Almost any high school student knows the scenario: multiple nights of little sleep, four cups of coffee, and hundreds of flashcards with copious amounts of information to memorize. There’s a never-ending cycle of laboring over schoolwork, all for the elusive yet alluring A.

But since when did the ability to cram ridiculous amounts of information into your head become a measure of academic success? In today’s school system, many students and teachers alike have lost sight of the true value of education — learning — and this loss has been reflected in the grading process.

The current grading method is fundamentally problematic because it pushes students to work solely for a good grade rather than for knowledge, defeating the original purpose of schooling.

In her 2013 article for The English Journal, Jeanetta Jones Miller discussed a survey she conducted in which all students surveyed reported that they defined success as getting grades good enough for college. This exemplifies how schoolwork has become a chore done for the grade alone, instead of an activity meant to expand the thinking capabilities of the student.

Assessments often only take into account how much information the student was able to memorize, and have no bearing on conceptual understanding. Cramming and is useless as it provides no growth in the subject and the student will most likely forget the information shortly after the test.

Any improvements made by the student will not always reveal themselves on the next exam because it’s on a completely different topic, and the student has not even had an opportunity to fix their mistakes on the past unit before moving on.

Grades should be based upon the ability to progress, not the ability to present perfection. The current grading system is detrimental for students, primarily because it doesn’t help them improve their work. A simple letter or number provides no insight into possibilities for revision, because they are viewed as the end of the assignment, instead of a starting point.

It would be ultimately the most beneficial to scratch grades altogether and replace them with continual opportunities for corrections; however, this would be difficult to implement in a school system so accustomed to grades.

Though in classes like English, grades are often accompanied by comments, which is helpful, grading continues to be an issue because it still leaves no consideration for progress made since previous exams.

I understand that grades are supposed to allow teachers, students, and parents to know how well students are understanding the material, but they are no longer effective because they only measure kids against each other and a rubric standard. Much like giving a pre-test and a post-test, teachers could administer a variety of assessments and calculate grades based on shown improvement.

Approaching grading in this way would allow the students that work hard to be rewarded for that, instead of simply praising the ability to remember information with no real improvement in the subject.

Though it is hard to accept the idea that students could be rewarded for effort and not necessarily performance, effort often leads to better performance. Even in the workplace, those who work hard are frequently the ones promoted, because this leads to them doing their job well. If employees are praised for being conscientious, shouldn’t students be rewarded for that as well?

Educators aren’t the only ones who can make changes here. If we began to revolutionize the current grading philosophy, there would be countless benefits from it-predominantly less stress over school, assurance of edification in classes, and benefits for hard workers. Though the education system is not going to change overnight, it’s time to start rethinking the grading process.