From the beginnings of public education, we've used the same way of grading people in school.  You start at (an assumed) 100, and have to maintain this by turning in all work and getting 100s on all tests.  Get less than 100, your grade goes down.  But assuming you do all your work, and assuming that there are only a few poor grades, it's not entirely impossible to still have an A by the time report cards come around.  In theory, this sounds pretty decent.  However, as a student myself, I notice a few flaws in this system. 

Before my arguments for a change in the grading system, I'd just like to make something painstakingly clear.  Yes, this is all about grades; yes, a persons grade is mostly in their hands; and yes, even with this change, there will still be people with low grades who refuse to do their work.  However, the a persons grades are also dependent on the teacher/class, and the people who do their best to try for a good grade will benefit.

For one, not every class assigns large amounts of work/homework.   Seeing as how the system works based on the percentages of all your works, one foul grade can often times be fatal to a persons grade when you get about 1 actual assignment per week.  In my old Foods I class, I had an A until I missed a notes packet due to sickness.  It dropped down to a C until I turned it in, but due to  the fact that all we ever got were those packets and maybe a few tests, it became ridiculously easy for anyones grade to fall.  On the opposite side of this coin, classes that hand out a ton of small worksheets and a few heavily weighted items tend to have students who rarely do their classwork or homeworks and end up with a B overall; making it unfair to the people who actually try to get a good grade in their classes through work.

In place of a system where the only way to move is down, I like the idea proposed by the Extra Creditz team in their video, "Gameifying Education".  We should be using a system where each assignment has a point value assigned, and by the end of the quarter, your total points overall determines your grade.  Students can tabulate their scores easily because it's simple addition, not multiplying with percentages; it lifts student spirits by showing improvement vs. depreciation; and the self-esteem boost from watching your score rise instead of fall gives kids a greater sense of agency.  The only problem is that it can't fix the Large vs. Small homework assignments.  Suggestions on that one? 

Feel free to post counter-arguments, your ideas, support, etc. below. 

I have to say that it is good how it is now. I like that if you do good at the front of the semester then you can do fairly well from there on and vice versa. I like it how it is now unless you get a teacher that grades tests more heavily.

Well here you either start with nothing and your first grade is your starting grade or you start with an A. I think it needs to be changed but not in those ways.

Oh, the Gameifying Education thing? I watched that, it seems like a good idea. Really, despite the fact that we're supposed to be promoting self-confidence, yet the grading system is very much a system where you can (excluding classes in which you can get a ridiculous amount of extra credit) really only go downhill. However, the score system would force you to grade on a curve, unless you have set a specific amount of "points" for each grade. And it wouldn't be easy to integrate into the current system.

I think you've got a good idea there, but it would be terribly difficult to just up and change the grading system that most schools already use.

I can tolerate the grading system my school has, although I'm making two C's right now...
But 1 simple test and a few good daily grades will easily bring those back up to mid-B's.

Honestly, your way is no different. You are just putting it into different words. The grading system now isn't multiplying by percentages. For each homework assignment, all the percentages tell you is that you got so man points out of a possible amount of points. In your proposal, you don't even tabulate percentages. The teacher keeps track of every point that you earn in your homework, quizzes, exams, projects, etc. At the end of the year, the teacher totals up all the points you have accumulated. But in the end, it doesn't change the fact that you need so many points to get an A, so many points to get a B, etc. And percentages isn't difficult math. You mentioned "Multiplying with percentages". That isn't how you find a percentage. You just divide the number of points you have accumulated by the amount of points possible. That's it. I get that you like the idea of starting from 0 points and watch your points grow as you do assignments and take exams. But honestly, I think that without figuring out the percentage of it, your method is far more frustrating. Unless you know exactly ho many points are possible, The points you have accumulated will mean absolutely nothing. Without a highest possible amount to compare your accumulated points to, you will have little idea on how you are really doing in the class. You won't know what letter grade you have in the class overall until the final report card, and I would hate that. If you don't have that reminder, it is easy to assume you are doing well and it just makes it more upsetting to find out that you weren't in the grade range you thought you were when it is too late to work harder to improve it. So I just don't agree with your proposal simply because in the end, it is the same point system that doesn't actually let you know how well or poor you are doing. 

Every year my school switches from numbers to letters back and forth.

You technically start with an "A" but there are no grades in at the time.  I think the grading scale should be tougher though.

I think the system works just fine as it is. Some of my teachers start everyone off with a zero and add points as the semester goes on. At the end, they divide a students total points by the total possible points to get their average (as a percentage).

I don't see any reason why that system wouldn't work. However, that system has already been used by several of my college professors. One of my professors actually has the class set up so you have the opportunity to get a possible 1000 points. Tests count for a portion, assignments count for another, journals for another, and a special assignment for another portion. So we essentially start out with zero points and go up as we turn in assignments.