Commentary
As the school year winds down, students across British Columbia will receive their final report cards for the year. And many parents will likely wonder: is it better to be “developing” or “emerging”? Or “proficient” or “extending”?
This is the gobbledygook B.C. students and their parents now see on report cards. Clearly, anyone not versed in edu-babble will be confused because “developing” and “emerging” mean similar things to most English speakers. And it’s not obvious whether “extending” is better than “proficient,” or vice versa.
For the last two years, instead of traditional letter grades such as A, B, and C, parents of grades K–9 students have suffered with these new reporting terms. By all accounts, the transition has not gone well. A recent survey found that while most parents had no problem correctly identifying what letter grades such as A and B mean, fewer than one-third could explain the meaning of terms such as emerging, developing, proficient, and extending….