There is nothing more sweet than the fruits of one’s labor, giving a meaning to months spent working. Students put their life and soul into school, simply so they can see that all-too-beautiful A on their report card. However, the Board of Education has different ideas. In an act of naivete, they have decided to abolish this system, and incorporate an entirely new system that raises apathetic students from the depths of failure, and throws academic students off their pedestal. That system is called Standards Based Grading (SBG), working to make all students average as opposed to exposing their true abilities.

SBG was first conceived as a solution to traditional grading’s “ambiguity.” However, after a century of this grading, it is no more “ambiguous” to students and their families than a McDonald’s lunch menu.  Colleges do not care if a student got a two in “Identifying clauses” in English, they ask, “What did you get in English?” That is met with a letter grade, not a summation of all the different tests throughout the year placed on a bell curve. In essence, SBG is generalizing grades, because they have the limitation of four different grades to give, while traditional letter grading has 12. If you look at the percentiles, then you have 100 different grades to give, diving even farther in depth for clarity. By definition, SBG casts grading straight into the abyss of “ambiguity.”

SBG is rewarding students with a four if and only if they are considered to exceed course expectations. Essentially, students are punished if they do not know what they have not been taught. On the other end of the spectrum, students are not allowed to get a zero in a class, not provided with a wake up call should they decide school is no longer important to them. Thinking of it in a different light, the grading system is being handed over to socialist ideas, stealing away honor student’s grades and giving it to the students that do not care what their grade is. Because of SBG, every student graduates, regardless of their preparedness for the real world.

The phrase “subjective grading” has a very negative connotation in school applications, and for good reason. It takes away the consistency of grading, and gives it to a teacher’s discretion. This could be great for students with a good relationship with teachers, but detrimental to the rest. One bad teacher could throw a wrench in a student’s entire grade, a problem scarcely factored in traditional grading.

Clearly, SBG is not as good as traditional grading. Students, parents, and staff have fought vehemently to keep it out of the high school. Against their will, new policy is shifting the tides away from success, and towards mediocre performance. SBG is virtually grade inflation, taking what would have earned 2014 students an A and giving them a B+.

As far as the ludicrous retaking policy of SBG, here is a scenario to think about. You are a heart surgeon. You walk into the surgery room, excited to finally have your first time as the leading doctor, and start to get to work. Unfortunately, when you are making one of your more delicate cuts, your hand slips and you slice an artery open. Blood pours out of the patient as a result. Doctors begin trying to stop the bleeding, but the patient has already died. You cannot go to the corner of the room and slap a retake button that is flashing and say, “Wooo, I guess I was not ready for that, I’ll have to practice more.” You just cost someone their life, you cannot retake that event. If high school’s purpose is to prepare students for the real world, the Board of Education should not make high school a fantasy.

All the angry hallway-conversations in the world will not solve this grading cancer, you have to fight for traditional grading if you want it. This is why, starting now, you need to sign petitions, type emails, whatever it takes to stop SBG. Make the Board of Education realize that whatever poor policy decisions they make do not affect them, it affects students’ futures, your future.