Apart from those among us who are teachers as well as parents, people in general don't know that it's not only students who hate grades. Teachers hate them too. Try a Google Search on "Grading Papers" and you'll see...

Sure, alternative schools back in the sixties came up with better ways, more suited, at least, to those times; but they didn't stick. It's not only that we like to reward excellence. Most of us also find ways to challenge ourselves, once we're past the years of formal education. As for the workplace, it may exchange terms (issues for problems, concerns for grievances, objectives for goals...) but, after we've encountered a couple of environments without either job-descriptions or reporting structure, we'd rather not meet them again.

So is there, in fact, any consensus on evaluating what people -- especially kids -- are doing? I looked, and I found that there is.

In the myriads of sites on the subject, the listing about a Supreme Court ruling grabbed my attention first. It seems that a parent in Oklahoma filed a class-action suit against a teacher who set up teams of students to grade each other's work. (Uh-oh, I've done this myself in large classes with overwhelming workloads). Not-too-bad-ending: the Supreme Court ruled that was OK. The decision, written by Justice Kennedy, says: "The Court of appeals erred in concluding that an assignment satisfies the definition of education records as soon as it is graded by another student." Also: "Correcting a classmate's work can be as much a part of the assignment as taking the test itself." Sigh of relief: I had, of course, carefully reviewed criteria with the students. Evidently the Justices cold see this happening and took no exception.

I decided I could broaden my inquiry. The next thing that grabbed me was WAC -- Writing Across Curriculum, from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. It starts with 10 clear ways of evaluating a report. They're likeable. I urge you to see them online. I longed to email these to every politician I know.

A page on the University of Minnesota site deals specifically with Math grading. "Criteria common to math assignments include: clear representation of sequential reasoning integration of numeric and alphabetic phrases mathematical accuracy adequately developed justification for solutions" Now who could argue with that?

Two other higher education sources turned out to be my next-best bets. University of Oregon has a page called "Teacher Effectiveness -- Short Answer Tests" that suggests a four-step process.

• Generate criteria based on the purpose of the assignment, and share those criteria with students in handouts.

• Collect papers and skim them into four piles: High, Medium High, Medium Low, Low.

• Read each paper and assign a preliminary grade in pencil.

• Ask "Is this what you mean? How does it connect to the main idea?" (It sounds as if, like me, she teaches by asking questions.)

Best of all, the author of this four-step process wants to hear from us: she's Georgeanne Cooper at 541-346-2177.

The last site I though was outstanding was the one for the Grinnell College, Iowa, Writing Program, renowned for its excellence. Faculty member Jim Dillon gives his student papers an A, B, C, or D according to the criteria he sets out at the Grinnell College website. It may not be new, but it still works.

Teachers, to ease their pain, like to joke among themselves that they just throw the pile at a flight of stairs and see who comes out on top. Late at night, it's quite a different story.