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

> A) but that's not the only goal, sometimes you want to teach them it's important to execute on an assignment for the sake of it. Because that s how you deliver in demanding jobs.

This is only likely to be effective to the extent that you have extensive support at home and that grades are highly valued by the student.

> B) yes, happened to me in higher education, fucked an Electrical Engineering work assigment, got a crushing 0, dropped the whole thing, focused on Maths and CS, changed school, and became a programmer. Gave me a kick to never fail an assignment ever again, so not sure what to do if the 0s are so many the kid just doesnt care anymore.

Higher education is a far different game than primary or secondary school.

My students tend to complete their work. If I was in a position where I had a lot of not-turned-in assignments, I'd probably look at giving students 2/3rds credit for those parts of the assignment that they'd shown mastery of in some other way (in class or on tests). It's still at best a D, and most likely an F, but it does not pull down the average nearly so much.

> C) The teacher doesnt need to change how to measure I think,

I don't fully understand your comment, but-- what I'm saying is: grades are not a great motivator for most students. We treat them like they are necessary to get hard work from students, but I think teachers who get strong performances from students mostly get them in other ways.

I feel like if I'm relying upon a student's fear of a bad grade as a motivator, that I've already lost.

What you and people like you say it superficially true ("just grade on objective performance!")

...but also completely disingenuous.

Student X is an only child, has educated and well paid parents who instill work ethic and have the means, time and ability to commit to helping X get the best grades, including hiring tutors for things they can't or don't have time to teach. X lives in a safe, affluent area and associates with similar peers.

Student Y is one of n siblings to an illegal immigrant single mom with little to no formal education who works two minimum wage jobs so has no time to help her kids even though she desperately wants to. Y might even be working too just to enable the family to get by, leaving no time for studies at home or homework. (effectively having more work ethic than X, just not for school) Y lives in a dangerous area with sirens blaring and dogs barking all hours of the night and many of his peers are involved with gangs.

Granted, these are obviously exaggerated and hypothetical stereotypes, which I don't really want to contribute to perpetuating, but they illustrate a point. You don't exactly have to be some kind of bleeding heart social justice activist to see how unfair it is to Z to be "objectively graded" as lacking "performance" when compared to X.

A common objection is "well how are we going to indicate who is the best candidate for a given university admission or job if we don't have grades or other objective measure to filter out the best people!??!???"

But... that's the point we're trying to make: current grades and other "objective measures" DON'T filter out the "best". To an overwhelming degree, they're just proxies for other things. Surely universities and employers can and will find better ways to assess candidates. (or, if that's what they want to insist on continuing to do, filter out underprivileged people, just like they do now)

TLDR the delusion that grades are some kind of objective meritocracy is ridiculous the sooner it's done away with the better.

Work does give you homework, it's just the self-selected kind. The people who excel and get ahead at work are the ones who recognize this and do the extra work. Whether that's educating themselves so they can make a career move, or taking on extra tasks (which often requires self-edification) to show they are worth promoting.

I think what school fails to do is teach the difference between internal motivation and external motivation. Mandated homework is external motivation for those who don't get it, and for those who do the mandate isn't necessary.

I'd rather ask.

> give students a five-day grace period to turn in work

I don't see how that changes anything. It just means the homework deadline is 5 days later.

> eliminate zeroes in grade books

Meaning if one does well on the first assignment, the rest of the semester can be ignored. A savvy student, once they achieved an A, will be motivated to not turn in any more assignments or tests.

> and re-do tests

Once you know what is on the test, it isn't really a test anymore.