School District Drops 'D' Grades 617
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the pass-fail-education dept.
from the pass-fail-education dept.
Students in one New Jersey school district will no longer be able to squeak by in class after the Morris County School Board approved dropping the D grade. Beginning in the fall students who don't get a C or higher will get an F on their report card. "I'm tired of kids coming to school and not learning and getting credit for it," said Superintendent Larrie Reynolds in a Daily Record report.
That won't last long. (Score:4, Interesting)
feh. (Score:5, Interesting)
"We suck at educating our kids, so we'll just change the standards!"
Isn't that a bit like covering up a gaping chest wound with a shirt and pretending like nothing is wrong?
Re:Average (Score:3, Interesting)
if you are below average, why not fail the student and make them redo the work until they become at least average?
Re:How about... (Score:5, Interesting)
But that would make too much sense!
I hate it when people make scales to grade something on, and then never use the damn entirety of the scale. See also game sites that have a 1-10 rating for a game but never really use anything below 7.
I like to think of the 1-6 on that scale as serving the same purpose as the seatbelt. Sure, almost every car trip has no use for the seatbelt, but you are most likely (and rightly so) using it anyway. Should you ever see a 6 or below, being able to comprehend how much it sucks *just might save your life*.
Re:feh. (Score:2, Interesting)
Step in the right direction... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Retarded solution (Score:4, Interesting)
That is an interesting opinion, however you are failing to take into account that there are students there who aren't slacking, but who are not capable of doing the work. The IQ scale doesn't only extend above 100. You will on occasion get a student who can go through the motions, but cannot understand why they are doing it or what the purpose is. These students will not be able to remember the steps all of the time, and they will not (or probably more realistically, should not) pass the course.
However, these same students will have an aptitude somewhere else. For example, I once worked with a student who could not figure out the gas laws to save his life. It would not click. He failed that unit in a bad way. However, you give that guy anything related to a car and he can work miracles with it. These kinds of students need the D's so they can get through high school and into the trade of their choice. Just because you can't do math, science, or english well, doesn't necessarily mean you will not survive in the world.
Obviously there are some basic skills you need, but being able to fix a car will make you decent coin in today's world and you don't necessarily need to know gas laws.
That being said, I think the premise behind this is a good one, however it needs to be backed with a huge support program to enable those students who don't get it to still pass highschool. Good luck doing anything without that diploma these days.
Re:Will it really matter? (Score:4, Interesting)
Generally this is only true for early and middle years. Which is great when you get a student in Grade 9 who can't read. Believe me, kids that age are cruel...it would have been better to fail them and have them on an even playing field with their peers.
Re:Only if grading on a curve do people have to fa (Score:1, Interesting)
Although this is only ok, if the class of all A students is balanced by classes of other years. Else, the grading system consists of arbitrary standards that are only relevant to that specific course, at that specific school. In a truly perfectly designed test, the average would actually be a 50%. This would allow for the greatest resolution of the classes abilities. A grade of a "C" would correlate to 50%, and the test would be normed over districts/class years. If the students are smart, they should get better grades, although a grade of B generally represents "above average". By changing the scale, a grade of "B" will be redefined as average, and remove all comparability that the grade is intended to represent. It does not, actually make the school better.
Re:How about... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:How about... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, educators already fuck around with extra credit. I took an intro Psych class this spring and it was ridiculously easy. Our prof handed out 15% in bonus marks! Six of that was department-mandated study bait ("participate in this psych study and get 2%!" up to 3 times), 8% were stupidly easy "bonus assignments" ("write a 1 page paper on what you've learned in this class so far") which was essentially a reward for showing up to class, and then a bonus question on the final worth an extra 1% of your final grade (not, y'know, one point on the final).
Our prof got all excited when someone managed a 99% final grade, like it was something stupendous... but when you realize it was really only a 84% on the tested material, it's not nearly as impressive. But hey, look at that class average!
Funny thing was the other course I took in the spring was a math course, where the average was 55% (which was also the "D" cut-off line). Quite a contrast going from one class where literally every second person enrolled went on to fail, to a class where you would have to blank an EEG *to* fail.
Re:Will it really matter? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How about... (Score:3, Interesting)
E was never included in the scale because it was already used in the existing scale, which went:
E = Excellent
S = Satisfactory
N / NI = Needs Improvement
U = Unsatisfactory
Re:How about... (Score:3, Interesting)
The need to learn that winning is better than losing.
Oh, children learn that at a very early age. Around the same age they learn (usually from their parents) that cheating is the easiest, and in some cases the only, way to win. Schools don't make children weak, lazy, or stupid. Parents do.
Re:How about... (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was teaching, I only used Ds for mid-term grades, to let students know that they were in danger of failing. I didn't think it was right to give someone a failing grade when the semester wasn't over yet, but I never gave a D as a final grade. If their work wasn't good enough for a C, it wasn't good enough to pass. So it was "D" for "Danger".
I would definitely give Ds on papers or tests, though, in cases where students made some effort but had really missed the boat. The only Fs on papers were those that were not handed in or had other fatal flaws, such as work "paraphrased" from Cliff's Notes.
Re:How about... (Score:1, Interesting)
That same scale is one of the things I hate about rating netflix - there are a lot of movies that fit on the 3.5 rating - better than okay, but not quite "like" and fit on a 4.5 rating i.e. "very good" but not "great".
Re:How about... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm. To be honest, I don’t like curved grades and even in your case I don’t think a curved grade was the way to go.
A “wake-up call” is a good tool, but I can see a few better ways than scaring everyone into thinking they failed and then basically giving everyone a free exam score after you apply the curve.
a) Make it worth something really trivial, like 2% of the grade – or nothing, even. Make a big deal of the fact that the rest of the exams are going to be just as hard, so they’d better get down to business if they expect to pass the class. Don’t tell them ahead of time how little it’s worth, though, or they’ll blow it off.
b) Allow them to throw out their lowest exam score. Upon going over the syllabus, of course, they’re going to think that they have room to relax because they get a freebie... but the first exam will come as a real surprise and they’ll have to buckle down for the remainder of the class. This is basically the same as option a, but the students will take it more seriously. Plus when you return it, you can tell them outright that this was the entire reason you give them one free exam, as you expect most all of them will be taking this as their freebie, and you hope they all realise that this is serious business now.