Many teachers calculate the students’ final grade by having a grading program or spreadsheet average the four quarters and the final.
However, this averaged grade does not represent the students’ highest learning.
For example, if a student had a 70, 75, 80, 85 for each of the four quarters and 90 on the final, that average (with equal weighting) is 80. This grade does not represent the students’ achievement which was a 90.
Why do we not award students’ their highest grade as their final grade as in formative assessment?
A future lawyer can take the bar exam as many times as possible. When the future lawyer passes, the law association accepts that passing; it does not average in previous failures.
Think of the number of young people who take their drivers’ test several times. When they pass, they pass. The Department of Motor Vehicles does not average in the past failures. If they did, many young people would never pass the drivers’ test.
A writer submits a manuscript to a publishing house and the publishing house rejects it (gives it an F). Does the next publishing house refuse it since the manuscript had already been rejected somewhere else?
When will educators not penalize students for previous efforts? When will educators reward student achievement instead of minimizing the achievement?
How do you grade students for their final grade?
My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.
Also, my book, Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.
Education with Technology Harry G. Tuttle 
Harry:
Great Post. Grades are evil. They are extrinsic motivation and studies show that they really don’t motivate. They give students a bar to jump over and once they do that they can stop. It’s not about learning, its about clearing the bar. We need a system without grades, although you point would make it better.
Best,
Doug Green
The problem seems obvious, what if he gets the highest grade first, and the worse one last. You either give her the highest grade she got (making it unnecessary for her to work the rest of the course), or you give her the last grade whatever it is, which creates incentives not to do any effort the rest of the time, or taking any reward from the work done before. As long as there are grades, such a system would be incredible unfair and inefficient. Maybe grades are not the best way to assess accomplishment, but that is a wholly different issue.