Bill requiring uniform grading OK’d by Senate
NASHVILLE (AP) — High schools would be required to use the same grading scale when reporting student grades under legislation passed unanimously Wednesday by the state Senate.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Miller, R-Cleveland, is the product of an issue that emerged last year after implementation of the Tennessee lottery, which is being used to fund college scholarships to those who meet specific requirements.
Discussions of scholarship-qualifying standards led lawmakers to realize that the B average identified as one criterion for receiving the awards wasn’t uniform across the state. They worried grading systems varied too widely to allow students to compete fairly for the money.
For example, 40 of the state’s 110 public systems that operate high schools say a numerical score of 95-100 an A, while 28 use a 94-100, 33 use 93-100, three use 92-100 and six use 90-100. In Nashville alone, the numerical equivalent of an A varies among individual schools from 90-100 to 95-100.
Because of that lack of uniformity, the General Assembly eventually decided to make qualifications for the awards an either-or proposition — meaning students will be required to have either a B high school average or a 19 ACT score, but not both as originally envisioned.
The bill approved Wednesday would require the state Board of Education to establish a task force of superintendents, principals, teachers and representatives of school boards and higher education to make recommendations by the end of the year concerning a uniform grading system.
That includes proposals for consistent numerical breaks for letter grades; consideration of standards to define an honors course, along with how courses should be weighted.
The board would then be required to develop uniform grading standards based on those recommendations, which local school districts would have to abide by.
“Since we have lottery scholarships now, it’s very important for the integrity of those scholarships and all the money we’re putting into higher education in this state to have a uniform grading system,” Miller said before the 28-0 vote.
The bill has been pending in the House Education K-12 Subcommittee since February.
Miller’s colleagues congratulated him for bringing the measure, with Sen. Larry Trail, D-Murfreesboro, calling it something “that should have been done many, many years ago.”
“It’s important … to understand that it’s not just the lottery scholarships that are impacted here,” Trail said. “If your kid goes to school in Williamson County as opposed to Rutherford County, for example, your child might not be eligible for the same scholarship even though he made the same numerical grade.”
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On the Net:
Read SB2205/HB2224 at Tennessee General Assembly: www.legislature.state.tn.us