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Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading

latimes.com

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Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading

#31

Post by eyelidlessness »

mlyle wrote: post #26
throwaway23451 wrote: post #5

I’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…

> homework This is one issue that I'm passionate about. Research increasingly implies that homework is probably harmful in elementary; of dubious value in early middle school; and only valuable in high school and beyond. > and objective performance assessments I think some of these radical experiments are crazy. But, there's valid reasons to consider e.g. not grading missing absent assignments as a zero. A few of the…

As someone who excelled early in school and damn near never graduated, the age grouping doesn’t line up for me. I should probably have never graduated high school because my scores were so low from homework not completed. Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD and Autism, and makework was valuable for me early but useless for me as I grew into myself.

Otherwise this resonates with me so much. Your kids are so lucky to have you.

Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading

#34

Post by II2II »

mlyle wrote: post #26
throwaway23451 wrote: post #5

I’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…

> homework This is one issue that I'm passionate about. Research increasingly implies that homework is probably harmful in elementary; of dubious value in early middle school; and only valuable in high school and beyond. > and objective performance assessments I think some of these radical experiments are crazy. But, there's valid reasons to consider e.g. not grading missing absent assignments as a zero. A few of the…

The value of homework has little to do with learning. Yes, students can learn from it. On the other hand, it is mostly intended to promote a certain type of work ethic where those who devote additional time and effort have more opportunities for success. Whether this is desirable is a different question. For those in a more supportive environment, it can lead to a narrowness of vision (with respect to both learning and life). There are also issues with respect to equity. While I have seen successful social programs that help less affluent families access better resources, those still depend upon supportive families.

Grades themselves are truly a mixed bag. They typically conflate work submitted with material learnt, communications skills, work ethic and motivation, as well as any other factors that implicitly seep into the approach the teacher employs (e.g. communicating expectations and meaningful feedback). Grades really should be abolished for more descriptive assessments, unfortunately almost everyone from students to families to schools to boards of education to ministries of education wants quantifiable metrics.

Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading

#35

Post by uejfiweun »

bko wrote: post #27
throwaway23451 wrote: post #5

I’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…

The crazy thing is that the bar is so low in the US. Where I live, Hoboken, NJ, the high school math and reading proficiency rate are 8% and 44% respectively, while the graduation rate is >95% What the hell are they doing if they're not even teaching kids math and reading? And why are they graduating them? Grades aren't meant to be a feel good merit badge. They're supposed to be an accurate reflection of your level o…

How on earth do we de-escalate from here? I feel that in the US it is impossible to summon the political willpower to make it HARDER to graduate HS or go to college, even if these things would make society better off.

My personal opinion is that the government should get out of education, just lower our taxes and let the free market handle the rest. Never gonna happen, however.

Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading

#36

Post by mlyle »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #31
mlyle wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> homework This is one issue that I'm passionate about. Research increasingly implies that homework is probably harmful in elementary; of dubious value in early middle school; and only valuable in high school and beyond. > and objective performance assessments I think some of these radical experiments are crazy. But, there's valid reasons to consider e.g. not grading missing absent assignments as a zero. A few of the…

As someone who excelled early in school and damn near never graduated, the age grouping doesn’t line up for me. I should probably have never graduated high school because my scores were so low from homework not completed. Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD and Autism, and makework was valuable for me early but useless for me as I grew into myself. Otherwise this resonates with me so much. Your kids are so lucky to have…

> the age grouping doesn’t line up for me

Everyone's different-- what helps one student may harm a couple others. On average, homework looks bad for the young. One reason why is that there's no one there to enforce correctness, so you could easily have dedicated incorrect practice. There's some neat ideas about this, like flipped classrooms. (You send a video lesson home with 1-2 questions to enforce compliance with watching the lesson, and then have the practice happen in the classroom. But this is extraordinarily effort heavy for the educator and there are other drawbacks).

> Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD and Autism, and makework was valuable for me early but useless for me as I grew into myself.

I had pretty rough middle school years, too. I'm trying to make it all better for my students.

> Otherwise this resonates with me so much. Your kids are so lucky to have you.

I'm a new teacher (previously an engineer/entrepreneur) and ... definitely one of the weaker members of faculty overall. I'm in awe of the teachers around me. But I'm definitely trying to understand as much as I can from research and my own observations of students.

Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading

#37

Post by throwaway23451 »

s5300 wrote: post #22
throwaway23451 wrote: post #5

I’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…

Education in the U.S. has been systematically defunded/chronically underfunded and bureaucratically shitfucked by one of the two major political parties in the U.S. for the last 50 or so years. Our last secretary of education is the literal heiress to the largest MLM scheme in the nation. Truly, I cannot imagine why you're at all surprised that our education system is in shambles unless you've been living under a roc…

It’s terrible that kids have to face challenges like hunger and poverty. I believe in universal free lunch, and find it abhorrent the way this basic human rights issue has been politicized. I find it abhorrent that there are disparities in access to quality education. None of that changes the fact that people need skills to be employable, get accepted to a legitimate college, etc. Making school easy with squishy standards is not doing anyone a kindness. It’s preparing people for a life of mediocrity.

Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading

#38

Post by [deleted] »

grammarnazzzi wrote: post #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…

[deleted]

Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading

#39

Post by dls2016 »

throwaway23451 wrote: post #5

I’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…

Most of what you're saying seems reasonable... but then I see a statistic like this:

"Black Americans receive about 7 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded each year across all disciplines, but they have received just 1 percent of those granted over the last decade in mathematics."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/edray-goins-black-math...

And this is the current production! You don't want to see the statistics regarding the number of African American faculty members in mathematics!

So what else is our current system perpetuating besides inequality? What exactly are we "weeding out" in calculus? Or college algebra?

We don't let kids trust themselves intellectually in the classroom.

Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading

#40

Post by mlyle »

II2II wrote: post #34
mlyle wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> homework This is one issue that I'm passionate about. Research increasingly implies that homework is probably harmful in elementary; of dubious value in early middle school; and only valuable in high school and beyond. > and objective performance assessments I think some of these radical experiments are crazy. But, there's valid reasons to consider e.g. not grading missing absent assignments as a zero. A few of the…

The value of homework has little to do with learning. Yes, students can learn from it. On the other hand, it is mostly intended to promote a certain type of work ethic where those who devote additional time and effort have more opportunities for success. Whether this is desirable is a different question. For those in a more supportive environment, it can lead to a narrowness of vision (with respect to both learning a…

> Yes, students can learn from it.

Largely the evidence points towards it being harmful to learning in early educaiton.

> On the other hand, it is mostly intended to promote a certain type of work ethic where those who devote additional time and effort have more opportunities for success.

I think if you ask what homework is "intended" to do, you'll get a million different answers from different stakeholders. I think whether you assign homework or not, there's a massive impact of work ethic upon educational success and attainment of mastery. Some students just go the extra mile and are more successful as a result.

> Grades really should be abolished for more descriptive assessments,

I like grades for MS and up. As much as you talk about the confounds of grading, every criticism you've levied would apply even more to more subjective, descriptive assessments. But I do support emphasizing them less and trying to make what they measure truly be mastery of material.

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