New report cards baffle parents: What does 'emerging' mean? (Your kid can't read)

Photo: Mikhail Nilov/Pexels

Kris is an "emerging" reader, Carlos is "extending" and Emma is "developing." Is "proficient" Pat the best reader? Nope.

Parents don't understand the new-fangled grading system in British Columbia, reports Paige McPherson for the Frasier Institute. They know what ABCD grades mean, but they're baffled by the new “proficiency scale,” which includes “emerging,” “developing,” “proficient” and “extending.”

Ninety-one percent of parents said it was easy to understand what an "A" means, according to a recent poll. Sixty-six percent said they didn't understand "extending," the highest of the new grades, and 64 percent didn't understand "emerging," the lowest.

"Developing" is often the lowest category in descriptive grading systems. It means: Gosh we hope this child will develop some skills soon. Here, it's a step above "emerging."

Even those who checked the government’s website could be confused, writes McPherson.

"Extending is not synonymous with perfection. A student is Extending when they demonstrate learning, in relation to learning standards, with increasing depth and complexity. Extending is not a bonus or a reward and does not necessarily require that students do a greater volume of work or work at a higher grade level. Extending is not the goal for all students; Proficient is. Therefore, if a student turns in all their work and demonstrates evidence of learning in all learning standards for an area of learning, they are not automatically assigned Extending.”

I sense a No Child Gets Ahead vibe.

Of course, the real problem is that parents may not realize that "emerging" doesn't mean their child is learning to read, and "developing" doesn't mean developing reading skills at the expected rate.

One school district piloted the changes before B.C. adopted them provincewide, writes McPherson. Elenore Sturko said that "for three years her daughter’s report cards said she was 'emerging' rather than clearly stating she was failing." Finally, the third-grade teacher told Sturko her daughter was reading at a kindergarten level.