What Does That Mean In English?

When I see the phrase “under the rubric of …,” I know what the writer means. But I’ve never been sure exactly what a rubric is, so I was puzzled at first when I began to encounter the term “scoring rubric” in articles on education.

It’s the trendy term educators use for the paragraphs teachers write to explain their criteria for assigning descriptive terms to students’ work in lieu of grades.

Here’s an example, from a local elementary school, sent to me by a parent who thinks the whole thing is applesauce.

There are four possible outcomes, and the best is “Strong,” which means: “Understands all of the problem and process. Clear writing and/or drawing explains strategies for the solution. Shows all math necessary to solve the problem. Strong ability to select appropriate tools.”

Next down is “Competent” (understands most, adequate writing, shows some math). Then, “Developing” (understands some, limited writing, shows incorrect math). Last, “Emerging” (understands little, no writing, shows no math).

I suppose it could happen that an overfond mom who would be in the principal’s office demanding to know why her little darling received a failing grade will kick back and hit the mall when she’s told instead that he’s “emerging,” but otherwise it’s hard to see the point.

Yet large numbers of teachers sit through long meetings agonizing over exactly how to phrase their rubrics, and nobody dares to laugh.

You can almost imagine them as members of a church worship committee trying to write unison prayers - an image that strikes just the right historical note. “Rubric” originally referred to the red pigment used for chapter headings in manuscripts and early printed books, and also for the directions for the conduct of a worship service, traditionally printed in red in liturgical books (courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary).

For worshipers, these are matters of great significance, but no one outside the church cares at all.

Teachers who are believers can even get software to help. A company called Strategic Learning Technologies (sltech.com on the web) advertises a program called “The Rubricator” and I sent away for a demo disk.

It seems a serviceable enough program for its intended use - saving time for a teacher whose computer skills are sufficient to operate a point-and-click program but not to write a database application.

It’s the value of the use I question. A rubricator, the Oxford English Dictionary says, was someone whose job it was to paint in the red titles in a manuscript; that is, someone who specializes in providing much cherished ornamental flourishes of no practical use. The name is apt.

The software company says its “educational ‘thoughtware”’ is “aligned with current best practice,” and they’re probably right.

So the examples they have crafted to appeal to their teacher audience are enlightening.

One sample Check Sheet for “Levels of Understanding” offers as its best of six levels, “I have a deep appreciation for this concept.” That’s fine, if it’s the art of the fugue; maybe not so good if the topic is slavery or genocide.

The sheet is full of high-flown jargon like “holistic analysis of progress” and “performance artifacts” but the details are either puerile or incomprehensible.

In a three-level rubric for reading, the best performance is “reader can identify a beginning, middle, and end of the story”; second best is “reader thinks there is … “; last is “reader cannot find …”

Or for more precision, teachers can choose to have five levels instead of three; “for instance, a Level 4 performance would contain some elements of a Level 5 and some of a Level 3,” it explains helpfully.

That’s no more useful than an A-minus, or a Developing-plus.

At the other end of intelligibility is this description for a “middle school cadre”: “to increase the extent to which middle-level students collaboratively design performance criteria to evaluate culminating demonstrations.”

Assessments are to be made by the students themselves, in “self-reflection logs” that remind me of the self-criticisms Chinese intellectuals had to write during the Cultural Revolution.

Here’s an example from a teacher’s self-reflection at the “Developing” stage: to find curriculum design options “that not only utilize the vast resources of the Internet but more importantly up-level the competencies of my students.”

I suppose they’re making this up. At least I hope so. But it is so similar to that new grading system in our local schools that I think the software company has its audience, the teaching profession, dead to rights. That’s the scary part. xxxx