What Is The Marzano Grading Scale?

“Why would anyone want to change current grading practices? The answer is quite simple: Grades are so imprecise that they are almost meaningless.” 

-- Dr. Robert Marzano

Dr. Marzano’s work is based off 40 years of educational research. He created a framework that measures progress on these five levels of reliability:

  1. Safe and Collaborative Culture
  2. Effective Teaching in Every Classroom
  3. Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum
  4. Standards-Referenced Reporting
  5. Competency-Based Education

Marzano Reference Scale:

Our gradebook calculations reflect a standards-based approach. Our gradebook will not modify your students’ achievement data, but perhaps may modify how it is categorized based on mastery level.

The Marzano scale is helpful with analyzing student progress over time. The scale can help determine at what point the student may have had difficulty understanding the subject matter, and where they may need to focus more. Marzano believes the scale should be student-friendly, so that the student can know how proficient they are with the material. He also theorizes that using a 100 point scale when it comes to grading can be difficult, as a scale that large cannot truly reflect how difficult an assignment is and how well the student understands the content. Marzano theorizes that a simple four point grading system is the most efficient way of grading student progress because it demonstrates if the student is developing or working beyond expectations.

Kiddom adopted Marzano’s grading style in hopes to achieve a better sense of mastery for students. From here, teachers can choose to adjust instruction to address remediation and enrichment needs of students, including differentiating their daily lessons.

For resources on Dr. Marzano’s research as it pertains to standards-based grading, click here.

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