"We can pay teachers a hundred thousand dollars a year, and we'll do nothing to improve our schools as long as we keep the A, B, C, D, F grading system"
About this Quote
William Glasser, the psychiatrist behind Choice Theory and Reality Therapy, argued that the engine of school failure is not teacher effort or salary but the systems that drive behavior. The A-B-C-D-F framework, he believed, sorts and coerces rather than teaches, rewarding compliance and point-chasing while undermining curiosity and mastery. Raise salaries without changing that game, and the incentives, anxieties, and daily routines remain the same: students calculate, teachers police, and learning becomes a transaction.
Letter grades function as a blunt instrument. They compress complex understanding into a single symbol, encourage comparisons over growth, and make fear of failure a dominant motivator. An F is not feedback; it is a label that can become an identity. Even high marks can distort learning, nudging students to avoid risk and select easy tasks to protect their average. The result is teaching to the grade, not to understanding. Glasser saw this as incompatible with how people actually learn, which is through belonging, autonomy, competence, and enjoyment, the basic psychological needs at the core of his theory.
His alternative, developed in works like Schools Without Failure and The Quality School, pushed for assessment that guides improvement: narrative feedback, student-teacher conferences, portfolios, and clear standards tied to revision and mastery. He called for lead management rather than boss management, shifting from external control to shared responsibility so students own their work.
Debates today over standards-based grading and ungrading echo his critique. Pay matters, but culture matters more. If assessment signals that what counts is points, not progress, no amount of compensation will change classroom behavior. Align evaluation with learning, and teacher expertise becomes catalytic; leave the letter-grade regime intact, and it keeps bending everyone back toward ranking, sorting, and compliance. Glasser is reminding us to redesign the system so it serves learning rather than the ledger.
Letter grades function as a blunt instrument. They compress complex understanding into a single symbol, encourage comparisons over growth, and make fear of failure a dominant motivator. An F is not feedback; it is a label that can become an identity. Even high marks can distort learning, nudging students to avoid risk and select easy tasks to protect their average. The result is teaching to the grade, not to understanding. Glasser saw this as incompatible with how people actually learn, which is through belonging, autonomy, competence, and enjoyment, the basic psychological needs at the core of his theory.
His alternative, developed in works like Schools Without Failure and The Quality School, pushed for assessment that guides improvement: narrative feedback, student-teacher conferences, portfolios, and clear standards tied to revision and mastery. He called for lead management rather than boss management, shifting from external control to shared responsibility so students own their work.
Debates today over standards-based grading and ungrading echo his critique. Pay matters, but culture matters more. If assessment signals that what counts is points, not progress, no amount of compensation will change classroom behavior. Align evaluation with learning, and teacher expertise becomes catalytic; leave the letter-grade regime intact, and it keeps bending everyone back toward ranking, sorting, and compliance. Glasser is reminding us to redesign the system so it serves learning rather than the ledger.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teaching |
|---|
More Quotes by William
Add to List
