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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

#81

Post by fennecfoxen »

uejfiweun wrote: post #35
bko wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

New Orleans post-Katrina style , that’s how. Takes political will though.

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

#82

Post by WalterBright »

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…

> The value of homework has little to do with learning.

I learned the hard way that skipping the homework means bombing the test. You don't learn problem solving skills by listening to a lecture or watching TV. It's easy to imagine you've learned it, till you're confronted by the test.

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

#83

Post by eric4smith »

Because of all this I’m super tough on young people that come to work with me.

The first thing I tell them is that this is not school anymore.

The second thing I tell them is that what they learned in college does not apply here, so forget everything that happened there.

Thirdly, I push them super hard.

Fourthly, I fire people quickly.

Finally, because of this, I go through a good number of people, but the best ones rise to the top and do very well.

This phenomenon is occurring in almost all countries at this time. And the only way to combat it is to push back against it —- hard.

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

#84

Post by skyde »

bodhiandpysics1 wrote: post #13
skyde wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in this case maybe force the student to complete homework during school hours. instead of expecting kid to do it at home.

There are a finite number of school hours! Teachers have to be paid! That being said, America is extremely unusual in the small number of explicit classroom hours students have, and the large amount of homework students are expected to do.

I believe homework are useless. but if you think they are a more effective way of learning then why not replace lecture with exercise?

Or are you simply saying student need to dedicate more hours per day than only school hours to not get behind ?

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

#85

Post by xcambar »

eric4smith wrote: post #83

Because of all this I’m super tough on young people that come to work with me. The first thing I tell them is that this is not school anymore. The second thing I tell them is that what they learned in college does not apply here, so forget everything that happened there. Thirdly, I push them super hard. Fourthly, I fire people quickly. Finally, because of this, I go through a good number of people, but the best ones…

I wish you were sarcastic.

You're basically ruining people instead of helping them grow. But you probably think "it's not my job" anyway.

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

#86

Post by WalterBright »

throw9000 wrote: post #62
tmp_anon_22 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stu…

I knew so many valedictorians that flunked out at the state school I went to (University of Missouri - Rolla). High school is a garbage indicator for how well you'll do in life or further education.

I was the school valedictorian. I never tried. I thought my casual ways would work in college. They didn't. I came within a hair of flunking out, until I realized that I had to attend all the lectures, do all the homework on time, and make sure I understood front to back every homework problem.

I can understand other valedictorians not doing well in college.

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

#87

Post by wrycoder »

wyldfire wrote: post #56
uejfiweun wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Public education is one of those rare positive externalities. I think it would be a mistake to abandon it. If we wanted to succeed here, we would likely need to invest more money to hire more or superior teachers that could work individually with these students that struggle to meet the requirements. The worst part would be that even with that investment it may not even be enough. Some portion of the students who don…

We put a ton of money into the schools. It does not get to the right place, and what does is not spent on the traditional basics.

In addition, for several reasons, teachers no longer control their classrooms. They have no authority.

You can’t let students get ahead, because equity, and you can’t give special help, because it looks like condescension.

Everyone’s a winner, everyone graduates.

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

#89

Post by secondaryacct »

uejfiweun wrote: post #50
adventured wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How on earth do we de-escalate from here? You increase the chances to succeed at the same time you make it more difficult, to overwhelm that aspect. Reduce the binary outcome slightly so it's not just a cycle of fail and be thrown / throw yourself to the wolves (dropout). Dramatically increase vocational education training. Shift to a year-round school system. So you don't fail and abandon. Instead, you never stop…

I love these ideas and I agree with them for the most part. But I am pessimistic about US society's capacity to make such far reaching changes to a system that has largely stayed the same for almost 100 years. There are just too many forces pulling these government officials too many ways - the best we will get is some compromise that satisfies nobody. That's why I say we should move to a more free-market based solut…

I went to a private school in France, a small one in a smallish town, and I dont really understand why we have public schools.

The incentive to succeed starts at parents having to pay, ending with the students being quite aggressively challenged to actually deliver on exams.

It may not be fit for everyone, but now that I work in an investment bank in Hong Kong, I dont feel like I m being abused by deadlines, financial objectives, disappointement on failures, high reward on success, expectation that I do more than the minimum etc.

But in France, saying these is an anathema, people can get insane we encourage kids to excel, in silly things such as just being fluent in English, useful in Math, generally aware of physics, careful about historical precedents or able to follow a discussion on philosophy. And it's not even considering accessories like understanding Latin etymology or never making a spelling mistake in French.

We may see education like a sort or right, that happens given enough tax money thrown at schools, but it feels to me like a mindset and a duty: we must understand what's happening around us and we must make our children useful. Too bad if it's a little bit hard some days, but that's this or we whine all our lives the rich are eating OUR cake, when all we ever did was being born and claiming equality.

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

#90

Post by bsder »

uejfiweun wrote: post #35
bko wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> How on earth do we de-escalate from here?

The SAT provides a hard deadline which prevents you from de-escalating high school.

College provides a soft deadline which prevents you from de-escalating as getting a degree before you run out of money is an employment filter.

You have to remove college as an employment filter in order to de-escalate the whole thing.

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