When I see the phrase "under the rubric of ...," I know what the writer means. But I've never been sure exactly what a rubric is, so I was puzzled at first when I began to encounter the term "scoring rubric" in articles on education.
It's the trendy term educators use for the paragraphs teachers write to explain the criteria they use to assign descriptive terms to students' work
Here's an example, from a local elementary school, sent to me by a parent who thinks the whole thing is applesauce.
There are four possible outcomes, and the best is:
Strong
(bu) Understands (underline)all(endunder) of the problem and process
(bu)Clear writing and/or drawing explains strategies for the solution
(bu)Shows all math necessary to solve the problem
(bu)Strong ability to select appropriate tools
Next down is .Competent (understands most adequate writing, shows some math); then Developing (understands some, limited writing, shows incorrect math) and last understands little, no writing, shows no math).
I suppse it could happen that an overfond mom who would be in the principal's office demanding to know why her little darling received a failing grade will kick back and hit the mall when she's told instead/hat he's "emerging," but otherwise it's hard to see the point.
A fundamental principle of information theory is that the amount of information depends on the number of choices. If only four grades are possible, it makes no difference whatsoever whether you call them A, B, C and F-or Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.
It's not that the descriptions are bad; most parents would have no trouble at all matching them up with letter grades if they were presented in scrambled order, The.fallacy lies in assuming that making them an official part of the grading adds anything significant to the process.
Yet large numbers of teachers sit in long meetings agonizing over exactly how to phrase their rubrics, and nobody dares to laugh.
You can almost image them as members of a church worship committee trying to write unison prayers, and that strikes just the right historical note. "Rubric originally referred to the red pigment used for chapter headings in manuscripts and early printed books, and for the directions for the conduct of a worship service, traditionally printed in red in liturgical books (courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary).
For worshipers, these are matters of great significance, but no one outside the church cares at all.
Teachers who are believers can even get software to help. A company called Strategic Learning Technologies (sltech.com on the web) advertises a program called "The Rubricator" and I sent away for a demo disk.
It seems a serviceable enough program for its intended use, a considerable timesaver for a teacher whose computer skills are sufficient for operating a good point-and-click program but not for writing his or her own database application.
It's the value of the use I question. A rubricator, the OED says, was someone whose job it was to paint in the red titles in a manuscript; that is, someone who specializes in providing much cherished ornamental flourishes of no practical use. The name is apt.
The company says its "educational 'thoughtware' " is "aligned with current best practice," and they're probably right. So the examples they have crafted to appeal to their teacher audience are enlightening.
One sample Check Sheet for "Levels of Understanding" offers as its best of six levels, "I have a deep appreciation for this concept."
Fine if it's the art of the fugue; maybe not so good if the topic is slavery or genocide.
Targeted results "keep students and teachers focused on how others will benefit." The examples are full of high-flown jargon like "holistic analysis of progress" and "performance artifacts" but the details are either puerile or incomprehensible.
In a three-level rubric for reading, the best performance is 'reader can identify a beginning, middle and end of the story; second best is 'reader thinks there is... "; last is "reader cannot find ...'
Or for more precision, teacher can chose to have five levels instead of three; "for instance, a Level 4 performance would contain some elements of a Level 5 and some of a Level 3," it explains helpfully.
That's no more useful than an A-minus, or a Developing-plus.
At the other end of intelligibility is this description for a "middle School cadre": "to increase the extent to which middle-level students collaboratively design performance criteria to evaluate culminating demonstrations."
	Assessments are to be made by the students themselves, in "self-reflection logs" that remind me of the 	self-criticisms Chinese intellectuals had to write during the Cultural Revolution.
Here's an example from a teacher's self-reflection at the "Developing" stage: to design options "that not only utilize the vast resources of the Internet but more importantly up-level the competencies of my students."
I suppose they're making this up, at least I hope so, but it's so much of a piece with the local example I began with that I think they have their audience dead to rights. That's the scary part.