Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
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Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#2> Los Angeles and San Diego Unified — the state’s two largest school districts, with some 660,000 students combined — have recently directed teachers to base academic grades on whether students have learned what was expected of them during a course — and not penalize them for behavior, work habits and missed deadlines.
That lesson is going to serve them well in the workplace.
Teach students that they are entitled to bad behavior, bad work habits, and deadlines? Fuck deadlines
The next generation is going to have a hard time competing in the global workplace against cultures that do enforce reasonable consequences for fucking up.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#3Mod: editorialized title. It's subtle, but it drives narrative with "equity" being such a trigger for folks lately, and isn't what the actual article outlines
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#4> Los Angeles and San Diego Unified — the state’s two largest school districts, with some 660,000 students combined — have recently directed teachers to base academic grades on whether students have learned what was expected of them during a course — and not penalize them for behavior, work habits and missed deadlines. That lesson is going to serve them well in the workplace. Teach students that they are entitled to…
you got to understand where this new guidelines are coming from.
If a 5 years old student already can do algebra and calculus but his teacher give him 100 page of simple addition to do as homework and he decide to not do them…
Should he fail the class ? I don’t think so, the class is already too easy for him!
His grade should only be based on his score on exams!
Why force student to waste hours at home doing busy work on something they already master? this sound like torture!
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#5I’m sure every generation feels like the next is going to turn the world to hell… but what the hell? I find it absolutely bonkers that gifted classes, math, homework and objective performance assessments are suddenly under fire as instruments perpetuating inequality. Does our education system leave much to be desired? Absolutely! Let’s pay teachers more and improve access to quality education for all students, not cognitively handicap the next generation.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#6> Los Angeles and San Diego Unified — the state’s two largest school districts, with some 660,000 students combined — have recently directed teachers to base academic grades on whether students have learned what was expected of them during a course — and not penalize them for behavior, work habits and missed deadlines. That lesson is going to serve them well in the workplace. Teach students that they are entitled to…
When I fucked up in middle/high school, it wasn't because I was lazy. It was because I had no idea how to deal with stress/anxiety/deadlines. I had teachers who luckily were empathetic and I grew up eventually. I was lucky - I have fantastic parents in a loving, stable marriage and my mental health on the whole was not extraordinarily bad.
Many kids are not that lucky. In my experience, the kids (my peers) who were doing drastically badly weren't lazy. They had something else going on - a bad home life, or serious mental health issues.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#7> Los Angeles and San Diego Unified — the state’s two largest school districts, with some 660,000 students combined — have recently directed teachers to base academic grades on whether students have learned what was expected of them during a course — and not penalize them for behavior, work habits and missed deadlines. That lesson is going to serve them well in the workplace. Teach students that they are entitled to…
School really doesn't mimic the workplace very well. For one thing, work doesn't usually give homework! (with some exceptions like the law). Docking students for bad behavior is problematic, because it requires the teacher to be extremely honest, to avoid unequal standards. Late penalties almost certainly impede learning since they cause the give up effect, where students give up on something they can't hope to finish, instead of actually trying.
The issue ultimately is that if you want grades to be a measure of student performance, they should actually measure student performance, and not other aspects of what students do in a class.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#8I’m sure every generation feels like the next is going to turn the world to hell… but what the hell? I find it absolutely bonkers that gifted classes, math, homework and objective performance assessments are suddenly under fire as instruments perpetuating inequality. Does our education system leave much to be desired? Absolutely! Let’s pay teachers more and improve access to quality education for all students, not co…
A decade ago my high school had two buckets:
* students in mostly AP classes who were college bound
* students in no AP classes who were mostly not college bound, or were at least limited to community colleges and state schools (Which are great choices! But often have lower success rates and career outcomes)
For the AP students grades were a joke because all the teachers would happily give out extra credit to any student who wanted it, all in the name of college admissions.
For everyone else grades were a joke because all the students cared about was passing, and teachers REALLY wanted students to graduate, and would give grade bumps to any student who needed it.
I believe most schools suffer from this sort of grade inflation, to the point that grades are at best useful for loose categorization (i.e. A+ students, A-C students, F students) and thats it. It never was and never will be a true meritocracy at scale.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#9> Los Angeles and San Diego Unified — the state’s two largest school districts, with some 660,000 students combined — have recently directed teachers to base academic grades on whether students have learned what was expected of them during a course — and not penalize them for behavior, work habits and missed deadlines. That lesson is going to serve them well in the workplace. Teach students that they are entitled to…
you got to understand where this new guidelines are coming from. If a 5 years old student already can do algebra and calculus but his teacher give him 100 page of simple addition to do as homework and he decide to not do them… Should he fail the class ? I don’t think so, the class is already too easy for him! His grade should only be based on his score on exams! Why force student to waste hours at home doing busy wor…
The problem is that exams are often an extremely poor assessment of actual student learning, since they're such an unnatural format (no checking of oneself, strong time limits, extremely "easy" problems that can be done in those time limits).
The other problem is that the only way to actually learn something is often to practice it. Attaching grades to "homework" is a method of forcing students to actually do the practice. Otherwise, there has to be some other reward mechanism, because frankly, its very hard for children to have the self discipline to study on their own.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
you got to understand where this new guidelines are coming from. If a 5 years old student already can do algebra and calculus but his teacher give him 100 page of simple addition to do as homework and he decide to not do them… Should he fail the class ? I don’t think so, the class is already too easy for him! His grade should only be based on his score on exams! Why force student to waste hours at home doing busy wor…
The problem is that exams are often an extremely poor assessment of actual student learning, since they're such an unnatural format (no checking of oneself, strong time limits, extremely "easy" problems that can be done in those time limits). The other problem is that the only way to actually learn something is often to practice it. Attaching grades to "homework" is a method of forcing students to actually do the pra…
in this case maybe force the student to complete homework during school hours. instead of expecting kid to do it at home.