Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 359 posts

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

#91

Post by WalterBright »

tayo42 wrote: post #21
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…

I think one of my most important work lessons was deadlines are almost always not real.

Without deadlines most people won't accomplish anything.

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

#92

Post by deepsun »

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.

Well, before governments got into education, most people were happy living illiterate.

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

#93

Post by SavantIdiot »

Glad to see school systems addressing the systemic inequities that have become visible due to the pandemic.

There are other ways to grade. The point system has always been lazy, about as effective at predicting competence and success as standardized testing. What really predicts success is how rich your parents are. Sure there are rich fuckups, but not having to take care of parents or younger siblings while living on the poverty line sure helps.

It's not an easy problem to solve, and this idea of "tough love, kick them in the ass" is basically perpetuating the idea of working yourself to death and hating yourself because that's what the smartest guy on hacker news says should happen. Hell 80% of the graduates are gonna be burger flippers, Walmart greeters, street cleaners, and all the jobs that aren't elite hacker positions.

*It's not like a straight A student is going to stop getting straight A's because we didn't punish the poor kids and underachievers hard enough.*

The hate directed at this article is endemic of fear. Absolute fear that someone will get more than you. Something they don't deserve, so punish them hard and punish them early. Which is disgusting, and is the narrative the far right has been pushing for the past four decades. From welfare queens to demonizing SNAP. It's all the same cycle of hate.

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

#94

Post by spoonjim »

js8 wrote: post #16
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…

Noam Chomsky went to a Deweyite high school with no grading and turned out more than fine (he actually enjoyed it). I am opposed to grading, I would replace it with a levelling system - you would have to show certain proficiency to gain a level.

There's almost nothing that can be learned from someone like Noam Chomsky that is applicable to the median student.

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

#95

Post by denimnerd42 »

lmm wrote: post #28
btheshoe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

Dealing with stress/anxiety/deadlines is a vital life skill. At some point people have to face failures and consequences (even if the failure was "not their fault"!) and learn to handle them; if they don't do it in school they'll be doing it for the first time in college, or in the workplace, or with governmental requirements.

dealing with stress and anxiety while your brain is still developing doesn't always go as you would want and the public school system surely isn't going to help them cope if they do react poorly.

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

#96

Post by lmm »

lostdog wrote: post #71
lmm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dealing with stress/anxiety/deadlines is a vital life skill. At some point people have to face failures and consequences (even if the failure was "not their fault"!) and learn to handle them; if they don't do it in school they'll be doing it for the first time in college, or in the workplace, or with governmental requirements.

The point still stands. School doesn't teach you to handle stress and anxiety. It just creates some for you.

It's a relatively low-stakes environment (in the long term, even though it doesn't feel like it at the time) where you have to deal with it. That's valuable.

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

#97

Post by wrycoder »

meowkit wrote: post #77
null_shift wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if it is worthless, then why force him to do it? if his situation is anything like mine was, then the answer is likely to maintain good grades to support future educational prospects. which is unfortunate as this system encourages the pursuit of the grade over the pursuit of knowledge. it took me many years to shake that mindset.

As another phrased it: because that's the meta. You have to excel in all coursework on the default track to competing in race of society. There are opt-outs/alternatives popping up, but they're not mainstream.

Meanwhile, per the thread above, in Hoboken Nj 8% show math proficiency, yet 95% graduate.

There are two cultures in the US.

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

#98

Post by ipaddr »

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…

Why would paying more for teachers fix the issue? The best teachers will still prefer private school because kids are more displined. You end up paying more for the same or worse now you attract a new group who are in it for the money.

Education starts at home and without a learning culture with displine these children are setup to fail.

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

#99

Post by [deleted] »

skyde wrote: post #4
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…

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…

[deleted]

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

#100

Post by zsmi »

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…

>> 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.

Isn't the article about removing homework in high school?

Mr. Moreno, the Alhambra High School English teacher, specifically said he no longer gives homework. Doesn't this mean the research indicates he is removing something valuable?

It might all be semantics though.

I assume the "opportunities to improve essays and classwork" is done outside of normal class hours. Perhaps, the work is done at home. And that they addressed your point A by allowing students to resubmit work, and your point B by removing deadlines. I can definitely see how it could be an improvement.

Post reply on HN