The benefits of portfolio assessment far outweigh the drawbacks in my opinion. However districts, schools, parents, and teachers differ in their opinions regarding traditional grades and standardized tests. The main caveat for many seems to be with applying standard grading to assess portfolios. Another issue has been storing students work. This is becoming less important in the advent of didgital portfolios. Students can take home the original documents and still maintain electronic copies for their portfolios. Time is the other thing that deters many teachers from using portfolios. With digital portfolios, students can be allotted a short time each week to upload, scan, and reflect on items they are submitting. The teacher can then spend less than an hour responding electronically to the students submissions and reflections.
The last two years that I did paper portfolios, there was an entire day spent each semester just sitting and conferencing with each child to determine what they wanted to include and why. I hope that the process will be much smoother in the coming school year.
As far as grading goes, I use Exceeding, Meeting, Progressing Toward, or Below Expectations for academic work and then there is a second grade for effort.
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