As schools and education across the country start to advance, many schools including my school, Mount Vernon High School, have changed their grading

 system to Evidence Based Reporting (EBR) as a way to better evaluate student performance. While the intention

s of EBR are to improve student achievement, EBR has significant drawbacks that can affect the academic performance of my peers and me. 

One of the major issues with EBR is that it mainly focuses on tests, sidelining critical components of edu

cation such as homework. In a system that is focused on taking tests, students often get grades that don’t reflect their true academic capabilities or efforts. This can cause situations where students who put in a lot of effort in homework and projects still see their overall grades projected lower than they deserve due to the weight of standardized tests. 

Due to the emphasis on tests it can cause an environment of fear and anxiety. And can cause students to feel pressured to perform well on a few key tests rather than engaging in the whole learning process such as homework. Now instead of enjoying learning and the process students (including me) are stressed about tests and grades. 

Homework is an essential tool for learning and it often gets overlooked by EBR. When students see that their grades are driven by a few high stakes tests, they may deprioritize homework. This not only affects their understanding of the material being taught, but also can affect students’ responsibility and accountability, making them become disengaged affecting their academic performance. 

To better serve the needs of students at MVHS, we should switch the approach of grading to a more homework 

and project-based approach and instead of taking a few tests that decide your grades, have projects and graded homework assignments to give students more of a chance to boost their grades.

If we switch to a more holistic grading system I believe that students will learn more responsibility and accountability, and I believe students will have more success and less anxiety when it comes to education. Having a new grading system will have

a positive impact on the community, families, and most of all the students of MVHS.