Wad-Ja-Get?: The Grading Game in American Education, 50th Anniversary Edition

by Howard Kirschenbaum, Rodney Napier, Sidney Simon

Grades and grading are an accepted part of modern education. But why? Why do we accept a system that is more focused on ranking students than on learning? Why do we accept the negative effects of standard grading approaches, including turning students off from learning, increasing stress, creating winners and losers, and perpetuating racial and economic inequality? Why do we accept these things when there are better alternatives?

Wad-Ja-Get? is a unique discussion of grading and its effects on students. The book was written by three education professors who have had first-hand contact with the problems of grading in all its forms. Written in the form of a novel, the topic is explored through the eyes of students, teachers, and parents in one high school embroiled in a controversy around grading. Possible alternatives to the grading system are examined in detail and the research on grading is summarized in an appendix. This 50th anniversary edition of the book includes a new introduction by Professor Barry Fishman, updating the research and setting the original book in the context of today’s educational and societal challenges. Wad-Ja-Get? remains timely five decades after its original publication, and will be inspiring to students, parents, educators, and policymakers.

277 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 1, 2021

Reviews

[Tripp]

This is the 50th anniversary edition of this book, and in that half-century almost nothing has improved vis-a-vis U.S. education's reliance on grades. As this book--among many others--makes clear, there isn't any credible evidence that grades are necessary to education, or that they even serve any purpose other than control of students--sorting and ranking them--and providing the illusion of objective assessment. Don't believe me? Go forth, then, and ransack the literature for such a study. I'll wait.

Good, you're back. Didn't find anything? Of course not, because it doesn't exist. What you probably noticed, though, was an extensive body of literature stretching back to 1912 that shows grades to be devoid of pedagogical or assessment worth. That, in fact, they are inimical to the learning endeavor, and harmful to students' mental health. And yet, here we are, still clinging to them all these years later as if they actually mean what they purport to mean. What a sham.