http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/10/30/3324114/debating-changing-wake-countys.html

Quote :

"That was the gist of a pretty intense discussion at Tuesday’s school board policy committee meeting. As noted in today’s article, you could see zeros being banned, students allowed to hand in work late for credit and students being able to request retests to get higher grades. "

What do you guys think about this? I think it is a horrible idea that in no way shape or from translates into the real world. Or even college prep for that matter, if students decide to go to college. You can still get zeros there. Are we losing our minds?

10/30/2013 9:05:56 AM

zeros hurt their self esteem.

10/30/2013 9:07:07 AM

Smath do you agree with that or are you being sarcastic? You're a teacher right? I would think that you have a strong opinion either way.

10/30/2013 9:11:36 AM

Kids are stupid and sometimes little things prevent growth.

I have no evidence to back this up but kids are in fact stupid.

10/30/2013 9:27:10 AM

So if little Johnny spends too long on the Xbox and doesn't get his work done it isn't his fault. I may be a progressive but this is just dumb. Kids need to learn what it is like to fail. They are in for a real surprise later in life if they don't. Mommy won't always be there to bail them out.

10/30/2013 9:34:17 AM

They still fail, they get a 50.

But if I sit here and refuse to do any of my work, can I expect to get half my pay? No. I can expect to get laid off or fired.

10/30/2013 9:43:22 AM

Just for the sake of argument.

Most people will work awful jobs their whole lives and be bogged down by grief and bad luck.

At least give them a fucking break while they're 14.

10/30/2013 9:48:04 AM

Fuck this stupid idea.

I mean, teachers should apply some common sense for when to award a "zero", but setting the low at 50 is stupid. If you don't do the work, that should be a zero. Maybe there should be a small amount of leeway on deadlines (at a steep penalty, but not a zero). If you are significantly late, then fuck you, that's a zero.

10/30/2013 9:57:47 AM

I was being sarcastic. Personally I give students opportunities to make up work for partial credit, but if they just simply just don't do something after being given ample opportunities, they have earned that zero.

10/30/2013 10:08:35 AM

Perhaps giving a grade for the work completed.

Then another grade including work not completed. Sometimes work not turned in is outside the control of the student.

Maybe we should split kids up into trade schools like Germany.

10/30/2013 10:12:27 AM

Quote :

"Sometimes work not turned in is outside the control of the student."

eh? this can't be a high percentage case.

aside from a very small portion of the student body, there's next to zero excuse to not get through high school. k-12 is the easiest time of your life when you have the most energy and least responsibility for 99% of people. kids get breaks on a regular basis as it is, often too much.

10/30/2013 10:41:08 AM

I've always felt the county grading was pretty reasonable, a balance of penalizing students for late/missing work and allowing students to correct mistakes they've made in judgment. Typically zeroes aren't permitted -- at least for the places I've worked -- meant that students are given opportunity to make up work for partial credit. A failing grade is anything below a 70, but there are still 70 additional points that the student can lose out in. It's possible to reach a point of no return grading-wise. Allowing students to make up work, retake/correct tests for partial credit, etc. keeps them in the game, so to speak. Given that there are number of factors affecting failing grades and missing work, I'd rather err on the side of clemency.

10/30/2013 10:41:20 AM

Quote :

"students being able to request retests to get higher grades."

this is already happening at some schools. a good friend of mine is about to give her two weeks notice because of it.

students are allowed to retake a test as many times as they want. because of it, she has almost no time for lesson planning.

10/30/2013 10:48:25 AM

This would have made my high school experience way more relaxed. I used to do no homework and turn everything in way late for 50% max points. That was my fault. No kid should be rewarded for sitting on their asses.

Imagine you did your homework and got a 60 on it. That means that you should have just said fuck it and played more video games cause the 10 extra points wasn't worth the time.

So dumb.

10/30/2013 11:33:47 AM

Charlotte (CMS) already has this policy in place. You won't find it written down anywhere.
The lowest grade we were allowed to give was a 50. That was for doing nothing. The admin would go in and change your grade books if they didn't like how you were grading, at the school I was at.

10/30/2013 11:40:47 AM

Colleges will start coddling students similarly in the near future.

They have to in order to survive given the quality of students we are receiving from high schools.

Faculty meetings are already occurring to discuss this fact.

10/30/2013 11:41:33 AM

Hell I just want my kid's report card at this point.

10/30/2013 12:32:02 PM

^^haven't some college been inflating grades for a while (like, for instance, chapel hill?)

10/30/2013 12:41:48 PM

I don't work at Chapel Hill, so who knows? At least I'm unaware of any rumors concerning them.

However I think it would be erroneous to say any school really has an unofficial policy of doing so.

It would be far more likely at the departmental level, and I'm just fine in knowing I don't participate in such things.

The only way to get a zero with me is to earn it by not doing anything; I have a fairly liberal late work policy.

And yes it is a huge pain in the ass at midterms and finals, but the best students often experience "life" like the rest of us. Some instructors are such ridiculous dickheads when it comes to this-

I had a student one time bring me his wife's obituary because she had been killed in a car accident near the end of the semester. I had been in contact with the student and was aware of the situation, so I was surprised when he showed it to me. As I spoke with him I discovered that ALL of his other instructors had requested such proof.

Needless to say I was appalled.

[Edited on October 30, 2013 at 12:58 PM. Reason : -]

10/30/2013 12:56:26 PM

If a student is just not turning their work, they have other problems, and probably won't care about a 0.

If it's a repeating thing, they need a policy to handle that.

Doesn't make sense to have a blanket policy against 0s though.

10/30/2013 1:24:48 PM

Quote :

"If a student is just not turning their work, they have other problems, and probably won't care about a 0."

"laziness" and "apathy"

10/30/2013 1:40:12 PM

Who gets a zero on a test? This will mostly affect homework assignments. Better that a student do it late than not do it at all. If they really did try and get less than a 50 on the test then they probably need to review the material again to have any chance at success on the next test.

I think that what some people are missing is that this generally creates more work for kids who slack off as they have to re-take their tests or do/redo their homework until they pass. They can't just say "fuck it" after getting a bad grade and move on. I would fully expect some overbearing parents to go try to game the policy, but more often than not it will force a student to learn more than they otherwise would. How is that a bad thing again?

Quote :

"So if little Johnny spends too long on the Xbox and doesn't get his work done it isn't his fault. I may be a progressive but this is just dumb. Kids need to learn what it is like to fail. They are in for a real surprise later in life if they don't. Mommy won't always be there to bail them out."

More than likely Johnny is failing because Mommy already isn't there to "bail him out" as you say. Maybe we should encourage Johnny to learn the material even if he is late by offering him the chance to earn a 50 rather than take a 0 and go back to his Xbox?

Quote :

"But if I sit here and refuse to do any of my work, can I expect to get half my pay? No. I can expect to get laid off or fired."

Kids in school aren't contributing to a company's bottom line and they don't get paid for their work. I see the (brainwashed) point that you're getting at, but I think we should consider the notion that kids should go to school to learn skills and build a knowledge base that will help them through many different aspects of life; not just so they can be really great employees to whatever shitty company they end up working for.

Who learns more and is better off in the long run; the kid who does nothing and gets a zero or the kid who turns his shit in late and gets a 50? I'm going to guess the kid who turned his shit in late. Are our kids in school to learn or are they in school to get a grade and get passed on to the next level?

[Edited on October 30, 2013 at 2:01 PM. Reason : s]

10/30/2013 1:53:26 PM

Quote :

"I think that what some people are missing is that this generally creates more work for kids who slack off as they have to re-take their tests or do/redo their homework until they pass. They can't just say "fuck it" after getting a bad grade and move on. I would fully expect some overbearing parents to go try to game the policy, but more often than not it will force a student to learn more than they otherwise would. How is that a bad thing again?"

the kids that slack off on any kind of regular basis aren't going to be putting any effort into redoing work. if they don't do it the first time, when it's easier, what makes you think they'll do it a second time? if it's more work, the only kids that'll put that kind of effort in will be the ones that normally handle their business in the first place.

Quote :

"Maybe we should encourage Johnny to learn the material even if he is late"

encouraging Johnny to learn the material the first time wasn't enough? if anything, saying "you can't fail regardless of how lazy you are" will encourage kids to -not- learn anything. why work hard to get anything done when you can just do it next week anyway? why study hard for the test when i can just take it a couple of times? heck, i was one of the kids that actually tried in school and i would have gamed that system for better grades (re: pointless grade inflation a la "the flagship").

10/30/2013 2:11:47 PM

I would definitely be against a policy enforcing this kind of thing but when I was in pre-ap biology I left my folder at home one day and my completed homework was sitting at home as well. Instead of offering any kind of understanding and at least giving me partial credit my teacher gave me a zero and completely screwed me for that grade cycle. If it was a regular thing I definitely would understand a zero but a one time thing should get some sort of reconsideration when things like your high school gpa makes a big difference in getting into certain colleges or not.

Basically, zero tolerance policies are bullshit and remind me why I hated high school so much.

10/30/2013 2:17:55 PM

Clearly you wouldn't have ever taken anything seriously again if they didn't give you that zero.

10/30/2013 2:32:03 PM

Quote :

"the kids that slack off on any kind of regular basis aren't going to be putting any effort into redoing work."

They will if they want to move on to the next grade. That's pretty much the basis of procrastination. Do nothing until the consequences of doing nothing catch up to you. There are other ways to deal with procrastination than fucking up a child's future.

Quote :

"encouraging Johnny to learn the material the first time wasn't enough? if anything, saying "you can't fail regardless of how lazy you are" will encourage kids to -not- learn anything. why work hard to get anything done when you can just do it next week anyway? why study hard for the test when i can just take it a couple of times? heck, i was one of the kids that actually tried in school and i would have gamed that system for better grades (re: pointless grade inflation a la "the flagship")."

Who said you can't fail? Is 50 not a failing grade anymore?


I'll go off on a tangent and say that including homework as a significant part of a person's grade is flawed IMO and that's part of the reason I support this. One thing I liked in college is that most professors graded based on exams. If a person knows the material on test day they get a decent score. If they don't know the material they fail. Homework is a joke. It insists that the student learn at a pace chosen by the teacher that suits the rest of the class. Smart kids find it boring as shit and it is arguably a waste of their time and talents to spend a significant time on it. Kids with issues that go far beyond school are destined to fail when we grade homework as if it is anything more than marginally important. I don't know how teachers can give kids who consistently test well poor grades just because they didn't spend XX minutes diligently studying the material every night. I guess they're too worried about how well their students will fit into a factory worker's job rather than worrying about how much their students learned.

10/30/2013 2:35:30 PM

Quote :

"I think that what some people are missing is that this generally creates more work for kids who slack off as they have to re-take their tests or do/redo their homework until they pass. They can't just say "fuck it" after getting a bad grade and move on. I would fully expect some overbearing parents to go try to game the policy, but more often than not it will force a student to learn more than they otherwise would. How is that a bad thing again?"

it's bad for teachers who will have to spend time re-grading tests instead of being able to plan/work with other students who need help

10/30/2013 2:36:15 PM

The point I was making is when I was kid if I failed I was held accountable by my parents. These days, more than ever, parents don't hold their kids accountable and proceed to blame the teacher. That is where I feel this "no zero" policy is coming from. There are teachers who leave the profession because of this nonsense. Granted there are terrible teachers out there, but this goes well beyond that.

10/30/2013 2:53:05 PM

^^ I didn't know the school system's primary concern was the teachers' needs. Thanks for sharing.

(I actually really want the teachers to have better resources, but that's a different discussion altogether. )

[Edited on October 30, 2013 at 2:56 PM. Reason : l]

10/30/2013 2:54:09 PM

what good is a teacher who won't have time to properly plan?

do you know any teachers?

it's already bad enough for them. this just gives them even more work when they're already wearing thin

10/30/2013 2:58:46 PM

(I actually really want the teachers to have better resources, but that's a different discussion altogether. )

10/30/2013 3:11:59 PM

^4 I was thinking the policy might be for another reason. Best case they implemented it to prevent students from getting in a hole where they couldn't recover. Say they get a zero but then start to turn it around; getting an 80, 90, then 100. Their average is 67.5. That zero killed it for them.

Maybe the policy was to prevent students from getting too discouraged to continue trying? I got a zero, so I might as well quit.

Just a guess.

[Edited on October 30, 2013 at 4:53 PM. Reason : -]

10/30/2013 4:51:03 PM

we had this at my high school, it didn't cause any problems

10/30/2013 4:57:27 PM

I don't know of any student who gets one zero and their whole semester is wrecked.

I also don't know of any teacher who doesn't offer some sort of re-take and/or corrections already without it being mandated by the county.

Quote :

" They can't just say "fuck it" after getting a bad grade and move on."

yes they can. and they will. (especially since they are less inclined to do it knowing they would get a 50 on it for doing nothing.)

[Edited on October 30, 2013 at 4:58 PM. Reason : ]

10/30/2013 4:58:06 PM

^

10/30/2013 5:02:07 PM

Someone I spoke with made the argument that the school board is proposing this due to the performance requirements that will eventually be mandated by the state, essentially helping teachers out with their performance.

I call BS on this theory, because if you have a student who continuously wants to retake a test, this is going to take a lot of time and resources from a teacher who could otherwise be *ahem* teaching. Besides, if I'm a teacher, and I have a kid who makes a 30 on a test, wants to retake it, then makes a 55 the next round, and wants to take it again because he/she genuinely wants to make a good grade, then I'm going to understand that this kid wants to succeed, but is just having trouble, and I'll modify my teaching style for this student, or start to dig deeper to find out whats going on.

The kids who make 30's and just don't care aren't going to want to retake it. When it comes evaluation time for teachers, administrators (some who haven't taught a day in their lives) are going to ask Mr. Smith....why are your students performing so poorly? They can take tests as many times as they want, and you're telling me they're still failing?

And what about all of the other students who turn their work in on time? Should we start giving them a 150 for doing what is asked of them? Same kind of logic.

10/30/2013 5:18:09 PM

don't know why this matters. the kid's a dumbass either way.

10/30/2013 5:41:42 PM

I have mixed feelings about this. I do disagree with the blanket statement of "no 0s". That's dumb, and can cause bad habits (they don't know the work, so they just won't try it at all).

Being able to request to re-take a test (or even homework assignments) has interesting implications. As much as you guys like to think that all teachers are smart and care like you, there are plenty of horrific teachers who just don't care or are my-way-or-the-highway types. Two examples:

-My brother had a class when there was a bomb threat at the school (originally assumed to be a fire drill). The teacher told everyone to leave their backpacks behind (as per school policy) and orderly leave the building. Some kids did take their backpacks, though. No one was allowed back in the building that day and everyone was sent home early. The next day, the teacher gave everyone who didn't turn in their homework a 0. When asked by administration, she showed that some people did do their homework (the ones who kept their bags), so surely the other students could find some way to also do it.

-I had a Spanish teacher who had pre-made tests that she always gave at certain points in the semester. She also taught at the class's pace, so if it fell behind she would take longer on some lessons than planned. The end result was that when test time came around, there were some tests which covered material which hadn't ever been touched in the class. Yeah, lots of people not very happy on that first test.

---

These policies could help alleviate situations like these, but there is only so much you can do when a terrible human being is in charge of children.

10/30/2013 5:47:43 PM

What about cheating? Zeroes allowed for that?

10/30/2013 5:53:43 PM

I'm pretty sure this talk has been revived because of the new superintendent's focus on graduation rates... not giving students zeros will help pass more kids through no doubt, but in the long run floating kids through graduation waters down the meaning of a diploma.

of course there are larger issues... shoehorning as many kids as possible down the college prep track is not doing a lot of those kids any favors. i'm a fan of giving kids a wider range of options including trade-learning opportunities, etc.

10/30/2013 6:03:24 PM

Regardless of what happens the rich kids are going to get their way and the poor smelly kids are going to get fucked.

It's life.

10/30/2013 6:41:57 PM

what the fuck happened to grading tough and making kids feel royally fucking upset that they've disappointed their parents?

Oh wait, I find that I barely know anyone other than me that gave a shit about that their parents thought.

plus, i suppose a lot of parents just don't actually give a shit

[Edited on October 30, 2013 at 7:20 PM. Reason : ]

10/30/2013 7:19:50 PM

This is less about helping kids, more about moving the goalposts for a failed public school system.

If kids don't do work or pay attention, it's because they didn't feel it was worth their time. That's a failure of parents and teachers, not a failure of the kid that is forced to be there one way or the other.

Quote :

"why work hard to get anything done when you can just do it next week anyway?"

Why do people work hard when there isn't any punishment involved whatsoever? Sometimes hard work is satisfying, but when you try to get kids to learn shit that they don't care about, and then you fail to present it in a way that inspires them to do the work, well...what do you expect?

[Edited on October 30, 2013 at 8:01 PM. Reason : ]

10/30/2013 7:58:56 PM

Quote :

"in the long run floating kids through graduation waters down the meaning of a diploma"

i think it's a little too late to salvage the value of a diploma from a public high school

10/30/2013 8:08:18 PM

"The highest grade a student can earn on a retake of a failed test is 75. Students with a passing grade can re-take the test once to earn 50% credit for any questions that are correctly answered the second time around."

There...I just came up with a solution to all your worries about kids constantly retaking tests to eek out a few more points. I know it doesn't solve the problem of teachers not really having time for re-takes, but they already deal with to some extent for students who miss class and have to take tests at a later time due to sickness, right?

10/31/2013 8:17:36 AM

^
how about no retakes? why allow them at all?

more work for teachers for no good reason.

10/31/2013 8:38:08 AM

^^^ yep, and we've pretty well diluted the value of a 4-year degree in most majors.

^ yep

10/31/2013 9:12:20 AM

Why don't we have a day where we line up those failing high school and throw our rotten fruit at them.

10/31/2013 10:20:25 AM

What are y'all basing your "public schools are failing" statements on? Testing shows kids leaving high school are as knowledgeable as kids from the 70s (some would argue theyve actually improved slightly). Thats true across all all races and gender. Graduation rates, on the whole, are rising. Public schools aren't perfect, but I'd say they are far from a failure.

10/31/2013 10:32:59 AM

Quote :

"What are y'all basing your "public schools are failing" statements on? Testing shows kids leaving high school are as knowledgeable as kids from the 70s (some would argue theyve actually improved slightly). Thats true across all all races and gender. Graduation rates, on the whole, are rising. Public schools aren't perfect, but I'd say they are far from a failure."

So public schools are as good as they were 40 years ago? That's the bar for success?

Technology is accelerating, and we're still using the same schooling model that was designed to churn out factory workers.

10/31/2013 10:37:28 AM