer and easier to understand” than the descriptive grading terms.

In September 2023, the B.C. government announced that letter grades were going away for all public school students from kindergarten to Grade 9.

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Instead of As, Bs, and Cs, student progress reports will use the terms “emerging, developing, proficient and extending” to assess their learning, along with written feedback from teachers.

Letter grades remain for grades 10, 11 and 12.

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The new study found that 98 per cent of Canadian parents say regular, clear assessment of student performance is important to them and while about half of parents or caregivers said letter grades would be easier to understand, the rest don’t mind descriptive grading.

The study used two of B.C.’s new descriptive grades — Extending and Emerging — and two letter grades — A and C — and asked parent how easy it was for them to identify what each of these grades means.

About 93 per cent of those asked say the A grade is clear and easy to understand and 68 could currently identify what A means.

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However, 57 per cent of parents found the descriptive grade ‘Emerging’ unclear and difficult to understand and only 28 per cent could currently identify what it means.

Similarly, 58 per cent of parents found the descriptive grade ‘Extending’ unclear and difficult to understand and only 28 per cent could correctly identify what it means.

The B.C. government says the scale maintains “high standards for student learning.”

“Even in B.C., where descriptive grades on the province’s proficiency scale have already been rolled out, parents struggle to correctly match the report card terms with their definitions and find letter grades much clearer and easier to understand,” the report states.