Why we are building Notegrade

Writing is how students learn to think in full sentences, and grading it well takes a teacher a long time. We want to give that time back without taking the judgment away.

What we saw

Many teachers have moved essays back into the classroom, because an essay written at home may not be the student’s own work anymore. That fixes one problem and leaves another: a stack of handwritten or loosely typed essays, a rubric, and the same comments written again and again late at night.

The tools that offer to help usually do one of two things. They grade for the teacher, which students rightly dislike, or they hand down a verdict about a student without showing the reasons. We did not want to build either one.

What we are building instead

Students write in class, on a plain page with AI tools off. Notegrade drafts scores from the teacher’s own rubric and from essays the teacher has already scored, and points to the exact words behind every deduction. The teacher accepts or rejects each one and decides the grade. Nothing reaches a student until the teacher has reviewed it.

We keep student writing private, we never use it to train AI, and we try to say plainly what Notegrade records and why.

Who we are

Notegrade was started by Matt Schottland. He has worked in classrooms helping teachers use technology to raise scores, on a platform used by more than 10,000 students.

Where we are

Notegrade is new, and we are piloting it with teachers now. We do not have results to share yet, and we will not publish numbers until a pilot has measured them. If you teach writing and want to try it with one class, sign in as a teacher.