Research Proposal

Research Question
How would a no zero homework policy effect course failure rates at Pennfield High School?
Sample
Describe: The sample that will be used is comprised of semester grade reports from two teachers at Pennfield High School. One freshman English teacher and a sophomore level Civics/Economics course will be examined. Gradebooks were saved as PDF’s and are accessible on the schools network. The student population at Pennfield High School numbers around 700 and is made up of middle to lower income students, with many students on a free or reduced lunch program. The school is located on the northern border of Battle Creek, Michigan and has a mix of rural and urban areas. The district prides itself on the amount of technology that is available to students and staff. Every staff member was given a Gateway table, a projector, and classroom amplification system at the start of the 2008 school year. That same year, every freshman was given a gateway laptop free to use 24 hours a day during the school year. For the 2009 school year the laptop program will be expanded to include every student in the high school.
Justify: This sampling suites this research project because the concept of eliminating zeros is being pushed by the administration. The concept was introduced at a staff meeting and was not well received by the staff. The data that will be used, two teacher’s gradebooks for the 2008/09 school year, will provide a data set that is familiar to both staff and administrators. This familiarity will help give the research results validity to the staff and administrators.
Study design, data sources, procedures, & analysis
Study Design: The number of course failures earned without a no zero homework policy will be tallied from the 2008-09 school year. These tallies will be taken from the online gradebooks of two teachers. The researcher will look for a correlation between the number of zeros on homework assignments, unit test grades, and overall semester grade before removing the homework assignments.
Once that is completed, all zeros on homework assignments will be removed from the gradebooks and the researcher will then look at the correlation between unit test grades, and overall semester grade without allowing zeros. The correlation is important to examine if and when this research proposal is presented to the staff at Pennfield High School, and possibly at a School Board meeting. This correlation will show the difference, if any, between student achievement on unit test’s with and without zeros.
Data Sources: The data is coming from a district mandated online grade book system that teachers are required to use to post grades. This system keeps grades online which allows students, parents, and teachers the ability to view student grades and assignments in his/her classes. The researcher has asked for and received permission to use semester grades for two classes at Pennfield High School. To the right is a sample of one students semester two grade in an Economics class without taking away zeros for missing homework assignments. The student failed the semester while the teacher allowed homework to not be completed or turned in.
Below is the same student when zeros for missing work are removed:
Looking at the red text box, it is apparent that the overall percentage of 57% is closer to his/her cumulative final exam grade of 63% than his original 45.2%.
Procedure and data analysis: The first step in the research process will be to find and pull out the students that failed the two classes from the online grade book. The amount of points that the student missed because of missing homework will then be subtracted from the total points possible and the total points that the student earned for the semester. A new grade will be calculated using the new totals to seeif they are now passing. Data will be compiled of the number of students that are now passing without allowing any zeros, and how many students still failed.
Finding these data sets will provide quality data to present to the necessary personal at the school that has the ability to make this change in philosophy possible. The data is going to show how the staff at Pennfield High School could lower their course failure rates dramatically. Course failure rates are an ever increasing element of progression in No Child Left Behind eligibility as the requirements for No Child Left Behind continue to increase. Too often, teachers and students take the easy way out and do not complete homework or do not assign a remediation session in order to complete the homework. Having a no zero homework policy would force teachers to hold their students accountable for work that they assign and force the staff to examine what kind of homework they are assigning. This will also reduce the amount of busy work that teachers sometimes assign. For the students, this would force them to complete the assignments that were assigned and designed to encourage understanding of the Michigan Merit Curriculum.

Literature Review

While being introduced to the concept of a 60% for missing assignments at a staff meeting, many staff members began to laugh at the idea while others began to get angry. Rick Wormeli, a well known author on the subject says, “… This is a very understandable conclusion on the part of the teachers, but it’s incorrect (Wormeli, 2006).” Wormeli bases his arguments on the discrepancy of the mathematical intervals of a 100 point scale and that the students grade would not be reflective of meeting mastery or not. Although the 60% concept may be a difficult concept for many teachers to understand, measuring what students have learned is the key. If a student knows the material and excels on the test, then what does it matter if they complete the daily homework assignments or not? If a student gets a zero for not completing a homework assignment, teachers need to take the time to make sure the student gets their work done. A senior vice president of the Southern Regional Education Board in Viginia had this to say about allowing zeros “…eliminating zeros refocuses teachers on making sure all students, even the reluctant ones, learn the material (Roth, 2008).”
The bulk of the literature that was found was for allowing zeros. The best resource that was found was the book written by Rick Wormele, Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessing & Grading in the Differentiated Classroom. Wormele dedicates a chapter on grading issues in the classroom, and the power that a zero has is the first topic that he discusses. Wormele does not list any support materials in the chapter which leaves the reader wondering how valid his opnions are instead of having data to support his claims.
Another quality resource that was found was written by Thomas Guskey in an Educational Leadership article from 1994. In it, Guskey states, “… assigning a score of a zero to work that is late, missed, or neglected doesn’t actually depict learning (Guskey, 1994 ).” Guskey does not want grades to be used as a form of punishment if work is not completed. He advocates that all teachers take the time and try to force students to complete the work.
In an article that he wrote for the Educational Digest, Guskey writes, “Many teachers see zeros as their ultimate grading weapon, using them to punish students for not making adequate effort of failing to show appropriate responsibility (Guskey, Are Zeros Your Ultimate Weapon?, 2004).” His arguments behind not allowing zeros is three fold; zeros do not show what a student has learned, the effect of a zero is magnified by a typical 100 point grading scale, and there is no research that shows that zeros are an effective way to punish students. The main idea behind this movement is to not allow students to get away with not doing their work. Students need to be held accountable for their work, if they do not complete it, re-teaching or study halls need to be provided in order for the student to complete the assignment. There are many other resouces that advocate for not allowing zeros and requiring students to make up the missing assignment after school or in a Saturday school session.
Various school districts across the country are no longer allowing zeros for students, Lehn Middle School in Port Byron, New York, Dallas Independent School District in Texas, and Collier County School District in Naples Florida are some examples of schools with similar policies on zeros (Friess, 2008).” The movement behind not allowing zeros is growing and starting to spread across the country.
Finding scholarly journal articles that refute the no zero concept proves to be a difficult task to complete. Most of the information that was found was located in newspaper articles, and the comment sections of the newspaper articles. This was the most interesting aspect of the research, reading the comment section underneath the various newspaper articles (click here to see an example). The no zero concept does not create the furor that the 60% for not doing the work concept creates. Although finding published research that refutes that idea is difficult.


Bibliography
Albers, K. (2008, December 5). Collier School officials: Much research went into eliminating
"zero" grades. Retrieved May 23, 2009, from www.naplesnews.com: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/dec/05/collier-school-officials-much-research-went-elimin/
Friess, S. (2008, May 21). At some schools, failure goes from zero to 50. Retrieved June 28, 2009,
from USA Today : http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-05-18-zeroes-main_N.htm
Guskey, T. R. (2004). Are Zeros Your Ultimate Weapon?. theEducationDigest , 31-35.
Guskey, T. R. (1994 ). Making the Grade: What Benefits Students? Educational Leadership , 14-
20 .
Roth, L. (2008, October 5). For some schools, using zerod doesn't add up. Retrieved May 23,
2009, from http://hamptonroads.com: http://hamptonroads.com/2008/10/some-schools-using-zero-scores-doesnt-add
Wormeli, R. (2006). Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessing & Grading in the Differentiated
Classroom. Portland: Stenhouse Publishers.

Annotated Bibliography

Albers, K. (2008, December 5). Collier School officials: Much research went into eliminating "zero"

grades. Retrieved May 23, 2009, from www.naplesnews.com:

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/dec/05/collier-school-officials-much-research-went-

elimin/

This article describes the reasoning and logic why elementary schools in this district are no longer allowed to give a grade less than 50% for any assignment. The article then goes on to explain why some community members are not pleased with the decision and why the district felt compelled to do so. School board members, administrators, teachers, and students are interviewed and given a chance to discuss the issue.

Dunham, L. (2008, January). Why zeros should not be permitted! Principals Leadership, 62.

Liz Dunham makes arguments against the policy of schools allowing students to not turn in homework and take a zero for it. She has a background being a middle school principal and lists examples of schools that have used different programs that allowed for after school remediation for students who chose not to complete assignments. Although a short article, it provides a quality argument against allowing zeros in school.

Guskey, T.R. (2004, October). Are zeros your ultimate weapon? Principals Leadership, 49.

Guskey makes arguments against the use of zeros in order to try and dissuade student behavior that is deemed negative. He then goes on to talk about the importance of quality grading practices that will be more fruitful for students and teachers. His main argument is that schools need to figure out what purpose grades are going to serve and then the issue of zeros can be addressed. He states that staff may be more open to accepting a 4 point grading scale instead of some of the other options.

Guskey, T.R. (2000, December). Grading policies that work against standards and how to fix them. NASSP Bulletin.

This article points out four grading policies that are working against standards. Grading on a curve, selecting a valedictorian, using grades as punishment, and using zeros in grading. Guskey argues that zeros do not show what students have learned and also allows students to get off the hook of completing quality work that they are capable.

Guskey, T.R. (1994). Making the grade: What benefits students. Educational Leadership, pp.14-20

An outstanding article that lists the history of how grades have been figured, the struggles that teachers have had with them throughout history, and lists examples of what grading systems benefit students and encourage learning. Gusky also provides arguments for what grades should not be used for and how damaging they can be to students and their level of success in school.

Reeves, D.B. (2004). The case against the zero. Phi Delta Kappan, 324.

This article was great to read, Reeves uses humor and wit to describe why zeros should not be allowed in schools. He refutes his critics and uses math and logic to do so. He argues that grades should not be used to punish students and provides other ways to make sure students complete the work and learn the content.

Reeves, D.B. (2008). Leading to change/effective grading practices. Educational Leadership, 85.

This article gives a great argument why zeros and unfair grading policies (like the 100 point scale) should not be allowed in schools. The author used prior research to support his claim that zeros should not be permitted and listed many different areas in schools that will improve. He uses research to make the argument that dropout rate, the number of students skipping classes, and overall school climate will improve as grades improve.

Roth, L. (2008, October 5). For some schools, using zerod doesn't add up. Retrieved May 23, 2009, from

http://hamptonroads.com: http://hamptonroads.com/2008/10/some-schools-using-zero-scores-doesnt-add

This article discusses the power that a zero has and why teachers and administrators are looking at ways to use a no zero approach to encourage their students to work at a higher level. Most of the arguments for getting rid of zeros are based around the harmful psychological effect that can be inflicted on students if they receive a zero. The comment section of the article shows how passionate some people are against this idea.

Wormeli, R. (2006). Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessing & Grading in the Differentiated Classroom.

Portland: Stenhouse Publishers.

Wormeli writes about the concept of 60% for a zero in his book about assessment. He also writes about 5 other burning issues that deal with grades in this chapter. He uses a mathematical approach to try and dissuade teachers from allowing and recording zeros for missing work. This chapter should be one of the best resources that will be used for this research.