Level Up Your Grading: Insights from O'Connor & Townsley

Alright team, let's chat about something super relevant: how we grade our students. There's a fresh article out by Ken O'Connor and Matt Townsley (2025) called "Busting Myths About Professional Judgment and Subjectivity in Assessment," and it's got some real food for thought. We all have our ways of doing things, but it's worth hitting pause and thinking about the core of what we're trying to achieve with grades.

Why Grade Anyway?

At its heart, assessment should tell us—and our students—where they are in their learning journey. It's about guiding growth and understanding progress. But sometimes, our grading systems, with their rigid percentages and test-heavy approaches, can overshadow this main goal. We might lean on these structures because they feel safer or more "objective" than our own take on our students' learning.

The Power of Our Own Judgment

This article really digs into how important our professional judgment is in assessment. O'Connor and Townsley (2025) point out that in many expert fields, professionals use their knowledge to make calls within guidelines. They even bring up the Ontario Ministry of Education (2010), which says teacher insights are key to good assessment. But the authors also tackle a couple of big hang-ups we often have about trusting our own judgment.

One worry is that if we let teachers use their own judgment, it'll be the Wild West. Everyone will grade differently! But O'Connor and Townsley (2025) clarify that professional judgment, as Damian Cooper (2011) explains, isn't about going rogue. It's about making smart calls based on experience within agreed-upon standards and policies. This is huge for us as leaders. We need to build those shared understandings so teachers feel confident using their expertise consistently. Research shows that grading has been all over the place (Brookhart et al., 2016), so getting on the same page is crucial. The article even suggests ditching super-fine percentage scales for broader performance levels, which research says can lead to more reliable judgments (Pollio, 2001).

Another idea is that we should try to make assessment as "teacher-proof" as possible, relying on standardized tests. But O'Connor and Townsley (2025) argue that this can mean we're not really measuring what we want to measure. Different learning goals need different ways to check understanding (Darling-Hammond et al., 2013). They push for using lots of assessment methods—projects, talks, observations—something Cooper (2022) also supports. Plus, they remind us that learning is a journey over time (Alonzo, 2019), and our assessments should reflect that, especially when we're giving final grades (Brookhart, 2016).

The Subjectivity Question

The article also tackles the tricky issue of subjectivity. O'Connor and Townsley (2025) bust the myth that we can have totally objective grading. They quote Eyler (2024), who says all human judgment has some personal perspective baked in. So, the goal isn't to be robots, but to be consistent in how we use our judgment. They highlight the power of moderation, where teachers look at student work together, as a way to build that consistency, something top education systems do (Black & Wiliam, 1998). O'Connor and Townsley (2025) take on the idea that standardized tests are better because classroom grades are "subjective." They point out that standardized tests give us just a snapshot and might not even match what we taught. Plus, they don't account for individual student factors. Classroom assessments, done well, give us a much richer picture. Moving towards criterion-referenced assessment, where we judge students against clear standards, makes things even more transparent and fair (Popham, 2011).

So, How Do We Use This?

For us as leaders, this article is gold for sparking conversations in our PLCs and teams. Here’s how we can use it:

• Read and Discuss: Get everyone to read the article and then unpack the main points together.

• Myth-Busting Time: Dedicate time to talking about those four myths. How do they show up in our own thinking and practices?

• Back to Basics: Revisit why we assess in the first place (Wiliam & Black, 1998). How well are our current grades actually serving that purpose?

• Define Our Judgment: What does good professional judgment in assessment look like here? What shared rules and ideas should guide us (Cooper, 2011)?

• Mix It Up with Assessments: Brainstorm ways to use a wider variety of assessments that really match what we're teaching (Darling-Hammond et al., 2013).

• Try Moderation: Set up regular times for teachers to look at student work together and talk about grading (Black & Wiliam, 1998).

• Look at Our Rules: Do our current grading policies help or hurt good assessment?

• Focus on the Standards: Work together to make sure our learning goals and how we assess them are super clear (Popham, 2011).

By digging into O'Connor and Townsley's (2025) insights and backing them up with what the research says, we can help our teachers move past old ideas and create grading that's more meaningful and fair for our students. It’s about making sure our assessments truly show what our kids know and can do.

References:

Alonzo, A.C. (2019). Defining trustworthiness for teachers’ multiple uses of classroom assessment results. In S.M. Brookhart & J.H. McMillan (Eds.), Classroom assessment and educational measurement (pp. 120-145). Routledge.

Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80(2), 139-144.

Brookhart, S. (2016). The use of teacher judgement for summative assessment in the USA. In V. Klenowski (Ed.), International Teacher Judgement Practices. Routledge.

Brookhart, S.M., Guskey, T.R., Bowers, A.J., McMillan, J.H., Smith, J.K., Smith, L.F., Stevens, M.T., & Welsh, M.E. (2016). A century of grading research: Meaning and value in the most common educational measure. Review of Educational Research, 86(4), 803-848.

Cooper, D. (2011). Redefining fair. Solution Tree.

Cooper, D. (2022) Rebooting assessment: A practical guide for balancing conversations, performances and products. Solution Tree

Darling-Hammond, L., Herman, J., Pellegrino, J., Wixson, K. K., & Yoon, S. Y. (2013). Criteria for high-quality assessment. Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.

Eyler, J. (2024). Failing our future: How grades harm students, and what we can do about it. John Hopkins University Press.

O’Connor, K., & Townsley, M. (2025). Busting myths about professional judgment and subjectivity in assessment. Feature Article.

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2010). Growing success.

Pollio, H. R. (2001). The phenomenology of learning and the art of teaching. University Press of America.

Popham, W. J. (2011). Classroom assessment: What teachers need to know (6th ed.). Pearson.