Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by lostdog » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:03 AM UTC

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.

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

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

#72

Post by mek6800d2 » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:04 AM UTC

throwaway23451 wrote: post #12

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…

That’s unfortunate. Twenty years ago I attended high school in a working class suburb. I was fortunate to get selected into a gifted program and had teachers who challenged me to work hard and overcome my surrounding. Changed my life and inspired a career as a data scientist and entrepreneur. I hope the younger generation can have the benefit of adults who care enough about them to challenge them to succeed, because…

Yes, the younger generation will not be prepared for the meritocracy that awaits them out in the real world.

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

#73

Post by mlyle » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:06 AM UTC

null_shift wrote: post #70

brightball wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son is experiencing the homework issue this year. He’s 2 years ahead in math and the class he’s in gives out massive amounts of homework. It’s exhausting. He had to pull him out of sports so he could have more time in the evening for his homework. It’s so frustrating how worthless it all is too.

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.

Homework is worthless, but establishing a precedent that you should ignore things teachers ask you to do is pretty bad, too.

(Indeed, one reason homework may be harmful is the way it can create an adversarial relationship with teachers and condition students to ignore teacher suggestions and feedback).

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

#74

Post by jiscariot » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:09 AM UTC

dls2016 wrote: post #39

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 statistic…

There is a cult around intelligence we really need move beyond, given that it is predominately an inherited trait, speaking no more or less to any individuals self-worth.

Proportional representation of various (tribal, ethnic, gender, religious, racial) groups would actually be the anomaly in nature, not what the parent is identifying as an issue.

It is always math and but never nursing. That alone may shed a little light on our biases.

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

#75

Post by mlyle » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:09 AM UTC

brightball wrote: post #61

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…

My son is experiencing the homework issue this year. He’s 2 years ahead in math and the class he’s in gives out massive amounts of homework. It’s exhausting. He had to pull him out of sports so he could have more time in the evening for his homework. It’s so frustrating how worthless it all is too.

Huge sympathy on the math thing.

For my boys, we went outside school to various providers of math offerings for gifted kids. But quality is rather variable.

Being ahead academically doesn't mean you're ahead developmentally. Rote practice to avoid mistakes and do really systemic work is useful sometime around ages 12-14 -- during first algebra classes for kids on the normal plan. But courses for gifted 10 year olds taking Algebra I at e.g. CTY tend to lean even more into the "rigor", which my kids survived but it was unnecessarily difficult. Instead, they should be looking for ways to shorten problem sets and approach problems from various angles.

That is, whether you can keep a 9 term polynomial straight and avoid swapping signs or coefficients is really a measurement of attention span and focus, not understanding of algebra... and students that are way ahead in math are probably slightly ahead in attention span and focus, but not to a degree commensurate with their mathematical knowledge.

(We really like Art of Problem Solving, though it's pretty intense).

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

#76

Post by grp000 » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

throwaway23451 wrote: post #18

tmp_anon_22 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rising class sizes, a ever expanding college-industrial-complex, and income inequality necessitating very specific career decisions, stop this I think. Education-first initiatives don't seem to be popular in American politics.

Great point. It brings to mind an aphorism from Charlie Munger: “Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome”

That guy has shown up so many times recently in HN posts.

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

#77

Post by meowkit » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:17 AM UTC

null_shift wrote: post #70

brightball wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son is experiencing the homework issue this year. He’s 2 years ahead in math and the class he’s in gives out massive amounts of homework. It’s exhausting. He had to pull him out of sports so he could have more time in the evening for his homework. It’s so frustrating how worthless it all is too.

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.

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

#78

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:19 AM UTC

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…

> What the hell are they doing if they're not even teaching kids math and reading?

That was delegated to Sesame Street 40 years ago.

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

#79

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:20 AM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by bcrosby95 » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 5:22 AM UTC

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 elementary school our kids go to has an official policy of "no homework". It's more like "low homework" though. According to past parents the school used to really load the kids up on this stuff.

Most homework is just something like "read for 30 minutes". Other than that, they do sometimes assign more formal homework, but most of it takes 5-10 minutes, and they explicitly state that if it you spend 30 minutes on it and haven't finished, you can stop.

Every week the kids pick 4 books from a set of books the teacher chose for that individual's reading level. And they get to go to the library and pick any book they want.

And no homework over the weekend, except to "have fun".