History of Letter Grades

School seems like it has been around for forever. At least that's what millennials think, ever since they were turned Preschool age they have been going to school. Day in and Day out students go through the same routine. They wake up and go to school, come home and repeat the process the next day. Additionally, the letter grading system has become ingrained into our very culture. Its common knowledge to know that an "A" is good and and "F" is bad. How did letter grades start? Why don't we have an E? Some things become such common knowledge that they are never given a second thought to why they work the way that they do. Well here's to changing that---What is the history of letter grades.

In the beginning of the 1800's education was starting in the newly formed United States of America. The education at this time period was very limited, most classes had one teacher and a mix of all ages and backgrounds for the students. The education was focused on helping the students to understand the basics of life like reading and writing. At this time period there were no letter grades, the teachers would write progress evaluations, as soon as one student would complete the requirements for one level they could move onto the next.

As education progressed in the early 1900's schools became increasingly populated and limited with teachers. Interestingly enough according to a published in a Educational Leadership magazine article entitled "Making the Grade:What Benefits Students?" the author mentions that this is when the shift started happening to percentage grades. While Elementary teachers focused on written evaluations for students, high school teachers were making the shift to percentage grades to deal with the demand of high school teaching. 

However, this change started to see some backlash as Starch and Elliott completed two studies. They each focused on the unreliability of the grading system. They first started out with an English Paper and had 142 different teachers grade the paper. The results varied with 15 percent of teachers giving the paper a failing grade, while 12 percent gave the paper an excellent grade. They continued this study a year later with a different subject to see if the results stayed the same. They changed the subject to geometry, but the variations continued--teachers all had a varying way of grading the same assignment.      

In 1918 letter grades came to be, because teachers needed fewer and bigger categories to give their students. They started out with Excellent, Average and Poor, and then gradually moved to excellent, good, average, poor, and failing. These resulted in the the letter grades that went along with them A, B, C, D and F. The reason they skipped the letter E is because F was supposed to represent its own thing. The letter F was chosen to represent Failing because it had the same letter, and the E was not intentionally left off. (http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/02/e-f-grading-scale/) 

In the 1930's grading on a curve became increasingly popular. The rise of grading on a curve was in part because of the studies performed by Starch and Elliott. The purpose of curve grading was to minimize the subjective nature of grading. Also during this time period there was more experimentation with different types of grading. Schools tried several options including abolishing formal grades altogether, pass-fail systems, mastery learning, and some stuck with letter grades. 

In the United States today we are aware that the majority of schools use the letter grading system. There has been growing popularity as of late to switch up the styles once again. There are many schools throughout the United States that are dropping the letter grades and trying other means. This is the only way that we will come to know if there is anything better than letter grades. If we try out other solutions and seem if they make a difference. 

Interesting other facts:

- In England they actually use the letter grade E. The interesting thing is that it means the same as an F would in the United States

- Finland has one of the highest ranked education systems

- 50.1 million kids are in public schools in the United States

(http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/02/e-f-grading-scale/)