School District Drops 'D' Grades 617
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.
How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well also, to be fair, most modern games are "okay but bland" at worst (aka a 7, which is funnily enough usually the equivalent of about a C- or D+). The GP is complaining because they don't calibrate the 1-10 scale against other games; they calibrate it against some absolute enjoyment scale.
For instance, I disliked GTA 4, but I would have still given it a 7 - it wasn't bad, it just wasn't especially good. When a studio pours millions of dollars into a game, you're guaranteed get something that's at least okay.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Funny)
Or maybe they could assign letter grades, like A B C D and F.....
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the original article:
"In todays world, youve either got it, or you dont, Kentucky principal Steve Frommeyer said. Theres no opportunity to just be OK. "
People with this line of thought who are teaching anything below university level (i.e. before children/teens have decided what they want to do with their lives) need to get fired yesterday, and be permanently banned from any teaching position. They destroy lives, literally, by forcing children to be "either great or dead".
We no longer live in the caves, and most learning issues, especially at age that young are not "excel or die". People who disagree are in the wrong profession.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is hardly an either/or situation. If a C- correlates to knowing 70% of the material, then that is the bare minimum a student must know to pass a course. This isn't requiring that you need to know 100% of everything that is taught. Heck, it's only about 2/3 of what is taught, which is really pretty pathetic.
If the student has a learning disability and is unable to learn 70% of the material, then that doesn't mean that they should just get credit. It means that they shouldn't be in the class, or need
There's nothing magical about 70% (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. Kids' egos have been so coddled, from the removal of losing teams in sports games to passing everyone in a class so nobody feels bad for themselves, that they grow up with an unwarranted sense of entitlement and accomplishment. We have a lot of selfish, spoiled people today because of this crap, and the rest of us who actually work for things are supporting everyone else to a greater degree than ever before.
The principal's statement made sense to me--he's saying you can't just skate by in the real world but must put in effort. It's not hard to pass elementary school. At that level, it's all about basic effort. Flunking a kid who would have skated by is doing him or her a service, failing them so they can retake the course or retry the test.
Nobody's lives are being destroyed ("literally") by requiring them to pass in school. Your statement about living in caves makes no sense, because we had to be even less lazy back then, learning how to hunt and build shelters or starve to death. Your precious self-esteem mattered little.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (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: (Score:3, Insightful)
sorry, blatently false (Score:3, Informative)
There are millions of "average drivers" on the roads.
Women certainly do mate with the mediocre plain guy...look at all the married mediocre plain guys.
You can certainly "just get buy" in life. You work a basic low-level job, rent a crappy apartment, don't go out much, etc.
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's cheaper, yes, they often do.
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Life sucks, the world sucks, and your friends will throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if it gives them an advantage.... get used to it.
Reminder to self: Don't ever make friends with Lumpy.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Funny)
I hate it when people make scales to grade something on, and then never use the damn entirety of the scale.
That, good sir, is because this scale can only be played in dropped D.
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate it when people make scales to grade something on, and then never use the damn entirety of the scale.
I don't think you understand the "scale" in use here. The scale is of passing grades, and it was and is used in its entirety. They've simply truncated off the bit of the scale that used to mean "passing" and now means "failing", because "failing" grades don't have a place on the scale at that school any more.
For the alphabetically-challenged, "F" is not "the letter after D" - that would be the letter "E".
"F" is an abbreviation meaning "Fail". It means "you are not within the scale of passing grades, you are below it, and you failed. No cookie!"
In programming, "F" would be equivalent to null.
Most importantly, the letters are only an abbreviation for the actual percentages, probably so they fit on a report card more easily and with less writing on the teacher's part. The actual percentages are really what count, and I assure you they still go from 0% to 100% as per standard mathematical principles.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They are not getting rid of 'F's they are getting rid of 'D's.
You have earned a 'D' for reading comprehension; And I think you know what 'D' means now...
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes you are. That's what this article is about. They are no longer giving credit for Ds. Thereby removing Ds from the grading system. If Ds don't give credit, then a D = F.
Logically, you would remove F and give failing student Ds so you have A, B, C and D, but whatever floats your boat.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the grades could be "Excellent", "Awesome", "Doing Really Very Well" and "Not Left Behind", so as to comply with government standards for education.
Will it really matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, from what I understand, schools just plain do not hold anyone back because they fail...they just continue to promote them on to the next grade regardless of their level of learning the material.
Can't hurt Junior's self esteem you know...
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:Will it really matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, from what I understand, schools just plain do not hold anyone back because they fail...they just continue to promote them on to the next grade regardless of their level of learning the material.
Depends on the school district, around here they can only hold them back once, then they have to advance them. It isn't about self esteem, not entirely anyway, if the kids don't do well (don't pass), the state cuts funding and fucks it up for everyone. Fuck up too much, and the school has to close, overloading the other schools and the slow downward spiral continues. Teacher salaries are also based on standardized test scores; which is extra fun if you teach special needs kids who either don't take them or cannot do that well. The state of affairs in the public school system here is beyond reckoning, and every "attempt" to fix it just seems to make it worse.
Re:Will it really matter? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Better yet, why not pass or fail? Or to be touchy feely, maybe "meets standard", "exceeds standard" or "doesn't meet standard"?
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Remove D, by itself, wouldn't do anything. That's not what they are doing though. They are not letting anyone who gets 69% and lower to pass. Hence, they now have two redundant grades, so they are eliminating one of them. Given that everyone associates F with Fail, it makes sense to get rid of D.
Not sure why this is as confusing as it is. My guess would be that a few people got 'D's in their english classes.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Little johnny ( and his parents ) can look at the percentage and figure it out then.
Or maybe, just maybe, seeing a big red F on a report card might motivate his parents to contact the teacher and find out why their child is failing..maybe encouraging them to actually get involved in the child's education.
Note: The actual percentage of children who are trying and still fail is ridiculously low. As in, you won't find a single one in your average highschool. If it takes an unqualified F to get child/parents
Re:How about... (Score:5, Informative)
I taught some classes for the Computer Science department at a local university. Initially I was worried that it would be a difficult process to decide who passes and who fails at the lower end of the class. But as it turned out there was never any difficulty. Most students came to class, tried their best, and got A's, B's, and some that had difficulty with the subject got C's. The others rarely showed up, never handed in any projects, and basically signed their names on tests.
There weren't any in the middle.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Little johnny ( and his parents ) can look at the percentage and figure it out then.
I get the feeling that if little Johnny could figure out percentages then he wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Many colleges don't give credit for some courses, especially courses in your major, if you get a D, but they still maintain the D grade.
There's also the fact that in a standard GPA calcul
Re: (Score:2)
The GP does have a good point though. A D, even if it's a failing grade, means "you didn't pass, but you came close. Just try a little harder and you can pass next time," whereas an F says "You weren't even close to passing. You really need to radically rethink your study strategy and/or go into a different field."
I don't recall ever taking too many classes where I didn't know roughly how well I was doing long before the end of the class. Doesn't a student typically already know if they were close or not to passing? The test you got back with a 54 or the homework you handed in for a 62 or the quiz you got an 83 on all gave pretty exacting performance metrics. Most classes I took in middle school and higher even had introductory handouts on the weighting of the different types of assignments/tests so that I could c
Re: (Score:2)
Unless both you and your teacher are terminally out to lunch, you'll know what your numbers are. Good students typically keep an eye on them if they are in dangerous territory, and good teachers spend a lot of time hounding bad students about pulling their numbers up a bit.
There is also the fact that, at all but the most control-freaky instit
Re: (Score:2)
If you're not going to get credit for a D, what's the difference between a D and an F?
As it stands now, however, the only way to really get a D, and in many cases a C, in most schools is to fail to put in any effort. B+ is the new C, and C is the new D. Dropping the D grade only ensures that the people who weren't trying don't get free credit, for now. Soon enough, however, parents will pressure teachers to give their kids C's instead of the failing grade that they deserve and the scale will move again. Rig
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or they could make it a bit harder to get a D... Simply you get a passing grade if you deserve to pass...
Oblig:
Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
Re: (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 e
Re:How about... (Score:5, Informative)
How about just not giving credit for D's?
Then next it will be C's. How about we just jump to the end and go pass/fail.
The problem isn't that students are getting D's. The problem is grade inflation where everyone needs to get an A or they're a loser, and school districts that can't bring themselves to actually fail a student so they give them a D and move the cattle along.
Once upon a time, C didn't mean mediocre, it meant average. A's and B's were for students that went above and beyond the school's expectations. A D was a signal that parents/teachers needed to invest some time helping that child master a given subject.
When I was in public school the district used the ESMIF grading scale.
E - excellent
S - superior
M - medium or average
I - inferior
F - failure
Now suppose that any place you performed below average you were considered a failure.
This is all sleight of hand to get the public to look at a new shiny thing while districts and communities continue to fail the next generation of children.
There is some hope though. Some school districts are experimenting with going with subject master rather than grade advancement. Here is what the Kansas City Mo school district is trying to turn around a dying educational program. [usatoday.com]
And here is a little more in-depth presentation. Mastery Learning [valdosta.edu]
I would take it one step further, I would say there is only 1 passing grade. You have either mastered the subject or you have not.
The approach is a simple concept. If a student quickly masters a subject they can take a test and move on. If they haven't, then the teacher provides more instruction and study material until the student masters the topic. It would lead to schools allocating resources more efficiently to students; more to those that need them and less to those that do not. While that might not seem fair to parents who have 'smart kids', you have to realize that your child is going to have subjects where they excel and subjects where they struggle.
And if you must have some my kid is smarter than yours measurement, it can be the time it takes to master all the required subjects or the number of additional subjects mastered before graduation.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Informative)
Now you are redefining everything, and making B's and A's much less valuable.
C was supposed to be the average grade.
D was acceptably below average.
F was unacceptably below average.
B was above average.
A was exceptionally above average.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up.
This latest action is really just grade inflation in disguise. The truth is, everybody expects A and B grades now; in essence, that everyone in the class should be above average, as if we all lived in some Garrison Keillor-esque world. "A" doesn't mean anything anymore. It's not good enough because now you have to have a 5.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale. It's stupid.
I think letter grades should be done away with entirely, and a numeric scale used instead, normalized to the maximum credit possible. A letter grade ends up being too subjective and thus prone to manipulation, inflation, or ambiguity in interpretation. A number that is guaranteed to fall between 0 and 100, for example, fixes some of these issues--at least, until educators start messing around with giving "extra credit."
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: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (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 the
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Get with the times. The modern scales go like this:
AAA+: Must invest
AAA: Good investment
AA: Getting dodgey
A: Risky Bet
BBB: These guys couldn't even bri^H^H^Hpay us to give them a higher rating.
BB: Get out now
B: Just kidding, you can't actually get one this low.
Another good scale is the modern video game rank system (Which makes more sense given how bastardized the original system has become)
D: You sucked at this
C: You tried, you passed.
B: You actually put some effort in
A: You were really good at this
S: You aced this section.
At least the S rank does away with bastardizations like A+++, A* or AAA+, etc. In effect the S rank is the sane answer to what these ridiculous higher granulations have done to the original grading system. At least S has a definite meaning. Unfortunately, things like SS and SSS rank again crept in.
Re: (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:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Except for one minor point: that class you got a D in, while part of your major, may have no bearing on your career plans and is simply there so you can have a rounded education in your field.
For example, someone taking a degree in Information Systems has to take programming courses even though they may never program anything after that class. If they get a D, why penalize them for something they'll never use?
Fixed percentages as grade markers? (Score:4, Insightful)
What I'm having trouble wrapping my heads around is that there are schools that use fixed percentages as grade markers. That means if you make a test you need to precisely target the questions to achieve an 85% average. That probably means you need to make 50% of the questions so easy that nobody could get them wrong. It also means you can't make any significant fraction hard enough to test the knowledge of the people in the A range. Maybe teachers aren't allowed to make their own exams anymore?
It also means (and I've seen this and heard reports from friends) that these students will have no idea how to handle grades in college. When I teach I like to target exams at an average of 50 out of 100. College freshmen from these schools will panic when the get a 30% on an exam, even if that turns out to be an A. Then they call their parents and their parents call me explaining why Johnny really needs to get into med school. In my dreams, I explain to them why Johnny should drop the class if he can't understand that an A is a good score.
Hard exams are a good thing. They tell you how everyone in the class is doing, not just the below average people. I had a multiple-choice/multiple-answer exam when I was in college where the high was 9 out of 100. I got a -6 (which was an A). The average was -28. It was a damn hard exam, and it really tested our knowledge, but 15% of the class still got an A.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
If done the way TFS says, it's a good thing.
The problem is that teachers don't want to fail students, so the D students will get Cs instead of Fs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If done the way TFS says, it's a good thing.
The problem is that teachers don't want to fail students, so the D students will get Cs instead of Fs.
Yup.
Frankly, I'm surprised folks are getting D's and F's in the first place. It seems like you'd have to actually try to get grades that low these days.
Re: (Score:2)
I worked at a school that did exactly this, and you're right, the pressure was still there to pass kids.
Two things made this somewhat successful:
1. The 'marginal' range did move up. So while maybe you're allowing just as many close-but-not-quites to get C's as you would have with D's, the bar for 'marginal' was definitely higher.
2. The administration was behind it. They were very clear: if a kid should not get credit, give them an F.
So, like i said, some success. More than none.
Re: (Score:2)
That's my worry. The logic here makes sense, as long as they don't "grade inflate" the former D students up to C.
The problem is, they likely will do that.
That won't last long. (Score:4, Interesting)
I like it! (Score:2, Insightful)
With the crazy rash of pansying up our youth over the last few decades, I welcome a little ass-kicking.
Re: (Score:2)
Old news (Score:2)
They did this while I was in high school ten years ago.
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: (Score:2)
The way I understand the change, it's like opening the gaping wound more so that a medic can get in there to fix that artery.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:feh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:feh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering my wife is a 3rd grade special ed teacher, I assure you that I know what you're talking about :-) Still, I don't blame teachers so much as the curriculum. Public schooling in this country is designed to teach kids how to pass a standardized test, not to expand their knowledge.
Regardless of crappy teachers, crappy parents, or crappy students, you can't expect people to learn if you are training them to pass a test.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the parents are spending those 1-2 hours teaching their kids that "dat edumacashun thang" isn't worthwhile it won't matter what a teacher tries to accomplish in their 6-8 hours.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Fast track to Binary (Score:4, Insightful)
Soon enough it is going to be Pass/Fail only.
Why bother with grades at all...either you suck, or you don't. THats at least what these educators seem to be getting to.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I don't understand the grading scale at all.
it seems like it's just a way for people to justify their own anal retentiveness. Either you understand the material and you should move on in your education or you don't. GPAs have done a coup d'grace on civility in higher academia with everyone competing to be top of the class.
Re: (Score:2)
To be less cynical, either you meet a standard or you don't. I actually think that's a pretty good system, since that's what NCLB was designed to measure.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"THats [sic] at least what these educators seem to be getting to."
I'll say it again: School systems have two camps, (1) teachers, (2) administrators, and those camps are generally in opposition.
Note that this particular change comes from Superintendent Larrie Reynolds ("I'm tired of kids coming to school and not learning and getting credit for it") -- someone who is not actually an educator (teacher).
Average (Score:2, Insightful)
I always thought 'C' was supposed to represent an average grade. I think one of the biggest problems today is that everyone is expected to get a B or above, so teachers are more pressured to give B's or above. Now people are getting through class at a B average, when they haven't done anything above average at all.
Now, with this, it seems as if the D students will get bumped to C's, C's to B's, and B's to A (well, maybe not so drastic on the upper portion).
Re: (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: (Score:2)
Two reasons:
1. Not all classes are of equal importance. Being more lenient for courses outside your major (Ds) encourages people to get a broader education by punishing students less for taking non-intro classes outside the major. When it comes to turning out students that are well rounded and prepared to succeed in the workplace, that's a good thing.
2. Failing people who aren't at average level just means that half your students will fail, assuming a Gaussian distribution. That seems a little extrem
Re: (Score:2)
"Wouldn't that make a B be average?"
"Uh, I'd have to ask my superintendent."
"Just give me my kid's report card."
"There you go. Would you like fries with that?"
"Why would I want fries with a report card?"
"Uh, I'd have to ask my superintendent." ...
"Great, Dad, you picked up my report card! Didn't you get any fries?"
Average (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Average (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Average (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Damn. You had my hopes up for an exciting career as a car.
Maybe I could learn to be a garden* instead.
* gardener
Re: (Score:2)
It would be nice to move people that fail at academic pursuits into a high school designed to teach them a marketable trade like being a ... car.
I agree with this sentiment whole heartedly! As an added bonus, students who fail are also very green transportation.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Average (Score:4, Funny)
Quick warning here, by correcting yourself you significantly reduce the odds of entertaining replies, thus reducing the odds of a coffee-spew-on-screen, thus reducing the number of new monitors needed. You sir, are wrecking the economy.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They have trade schools and a lot of them. Unfortunately they force a liberal arts education on those who attend--just like those in traditional college/university settings. :et's go back to the way trade schools were in the 1970s and 1980s and get rid of the liberal arts education nonsense. Problem is that this won't work as the courses required to master a trade generally only take a year and the additional year of liberal arts credits helps with the school's bottom line.
Only if grading on a curve do people have to fail (Score:3, Insightful)
It is entirely possible and fair for a class to get all A's if they all meet the criterion (>90% on exams and so on). Yes, you might then argue that the tests were too easy, but if the tests covered the material you want the students to learn, what's the problem? Maybe the students were all very smart. Maybe the teacher is excellent.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand what they are trying to do with the school system Canada and the US.
When I was in school, higher achievers were in one class, average students in another and lower achievers and those with behavioral issues in another. Teaching was tailored to each class and everybody learned at their pace. Lower achievers could learn with more help, higher achievers just saw more content and everybody was happy.
Why did the school system suddenly decide that being a lower achiever is a bad thing and that
Re: (Score:2)
Note the age. This isn't university teaching where being bad may actually have an impact on your professional skills, these are actually young kids who are just entering their rebellious age. Messing their lives because they "aren't the best" is sociopathic at best.
The primary role of our education system... (Score:3, Insightful)
...is to pay wages and pensions to those inside the system. Actual education is merely a side-effect.
Meanwhile... (Score:5, Informative)
In the last days of this congressional session, our elected reps faced two urgent spending requests. One was for ongoing combat in Afghanistan. The other was to keep several thousand public school teachers from being laid off in the fall. One of those got funded.
But, sure, dick around with the grading scale and pretend it'll fix things.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40137.html [politico.com]
http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_teach28.44ac093.html [pe.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In the last days of this congressional session, our elected reps faced two urgent spending requests. One was for ongoing combat in Afghanistan. The other was to keep several thousand public school teachers from being laid off in the fall. One of those got funded.
They should have both been defeated. It's not my responsibility to pay for California's expensive regulatory regime (which drives up the cost of their teachers' salaries).
Bell Curve (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bell Curve (Score:5, Insightful)
Is normal distribution of grades really necessary, though? That only makes sense if you're only comparing the students to one another, which I think is the wrong way to go. Why not compare them to a standard of "excels in this skill" "has acquired the skill" and "hasn't acquired the skill"? Teaching to standards won't necessarily create a normal curve since some skills can be acquired by everyone (for example gym class), or at least everyone who chooses to take a particular course (my high school AP Calculus class).
We need to have a national conversation about what an "educated" person looks like in the 21st century. Just teaching a list of things we've always taught isn't working anymore, for a vast range of reasons. It is likely that "educated" might differ from state-to-state, but does no one ask "what are we hoping to accomplish by sending all of our pre-citizens to school?" and then work out a curriculum backwards from there?
The focus on getting everyone ready for a university (which is what it seems like public school is doing) is misguided and wasteful as well as damaging to the students. Telling large numbers of young people, "You aren't suited for college, therefore you FAIL" is a horrible thing to do to a person.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We have to stop preaching equality (Score:5, Insightful)
You are exactly right. It has become a big problem in this country. People go to college who have no business being in college because that is the cool thing to do and they want to party. In the long term that has led to lowering of standards at many universities simply because they don't want to fail so many people.
What you end up with is many people with degrees who probably shouldn't have been able to get it. Those people have been taught that having a degree means they get a better job and they refuse to do jobs that would be better suited for them and that they would likely enjoy much more, because they feel the deserve a better paying white collar job.
We need to learn to better respect the blue collar jobs. Without people doing those jobs our world doesn't work, yet people are taught from a young age that doing blue-collar work is something you should work to avoid.
D for Diploma (Score:2)
How about eliminating the other grades too? (Score:2)
We should really stop pretending that grades are a measure of anything important. Just recognize that school is a waste of time suffered through just to get the diploma so some employer can check a box on his form. Give everyone a certificate of attendance and be done with it, ending the ridiculous notion that completing a school makes anybody smarter or more educated. If you want to measure skill levels in a standard way, make a standardized test, and quit wasting everyone's time on years and years of bore
MSNBC gets a D in journalism. (Score:5, Informative)
I grew up in Morris County, and am a bit bewildered by this article, given that there's no Morris County school board. This particular issue pertains to Mount Olive -- a town of 26,000 people with a 5000-student school district, not the entire county.
Not sure how they butchered these details from the source article [app.com].
Why Am I Suprised (Score:3, Insightful)
This doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
"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.
If the student didn't learn anything does that not mean they failed and should get a failing grade? "C" is Average and "D" is below average but still passing. I fail to see the problem with that. "F" means you failed to learn the course material well enough to pass and do not get credit.
But then, I'm not a power hungry, attention seeking, small penis administrator that needs to "shake up the box" for no other reason then to get noticed.
-[d]-
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: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why the hate on the AP program? You dont have to be "affluent" to be in it, you just have to do well in school. The fees for the tests can be waived or reduced if your family is low income. Does your hate maybe stem from not liking the type of people that are in the program? That's understandable, some are pricks, I know b/c I was in many AP classes in HS. However, dont label everyone in the program as such, it makes you look like a douche. AP classes are a great way to get college credit before college, so
Re:They still have A+ (Score:5, Informative)
Why the hate on the AP program? You dont have to be "affluent" to be in it, you just have to do well in school. The fees for the tests can be waived or reduced if your family is low income. Does your hate maybe stem from not liking the type of people that are in the program? That's understandable, some are pricks, I know b/c I was in many AP classes in HS. However, dont label everyone in the program as such, it makes you look like a douche. AP classes are a great way to get college credit before college, so don't knock the program itself.
Don't forget Garfield High School in Los Angeles and the amazing mathematics teacher Jaime Escalante who, through dint of sheer will and incredible teaching ability, demonstrated that students from East LA could do very, very well in calculus, many even passing the harder BC version of the AP test. These students were not affluent in the least, just inspired to excellence by an incredible individual.
Re: (Score:2)
Think of how easy it will be for the kids to learn the alphabet if it only had 25 letters instead of 26!
It used to only have 25 letters. It sometimes had more.
Why is Q always followed by a U in words?