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Las Vegas high-school English teacher Laura Jeanne Penrod initially thought the grading changes at her school district made sense. Under the overhaul, students are given more chances to prove they have mastered a subject without being held to arbitrary deadlines, in recognition of challenges some children have outside school.
But students seemed to learn how to game the system.
Quote:
Soon after the system was introduced, however, Ms. Penrod said her 11th-grade honors students realized the new rules minimized the importance of homework to their final grades, leading many to forgo the brainstorming and rough drafts required ahead of writing a persuasive essay. Some didn’t turn in the essay at all, knowing they could redo it later.
“They’re relying on children having intrinsic motivation, and that is the furthest thing from the truth for this age group,” said Ms. Penrod, a teacher for 17 years.
Numerous school districts around the US are implementing equitable grading in one form or another. It appears the common thread is to measure subject mastery -- without penalties for behavior or failure to turn in assignments on time (or turn them in at all).
Proponents of the approach -- frequently paid consultants -- say it benefits students with after-school responsibilities, such as a job or caring for siblings, as well as those with learning disabilities.
Others criticize it as implementing "Too Dumb To Fail." They say in real life, once you have a job, you can’t pick and choose what tasks you want to do. Some teachers say lessons drag on and on and on now because students can turn in work until right before grades are due.
As a retired teacher, I saw many changes put in place over the years that were targeted at trying to help the bottom 25% of students "succeed." The sad thing is, most of these students were going to struggle no matter what interventions were put into place due to factors outside the school system's control (poverty, terrible home life, no parental support, etc.)
This isn't to say everything shouldn't be done to try to support all students and give them a good education, but I disagree with the concept that highly motivated students should be sacrificed for this goal, and that is what has happened.
Some things I saw various schools implement:
-Where classes like math and ELA used to be offered at honors (pre-AP), advanced, regular levels, the principal went in and changed it to where the only two offerings on campus would be regular or pre-AP. Her argument was that by separating out the lowest level students from the best students on campus, we weren't providing them with role models. So at that point, as a parent, you had to choose if you wanted your child to be a pre-AP student, or in regular level. For some that work was too hard and they struggled and there was then also pressure on the teachers who had formerly truly taught those courses at a pre-AP level to water it down to include the former middle level advanced kids who now didn't want to get stuck in the regular level classes.
-Policies where teachers were not allowed to fail kids below a 50. Teachers had to give unlimited opportunities to make work up. The responsibility changed from when I first started teaching (and like it was when I was a kid) where students being required to copy work assignments off the blackboard into a journal and keep track of their work THEMSELVES, into teachers being required to post EVERY homework and class assignment online. It became a "gotcha" thing for parents where instead of them getting on their child for not doing their homework, they went to the principal because the teacher didn't have the math worksheet scanned and up on the website where Johnny could download it when he lost it. So dumbing down of responsibilities for kids, teachers handing out easier A's to avoid conflict with helicopter parents due to bad climate by admin designed not to hold kids responsible for doing their own work.
-Too much focus by admin on making the numbers look good as far as discipline and "stats" go rather than supporting teachers in the classroom. i.e. not wanting to suspend or discipline students of a certain group due to the state tracking that data so the student is sent back to class to continue disrupting learning for all.
We have heard a lot of talk about the "dumbing down" in our schools, with the liberal theories about tests being biased and discriminatory to minorities. When grading is changed in the name of "equity" to help the least productive kids improve their scores, the "average" kids end up on the honor roll. Unfortunately that helps no one, as the slower kids end up graduating on time with a decent GPA but are still not well enough educated to get a job.
Liberal theories? Are they communist, socialist theories that are also indoctrinated and grooming the kids? Perhaps they're gay and into dressing in drag and encouraging sex changes too?
As a retired teacher, I saw many changes put in place over the years that were targeted at trying to help the bottom 25% of students "succeed." The sad thing is, most of these students were going to struggle no matter what interventions were put into place due to factors outside the school system's control (poverty, terrible home life, no parental support, etc.)
The simple truth is the bottom 25% of students do not matter.
Across all the disciplines - physics, literature, mathematics, fine arts, economics, psychology, chemistry, engineering, performing arts, history, sociology, computer science, political science, cosmology, religion, etc etc etc -- across all the disciplines, true breakthroughs & progress is the result of the extraordinary efforts of a tiny percentage of truly remarkable people. Ninety-nine percent of us do not matter. We are just along for the ride.
The simple truth is the bottom 25% of students do not matter.
Across all the disciplines - physics, literature, mathematics, fine arts, economics, psychology, chemistry, engineering, performing arts, history, sociology, computer science, political science, cosmology, religion, etc etc etc -- across all the disciplines, true breakthroughs & progress is the result of the extraordinary efforts of a tiny percentage of truly remarkable people. Ninety-nine percent of us do not matter. We are just along for the ride.
you don't see a problem with that? Only the top percent of people/performers should matter?
This is all dependent on how you measure or decide what is true intelligence. I do think kids have more access to things that can further their understanding regarding reading, mathematics, and problem solving. Parents are getting better equipped to provide opportunities and are starting to educate their kids at a younger age. We're having our first and already are planning various ways we can further our childs development and interest in learning.
My grandmother made the comment about how many toys for infants are geared towards introducing them to words and numbers. In her day a rattle or stuff toy would be the only thing considered appropriate because people assumed babies didn't need to absorb that information. As such kids tend to start talking with actual meaning much younger then in her day.
Of course this is going to all be dependent on the parents. Some care about giving their kids a head start or the extra boost. That usually leads to kids developing skills and understanding concepts sooner than peers that don't have the extra parental effort. Unfortunately some parents leave it up to the education system which ultimately is limited dependent on the area and were the majority of kids land developmentally. But I've found many lower educated parents push their kids more to overcome the problems they faced. It's the middle of the road folks that seem to create kids that also don't care and end up being average to low level students.
We live in Vegas and see the majority of kids in public schools struggle in subjects my husband and I flourish in at similar age groups. Meanwhile the private school kids tend to be advanced beyond us adult in some subjects and match higher than average scores of knowledge comparably. It's clear the parents that work hard to put education and knowledge at the forefront end up having smarter kids.
you don't see a problem with that? Only the top percent of people/performers should matter?
Actually what I see is that being in the top 10% is a choice. People get to choose whether or not that is what they want, but most opt for whatever is the easiest route, and no, I suppose they don't matter much in the overall scheme of things. Many of the cogs are interchangeable. It's probably less than 1% of the population who really make a difference in life that very few people would have thought of or managed to carry off.
I agree, I think there as been a concerted move to have a more lenient grading policy in our public school district. The number of honor roll and National Honor Society members has skyrocketed over the 22 years our five children have attended. I'm guessing the change in policy has a number of roots: equity, aggressive helicopter parents, the phasing out of standardized testing for college applicants.
Grading is much easier.
Even in colleges, grade inflation is rampant.
SAT scores now have been inflated by about 100 points (maybe more like 150 from the links in this discussion-it was recentered in 1995, 2005 and again in 2016: https://talk.collegeconfidential.com...harder/2013694
Kids can do some things better, but are much weaker in other areas.
I have been impressed by some of the linkedin accounts i've seen of kids still in college. Based on their online presence they don't appear to be fat, lazy or stupid. I also think social media presence and what people are actually really doing can be deceiving/misleading. But either way there are some college kids doing a lot more than I did in college so it seems.
The top kids aren't kids anymore! The resumes are pretty impressive. Starting businesses (more than lawn care), creating charities, building houses in the 3rd world while working an internship in Europe!!!
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Are they communist, socialist theories that are also indoctrinated and grooming the kids? Perhaps they're gay and into dressing in drag and encouraging sex changes too?
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