Not Yet: Not Failure

One of the core values of the EASL Institute is equity.  We believe that the traditional grading system, which labels many students as failures early in their academic lives,has been very costly to the individual students affected and to our society more broadly.  When the staff at Young Women's Leadership Charter School adopted High Performance, Proficient, and Not Yet Proficient as their terminology for describing student learning with respect to the academic outcomes they found that students, particularly students who hadn't experienced a lot of success, the effect was liberating. 

As more schools have adopted outcomes-based assessment, they have modified the initial terminology in various ways depending on their own needs: some schools in New York have chosen to reflect the state's terminology, using Meets Standards or Exceeds Standards; in Oakland, California, a charter school uses Meets Expectations and Exceeds Expectations.  But all the schools have found that Not Yets resonate with their students.  Even teachers have found that we are all Not Yet in something.

Here is how Chicago Talent Development High School promotes their belief that all students can become proficient.

_{poster by City Year team at CTDHS}

Here is what the CTDHS Principal had to say about the first night that parents and students came to pick up EASE report cards:

We had an absolutely, positively FABULOUS night!  Our teachers and parents really embraced the new grading system. 

You could feel the positive energy throughout the evening.  Students who did well, were most proud and you could hear them working on plans to become "high performing".  Students who did not do well walked away knowing exactly what they need to do in order to become proficient.  The parents loved this!

Teachers left the building feeling most positive about the evening. 

Hope is really the corollary to Not Yet.