Passage 4

One important thing during the pre-Christmas rush at our house was the arrival of my daughter‟s kindergarten report card. She got high praise for her reading, vocabulary and overall enthusiasm. On the other hand, we learnt that she has work to do on her numbers and facility with the computer, though the detailed handwritten report her teachers prepared is absent of any words that might be interpreted as negative in describing her efforts. A number system indicates how she‟s measuring up in each area without any mention of passing or failing.
​​​​​​All of which seems to make my daughter‟s school neither fish nor fowl when it comes to the debate over the merits of giving formal grades to kids. At one level, the advantages and disadvantages are obvious. A grade system provides a straightforward standard by which to measure how your child is progressing at school-and how he or she is getting on compared to other children. But as writer Sue Ferguson notes, “Grades can deceive.” The aim should be “to measure learning, not simply what a student can recall on a test.” The two aren‟t the same—and if you doubt that as an adult, ask yourself whether you could sit down without any preparation and still pass those high-school-level examinations.
If you‟re old enough, you‟ve lived through this debate before. At one time, it was considered unfair to put children in direct competition with one another if it could be avoided. The intention behind that may have been good, but it ignored the fact that competition, and the will to come out on top, are essential components of the human condition.
This time around, educators working with a no-grades approach are emphasizing different reasons. The thing is that approach is much more commonplace in the adult workplace than is the traditional pass-fail system we place on our children. Many workplaces conduct regular employee evaluations. There are usually fairly strict limits to what an employer can tell an employee in those evaluations and even then, negative evaluations can be challenged by the employee. No matter where you sit in the debate over the grade system, then, the real question is this: if it‟s so good for kids, why isn‟t that also true for adults?

The school report indicates that the writer‟s daughter ________.

We can learn that the girl‟s school tries to deliver the report ________.

Sue Ferguson seems dissatisfied with the grade system for its focus on ________.

The writer would agree that cutting children off from competition is ________.

It can be learned that today‟s educators supporting the no-grades approach insist that ________.