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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

#131

Post by WalterBright »

ahevia wrote: post #126
WalterBright wrote: post #120

> 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 o…

I mean allowing multiple redos for tests doesn’t seem awful. Especially if the test questions can be mixed up. My physics and calculus classes did this with online software & I mastered those subjects pretty heavily towards the end. I understand this can’t be repeated for all subjects but the general idea doesn’t seem like the worse

It's a lot of work to prepare a good physics exam, partly because you don't want to pose questions that the students are already familiar with.

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

#132

Post by Lhiw »

laserbeam wrote: post #101

I was really hoping this is a decent article about what some teacher or school did about the problem. It starts like that but then it goes kablookie... So, a certain Joshua Moreno is fed up with the system and did something about that, 2 paragraphs. GREAT. Then the rest of the entire article is about institutionalized racism and how the current system fails us. At no point do we get a good example about what mr Moren…

Why do you have to agree there is institutional racism in schools to think this is garbage writing?

Worried you'll get called a racist for suggesting an anti racist is wrong?

Actually on topic though, Asia is laughing at us.

Removing homework and grading? Because "racism"?

You shouldn't be penalizing well off people (white or not) with worse schooling because some lower class students (black or not) dont have enough time to study after school.

What you should be doing is figuring out how to not penalize those with less opportunity to ensure they can either catch up or at least not fall behind.

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

#133

Post by stjohnswarts »

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#134

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

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…

When you ditch objective assessment and set the bar really low, it stands to reason people put in less effort, no?

Or, in other immortal words of George Bush, "mission accomplished".

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

#135

Post by yuliyp »

bedobi wrote: post #114
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…

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 associat…

> 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.

I don't think that it follows from this that it's unfair for Y/Z to have a lower grade. They did worse. The grade can reflect that. That doesn't mean they're a worse person / student. It means they demonstrated worse performance in the class. How you interpret that later on is a different question, and interpreting Y's lower performance in the context of the environment that caused it is fair.

Trying to change the scale leads to the measurement being meaningless, and worse, can lead to bringing back biases that were tried to be balanced for: in evaluating a student for a job who looked like Y and another who looked like X and got the same GPA, which one is the better student? If you believe that the grades were more lenient toward Y, picking applicant X as an employer just makes sense.

In another context: we report the times of runners running the 100m dash in seconds and hundredths of seconds, regardless of if they're in the 100M final of the Olympics or at a local high school track meet. Is 10.8 seconds a good time? In the Olympic 100m mens final? no. In the US collegiate championships for women? definitely.

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

#136

Post by iforgotpassword »

Lhiw wrote: post #132
laserbeam wrote: post #101

I was really hoping this is a decent article about what some teacher or school did about the problem. It starts like that but then it goes kablookie... So, a certain Joshua Moreno is fed up with the system and did something about that, 2 paragraphs. GREAT. Then the rest of the entire article is about institutionalized racism and how the current system fails us. At no point do we get a good example about what mr Moren…

Why do you have to agree there is institutional racism in schools to think this is garbage writing? Worried you'll get called a racist for suggesting an anti racist is wrong? Actually on topic though, Asia is laughing at us. Removing homework and grading? Because "racism"? You shouldn't be penalizing well off people (white or not) with worse schooling because some lower class students (black or not) dont have enough…

> Why do you have to agree there is institutional racism in schools to think this is garbage writing?

I Don't think this is what GP said. Where do you get this from? These two things are unrelated, the way I interpret the comment.

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

#137

Post by mjevans »

ipaddr wrote: post #98
wyldfire wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Easier to understand: Hogwarts.

Harry Potter was pried from that little dusty cupboard closet beneath the stairs and sent to somewhere to reach success.

Send kids that don't have a good home life to someplace where the adults care and have the resources to see that they do succeed.

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

#138

Post by thablackbull »

Lhiw wrote: post #132
laserbeam wrote: post #101

I was really hoping this is a decent article about what some teacher or school did about the problem. It starts like that but then it goes kablookie... So, a certain Joshua Moreno is fed up with the system and did something about that, 2 paragraphs. GREAT. Then the rest of the entire article is about institutionalized racism and how the current system fails us. At no point do we get a good example about what mr Moren…

Why do you have to agree there is institutional racism in schools to think this is garbage writing? Worried you'll get called a racist for suggesting an anti racist is wrong? Actually on topic though, Asia is laughing at us. Removing homework and grading? Because "racism"? You shouldn't be penalizing well off people (white or not) with worse schooling because some lower class students (black or not) dont have enough…

> Actually on topic though, Asia is laughing at us.

Are you really that self centered that you think that people around the globe care.

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

#139

Post by pcmoney »

JPKab wrote: post #122
brightball wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public education is a net good but the implementation model of that education is what’s such a problem right now. There’s a reason so many more kids are home schooled now than ever before and it’s a complete lack of confidence in public schools. Private school waiting lists are a mile long.

I'm a parent of two kids and I couldn't agree more. I went to mostly black and poor public schools my entire childhood. Back then there were a few teachers who clearly didn't care and were never held accountable. Most of the teachers were pretty good though. It's increasingly shifted towards the opposite. I was blown away by how pathetically run my children's public schools are here in Colorado so I put them both in…

Where in CO? I have always heard the schools were pretty good, especially BVSD, Poudre Valley etc. and some in Denver, Cherry Creek etc.

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

#140

Post by dls2016 »

bedobi wrote: post #114
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…

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 associat…

HN is full if the “homework doers” who scored well and got nice professional jobs. Hence the downvotes.
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