In the fall 2011 a new grading scale will be implemented in the Swedish school. A government bill suggests a change of the scale from a three- to a six-point scale. The students will also be graded from the sixth class instead of today’s eighth. From the first year of the compulsory school the pupil will get a written judgment. The bill has started a debate in media between those who are for and against the new system. In this thesis I have tried to summarize the debate going on in some major media. What are their opinions, and whose views are heard in the debate? My theoretical starting point is that both ratings and media are socially constructed.

A number of articles were collected, and I had the ambition to select those that I regarded most relevant. Very soon I noticed a certain pattern that the opinion was for: selection, motivation, class, knowledge, information and justice. My review also shows that the debate may not focused around a score against or for the new grading system, but rather about grades per se. The debate highlighted the selection of pupils presented who are not ”chosen”. In the debate about a grade as a motivation for students shows the students taking the grade as a review of their personality. In class discussion, it refers to those students who do not have the necessary conditions. In the debate about knowledge refers to those students whose skills are not reflected in the grade. In discussion about grade as information it is the students who need guidance through an assessment which has been highlighted. The fair debate shows the students who are the losers of today’s three grade levels.

As my title said ”You want to know how things are going in school.” – but who are “You” and what kind of information to “You” want? Is a grade the answer? Nonetheless – the debate will continue, and this is certainly not the last system that is implemented.