Twice this week we received emails from teachers who were just beginning to work in collaborative teams. One of the first issues they tackled was grading and homework policies, and they immediately began to disagree. They asked for advice.

My first reaction is to suggest that while the issues these teams have tackled are important, they are not the most critical for a new team to consider. Assuming the primary purpose of their school is to help all students learn, their team should begin its work with questions such as:

1. What is it we want our students to learn? What are the knowledge, skills, and dispositions we expect each student to acquire as a result of each unit we teach in eighth-grade language arts?
2. How will we know if our students are learning? What evidence will we gather and consider collectively to monitor the learning of each of our students?
3. How will our team and our school respond when students don’t learn? Do we have a process in place that ensures students are provided with additional time and support for learning in a timely, directive, and systematic way that does not deprive students of access to new, direct instruction?
4. How will we enrich and extend the learning for students who have demonstrated proficiency?

Two other important questions the team should consider early on are:

1. What are the collective commitments we are prepared to make to each other regarding how we will operate as a team?
2. What are the specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and time-bound goals we are working interdependently to achieve, and for which we hold ourselves mutually accountable?

The questions about grading and homework practices should only be addressed after the team has tackled these critical questions. In fact, we have witnessed teams spend months debating homework policy as a way of avoiding the more substantive issues essential to a team working in a PLC.

When a team does turn its attention to grading and homework, I suggest it considers the excellent blog posting by Bob Eaker and Janel Keating entitled Drilling Deeper in a PLC which offers advice for considering these topics as schoolwide issues. We also address the issues in chapter ten of Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work^TM: New Insights for Improving Schools.

I recommend teams consider these general parameters when discussing establishing team policies:

1. Articulate the assumptions behind a proposed policy and cite evidence (rather than feelings or perceptions) to support your assumptions.
2. Consider whether the proposed policy is aligned with the purpose of ensuring all students learn at high levels.
3. Consider whether the policy will encourage or discourage learning and the effort necessary to learn.

Q. Should we assign homework?
A. Yes!

Q. Why should we assign homework?
A. Because homework helps students learn at higher levels.

Q. Is there evidence to support the assumption that homework helps students learn at higher levels?
A. Yes. Giving students the opportunity to practice skills and to receive precise feedback about the practice will help students learn. Robert Marzano’s synthesis of research confirms this.

Q. Is it likely that some students will not complete their homework on time or choose not to complete their homework at all even if we threaten them with zeros?
A. It is not only likely, it is a virtual certainty!

Q. If we are committed to helping all students learn, and we believe that homework is a critical element in their learning, should students be able to opt out of homework? Shouldn’t we adopt a policy that requires students to act in ways that are essential to their learning?
A. But we can’t "make" students do their work?

Q. There are schools that have established the expectation that students will complete their homework, and they have put structures in place to require students to do so. Why adopt a policy that in effect says, "homework is essential to your learning, but you don’t need to complete homework if you would prefer not to as long as you are willing to fail" when we know some students will choose that option? Do we teach students to be responsible when we allow them to choose to be irresponsible?

Here are a couple of other questions teams might consider:

• Should a student be required to do homework in order to practice skills in which he or she has already clearly demonstrated advanced proficiency?
• Should a student who fails to demonstrate proficiency be required to devote additional time and effort to his or her learning?
• Should a student who has completed that requirement be given another opportunity to demonstrate his or her learning?
• Does providing a student with the opportunity for extra credit contribute to his or her proficiency in essential skills?

When teams begin with the premise of an unrelenting commitment to help all students learn, it will help lead them to the right answers to these questions.