ABCS OUT AS GRADES; LAUSD GOES BY NUMBERS 1-4 IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.

Byline: David R. Baker Staff Writer

When thousands of Los Angeles-area elementary school students open their report cards next month, they won't find the traditional grades of A through F.

Instead, they'll see numbers. A simple 1, 2, 3 or 4 will mark how well each student performed in each subject. The steps between grades - the A-minus and the B-plus - also will disappear.

As part of its push to adopt new statewide learning standards, the Los Angeles Unified School District has changed the way it grades in a move that has surprised parents and school board members.

All elementary schools will now use numbers on report cards, with 4 marking the best student work, 1 the worst.

District officials say the number system lets parents track how well their children have learned the new statewide standards, something the traditional grades wouldn't show.

``It is much more precise,'' said Geri Herrera, director of core curriculum in elementary education. ``It tells you whether you've mastered that standard or not.''

But some parents called the numbers anything but precise. And parents and even two school board members said Monday they hadn't been informed of the change and were surprised by it.

The traditional A-F system, the parents note, had five steps, not four. The old pluses and minuses further pinpointed how well kids performed.

``It's absolutely absurd. I want to know specifically what my daughter's grade is,'' said Nellie Keller, whose daughter Kimberly is in the fifth grade at Balboa Gifted Magnet school.

``If my daughter got a B-plus, she'd know just how close she came to an A,'' Keller said.

``She'd know the next time just how much effort to put in for a higher grade. And with 4-3-2-1, she wouldn't. I'm afraid she's going to lose her incentive.''

Others complained they received little warning from the district about such an immense change, only learning of the system from teachers and principals at back-to-school meetings.

``There wasn't anything at the start of the school year saying, you have a new report card coming out,'' said Cathryn Steinberg, president of the 31-district Parent-Teacher-Student Association which covers the San Fernando Valley. ``We're concerned about that confusion.''

Los Angeles isn't alone in changing its grading system to accommodate the new state standards, which spell out what students should learn in each subject and each grade. The Bonita Unified School District in Los Angeles County and Rialto Unified School District in neighboring Riverside County have similar systems in place. It was unclear Monday whether any other large districts plan to switch.

Doug Stone, a spokesman for the California Department of Education, said that if done right, such systems can help ensure students learn what they should. By pinning grades to state standards, the new systems also make grades easier to compare among different schools and districts.

``It's less subjective,'' Stone said. ``The advantage of doing this is it could end up being a more uniform means of telling parents and students how a student is doing.''

The new LAUSD number grades will be accompanied by guides showing parents what students have to do to earn each number.

The numbers themselves are fairly straightforward:

A 4 in math, for example, indicates the student has mastered all the skills required during that grading period.

A 3 shows proficiency.

A 2 shows partial proficiency.

A 1 indicates no proficiency at all.

``It's a much fairer way and cleaner way to grade a student's performance,'' said Becki Robinson, vice president of the Los Angeles teachers union.

It's unclear why the district didn't simply redefine letter grades rather than changing to numbers.

Herrera said teachers will be encouraged to grade daily assignments and tests with numbers rather than letters to increase familiarity with the system.

The new grades will not apply to middle and high school, where they could complicate the grade-point averages used for college admissions, district officials said.

The scope of change and lack of public discussion has surprised two board members reached Monday.

Although Herrera said the proposal was approved by the board along with a package of other recommendations on promoting students based on new standards, board members Valerie Fields and David Tokofsky said the board did not see any specific proposal for changing report cards.

``There's been no explicit discussion about report cards and any changes,'' Tokofsky said. ``I guess the committee on instruction ought to immediately hold a presentation on what parents are already getting in the mail.''