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Basically the lowest grade you can get for anything is a 50, even if you never turn it in.
I might understand a healthy curve for students that attempt the work and maybe not get it. Not turning in anything and still getting half credit seems way over the top.
I'm curious what folks think of this and if your district does this.
Policy like this would greatly impact grades, especially in poorly performing areas but the increase is artificial bull****. This isn't grading on a curve, it's academic welfare.
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Our district doesn't do that for individual assignments, but for 6 week grades. The lowest you can get is a 50 6 week grade, that goes into your semester average.
Because giving a student lower than 50 makes it mathematically impossible to pass, and they give up. And then they drop out and the taxpayer money is wasted.
If they make a 50 each 6 week grading period, they fail. If they do it one time and then do much better, they pass.
IMHO, public school shouldn't be cut-throat, with weedout classes and a weedout mentality. The mentality should be to work as hard as you can to get the students to the point of academic mastery of the information, not punitively failing them.
Our district doesn't do that for individual assignments, but for 6 week grades. The lowest you can get is a 50 6 week grade, that goes into your semester average.
Because giving a student lower than 50 makes it mathematically impossible to pass, and they give up. And then they drop out and the taxpayer money is wasted.
If they make a 50 each 6 week grading period, they fail. If they do it one time and then do much better, they pass.
IMHO, public school shouldn't be cut-throat, with weedout classes and a weedout mentality. The mentality should be to work as hard as you can to get the students to the point of academic mastery of the information, not punitively failing them.
I think we understand part of what you're saying.
But why should get 50% credit for doing 0% work.
When you hire a person to do a job at your house, do you pay them 50% of the agreed upon pay even if they do no work?
I don't think it's a good lesson in life.
It'd be better just to use a different grading scale altogether. Maybe grade assignments on a 4 point scale like a GPA since that's already familiar and understood.
Basically the lowest grade you can get for anything is a 50, even if you never turn it in.
I might understand a healthy curve for students that attempt the work and maybe not get it. Not turning in anything and still getting half credit seems way over the top.
I'm curious what folks think of this and if your district does this.
Policy like this would greatly impact grades, especially in poorly performing areas but the increase is artificial bull****. This isn't grading on a curve, it's academic welfare.
This policy makes a lot of sense. Suppose a student has 3 assignments. The student misses one and does well on the two others. If missed assignments are a zero the grades could be 0,93,93. The average grade would be a failing 62.
If the missed assignment is scored at 50, the average of 50,93 & 93 would be a 78.7. Which sounds like a more fair grade for someone with two excellent assignments and one missed assignment?
In a more realistic example suppose there are 10 assignments. Suppose a struggling student gets 9 grades of 75 and one zero. The average is a 67.5=F. So if they get one zero the student might as well give up for the year since they could never catch up in this example.
In contrast if the failing grade was a 50 this student would have an average of 72.5 which would be barely passing and a more reasonable result. (9x75+50)/10
This teacher deserved to be fired for refusing to follow the school district policy!
No grade lower than a 50 has been the new hot lick in education the last several years. My former system didn't mandate it but some Principals strongly "encouraged" it.
I don't know about now since I retired a few years ago while it was being played with.
There is some logic to it since a kid who gets a 17 the first two quarters, if percentages are used instead of letter grades, can't mathematically pass for the year so he now has free rein to cause havoc the 2nd semester, which is then a classroom management issue. And don't kid yourselves, the vast majority of kids who failed my classes over the years (an admittedly small number) had nearly 100% attendance.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
I think we understand part of what you're saying.
But why should get 50% credit for doing 0% work.
When you hire a person to do a job at your house, do you pay them 50% of the agreed upon pay even if they do no work?
I don't think it's a good lesson in life.
Because the two goals are completely different.
One goal is to re-roof your house for a fair market price.
The other is to educate the children in the community and prepare them to be successful in the marketplace of jobs so that they can support themselves without assistance, and will be the future workforce the community needs.
That's why, when you have roofers who don't show up or work really slowly or do a bad job, you fire them.
And that's why when you have a child in school who keeps failing assignments/not turning them in, you don't say well, this isn't working out, don't come back. You say keep coming back, and keep trying, and we'll give you extra tutoring and do-overs until you can master the material and pass the EOC (end of course exam).
This policy makes a lot of sense. Suppose a student has 3 assignments. The student misses one and does well on the two others. If missed assignments are a zero the grades could be 0,93,93. The average grade would be a failing 62.
If the missed assignment is scored at 50, the average of 50,93 & 93 would be a 78.7. Which sounds like a more fair grade for someone with two excellent assignments and one missed assignment?
In a more realistic example suppose there are 10 assignments. Suppose a struggling student gets 9 grades of 75 and one zero. The average is a 67.5=F. So if they get one zero the student might as well give up for the year since they could never catch up in this example.
In contrast if the failing grade was a 50 this student would have an average of 72.5 which would be barely passing and a more reasonable result. (9x75+50)/10
This teacher deserved to be fired for refusing to follow the school district policy!
Seriously, if a kid doesn't turn in an assignment they're going to turn in all the others with excellent work?
More likely, they would get 50, 60, and 70 or a D not C.
And when did schools stop teaching responsibility and punctuality? Why not make them repeat the grade if they fail? Or would that be too hard on their self esteem?
I say this teacher should receive kudos for revealing a failed school system in this country, one which requires an ever higher percentage of kids to take remedial courses before entering college.
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