Matt Bowman // What if we graded LeBron James like a student?

Roger Federer, widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, shared a powerful insight during a commencement address at Dartmouth last spring.

He noted that while he won an impressive 80% of his 1,526 matches, he only won 54% of the points he played – barely better than a coin flip.

This paradox isn't unique to Federer. Let's consider LeBron James. If we were to grade his basketball performance using traditional academic standards, his "transcript" might look something like this:

How about Simone Biles, the undisputed greatest gymnast ever?  She has “only” won an Olympic medal in 61% of the events where she competed.  Should we give her career a grade of D-?  And if we used a “gold” standard, her score would only be 39%, which would be a failing grade in school.

By these metrics, Federer, James, and Biles would be academic underperformers. The same goes for other sports legends like Cristiano Ronaldo (scores in only 42% of his soccer games) and Tom Brady (64% career completion rate in football).

This disconnect between traditional grading scales and real-world success is not lost on today's students. Whether they're aspiring athletes, dancers, chess players, or e-sports enthusiasts, they can see that making half your shots or winning just over half your points can make you a star, not a failure.

So why do we continue to judge our students by such rigid standards?

In a new blog post, I explore this question and introduce a concept every parent might want to know: Competency-Based Education (CBE) with a “mastered” or “not yet” approach to grading. These approaches could revolutionize how we think about education and student success. In fact, they're already a critical factor in the remarkable achievements we're seeing from students and the high satisfaction reported by parents in our OpenEd program.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Have you experienced the limitations of traditional grading in your child's education? Reply to this email with your story.

– Matt Bowman
Founder, OpenEd