In most math problems, zero would never be confused with 50, but a handful of schools nationwide have set off an emotional academic debate by giving minimum scores of 50 for students who fail.
Officials in schools from Las Vegas to Dallas to Port Byron, N.Y., have proposed or implemented versions of such a policy, with varying results.
Their argument: Other letter grades ”” A, B, C and D ”” are broken down in increments of 10 from 60 to 100, but there is a 59-point spread between D and F, a gap that can often make it mathematically impossible for some failing students to ever catch up.
“It’s a classic mathematical dilemma: that the students have a six times greater chance of getting an F,” says Douglas Reeves, founder of The Leadership and Learning Center, a Colorado-based educational think tank who has written on the topic. “The statistical tweak of saying the F is now 50 instead of zero is a tiny part of how we can have better grading practices to encourage student performance.”
How about taking a “failed” course over again and replacing the “0” for an “F” with a higher grade?
Or, replace letter grades with numerical grades. If a student achieves a grade of 43%, give him that grade. If he achieves 0% give him that grade.
The problem isn’t the grading system, its our current culture that tries to make us believe that “failure” is “success.”
I had a [url=http://www.vulcanhammer.info/off/hasenkampf.php]sales manager in New Orleans[/url] who used to say that the nuns in Catholic school wouldn’t give a 100 because only God was perfect.
I suppose this is the mirror image of that.
I had an acquaintance who took his elementary-school-aged children out of a public school in New Orleans when he found that a fouth grade teacher, teaching math, couldn’t do simple arithmetic.
I took my first-grade-aged son out of the same school when a classmate almost pierced his eye with a sharp lead pencil.
And we continue to “dummy down”. No surprise we are so far behind most of the world in so many educational areas. An “A” in most schools now is 90-100. Back in the olden days when I was in school you had to get 95 for an A. Our teachers gave numerical scores and then averaged then for the letter grade at the end of the term. An “F” would then average in for a “0” on GPA with a D giving “1” and so on. So in the system would an F give a .5?
.. P.S. It took a 70 to pass.
On the other side of the coin, many schools are nowing giving greater than a “4” for honors classes and GPS’s are often over 4.0. Competition is getting tough!
[blockquote] It’s a classic mathematical dilemma: that the students have a six times greater chance of getting an F[/blockquote]
First, this statement by Mr. Reeves is not mathematically sound. It at best represents his misunderstanding of statistics and at worst (and I think this is the case) represents emotional pandering as opposed to good, logical thinking. Second, my high school soccer coach used to say to us (usually on Fridays when he received reports on those of his players who were failing at least one class), “You really have to really try to fail a high school class.” I know there are exceptions to this and that some students due to special circumstances or learning disabilities will try their best yet still not pass. However, the vast majority of students who fail a class in public school do not simply need to be given lower standards to pass. Rather, other issues need to be addressed that are obstacles a student giving his or her best effort and performing at his or her highest potential, whether these issues are within the student’s control (such as a lack of discipline) or not (such as difficult family issues or a lack of educational resources in a community). We need to set the bar high and do everything we can to help students do their absolute best, not lower the bar so they can feel like they’ve accomplished something they have not.
We have been homeschooling our two (now ages 14 & 11.5698) for five years now. We removed them from public school for many reasons: uncaring & incompetent teachers & administrators whose real job is to keep the schools and themselves from being sued; the attempts to squeeze round pegs into square holes; the lack of safety. I realize my statements include some broad generalizations; I am sure there are honest and decent teachers out there. Yet, truthfully, I have met only one teacher who was worth anything; she taught science for five years, then left for a corporate chemist position because she could not stand the “crap” that went on behind the parents’ backs (though, admittedly, I am sure she’s making more in her new job).
The decision to homeschool is a costly one (not as much as private school tuition though), and fortunately, both my wife and I have educations & backgrounds directly related to teaching (okay, she has the degree in elementary & special ed, but I have a library degree). Despite the costs, we don’t regret our decision.
After this time, though, we see these problems with public education: as #1 cited, it feels the need to call failure success (this makes me think of a revisionist, who wants to call sin a natural and acceptable state); the administrators & teachers, like most ECUSA bishops, have too much power & protection from facing the rightful consequences of their behavior and incompetence in their chosen field.
Silly me. All this time I thought the solution was for the student to study hard, get extra help when needed, and raise the grade to at least a 70. I seriously do not get this ‘new math’.
But come to think of it, this could be the ticket HRC has been looking for! Imagine if our checking accounts always were at 50%!
I did something like this when I was student teaching. I seldom gave grades lower than a 60. I called it “Mr. Ryan’s mercy rule.” I saved the zero for very special cases when students simply refused to do the work, etc.
I found that it worked pretty well because if they continued to get 60s, they would still fail. I mean, I couldn’t give anything lower than a F. An F is an F regardless of whether its a 68 or a 0.
I say it worked well because it did give the students on the bubble some incentive to mend their ways. They could still, if they worked hard, manage to bring their grade up to something passable. They probably were never going to end up with an A or a B, but they could at least shoot for a D or even a C. It was never a lost cause. Mathematically if a kid got a very low test grade or two, it was virtually impossible, even if they suddenly aced all the rest of the tests, to pass the class. I mean, a 0, and 2 100’s is still a 66.6, which is an F.
If kids simply were honestly having problems and just not getting it but they honestly were trying (at least at first), there was really no incentive for them to do any of the work after one disastrous test because by that point their grade was pretty much predestined for an F regardless of however hard they worked thereafter. This always equated into the kid becoming a goof off or disruptive in class because from their point of view, it was pointless to even try. And if they continued not understanding or not trying, they still failed.
I don’t understand why having a little preemptive mercy rule is necessarily a bad thing. The good kids could still help themselves if they chose to put in the effort, and the bad kids failed regardless.
Gee, I recall getting some Fs that weren’t 0. Zero usually means you didn’t turn anything in.
Teachers who ought to be teaching are not a)assigning a letter grade to each assignment b)averaging numeric scores nominally associated with them as opposed to using the actual scores.
All this, of course, presumes an American grading system, which amongst other things essentially starts at 100 and [i]takes off[/i] points, compared to, say, the Canadian system which starts at zero and [i]adds[/i] points according to the quality of the work.
Getting an 80 is significantly better, and vastly more difficult, than the same mark in the States. Passing grade is commonly 40, and 90s are truly rare. Average work merits a C, which is usually between about 55 and 70. US universities accepting Canadian students have to adjust the averages even to be able to compare them with US students.
On a side note, my sons each had to carry [i]nine[/i] courses throughout high school, which lasted five years. In the States we provide our students with palaces in place of a solid education, with the net result that [b] in America the most expensive commodity of all … is ignorance.[/b]
At my kid’s school we have the opposite problem. Since it is a Catholic school, on the “stewardship” system the teachers essentially have a lifetime job at low pay, regardless of how incompetant or vindictive they might be. (There are also a number of very fine teachers there).
There are three who, I swear delight in giving out the lowest grade possible. To get an A you need a 96, and any grade less than 70 is an F (which shows up as a zero). So what they do is they hand out 68-69s on essay tests, taking 10 points off for having 12 point format rather than 10 point format.
They figure correctly that if they fail a kid that they will retake the course in the summer, thus allowing them to earn an extra 100 dollars a kid, “supervising” a on-line program.
I think they particularly go after kids of “wealthy” parents since we can suposedly afford this bulls*t.
I do not intend to stop tithing, because I think tithing is a matter between myself and God, not myself and my kid’s stupid school. However, I did end up pulling my oldest out of Catholic school and having her finish her high school a year early using the University of Missouri on-line program, which will allow her to start college early this fall. She has been taking college courses during high school and has some 24 credits already, and finds college a whole lot fairerer and better taught than high school.
My youngest is in the local Lutheran school (despite my being Catholic and on the Catholic school board) because they do not jerk their students around.
Bart (#12)
Thanks for the explanation. That’s how the English system works too and I could never understand why an A grade was 90% over here. Especially with essay questions there’s always so much more one [i]could[/i] say.
[blockquote] “It’s a classic mathematical dilemma: that the students have a six times greater chance of getting an F” [/blockquote]
What on earth is this guy saying? Leaving aside the merits of the proposal, he seems to suggest that students’ numerical averages are randomly generated rather than a result of their performance. Unless he was misquoted (a distinct possibility), Mr. Reeves gets an F in statistics.
If they wish to keep intervals there are 20 more letters, thus they can determine just how bad the failure is. They really need to wake up to the fact some may be artists and total failures at math or chemistry or chemists who can’t draw or paint anything better than a 3 or 4 year old.
Numerical grades make pretty good sense to me. The problem is the
all or nothing aspect of letter grades, which then translates into a number (on the 0-4 scale) which bears little resemblance to the original number.
Report Card for my teenager last Fall:
AP Calculus: 74 = D – 1.03 (her school only gives an extra 0.03 for APs)
World History 92 = B – 2.00
Honors English 74 = D – 1.03
Ceramics 98 = A 4.0
Religion 99 = A 4.0
AP Physics 82 = C 2.03
Freshman English 92 (A in college but not counted by high school who forced her to take regular Honors English in addition to college English)
Spanish 102 94 (A in college but not counted by high school)
GPA = 2.61 (eg a “C” average even though her numerical grade is 88 which would normally be a B+).
What is this designed to do, other than to glorify mediocrity, and to encourage a kid to fill up her schedule with “mickey mouse” courses?