Another student whining about School

From Dangerously Irrelevant comes this sad tale of woe and student repression that needs another point of view.

Here's the story. A student named Jack Hostager went to the "Coastal America Student Summit on the Oceans and Coasts. So far, I'm loving the sound of this.

[It] was indisputably the best learning experience I have ever had. I learned more than I could have ever learned in a classroom about how the planet works, ways in which humans depend on and impact the ocean, and efforts being undertaken to conserve them. 

This is awesome, though I have to point out that few classrooms will ever be the same as a Student Summit on the Oceans and Coasts because they are not designed to be so specific.  Rather, school curricula are usually designed to be an underlying foundation that provides the students with the knowledge and skills to appreciate and learn from something such as this.  

Equally important, I discovered how to work well with others, connect with people, be persuasive, speak in front of an audience, answer questions under pressure, juggle competing priorities, and follow through with a project.

Okay, but hardly new in the annals of education. Overall, he's still on a good theme here, though a bit misguided about what makes for effective education. Then he gets off track:

These all sound like skills that every student should have. Yet because I didn’t practice them in a classroom, I was punished by education’s systems of grading for this. 

Punished? Because you learned something while not being in school? Did you think somehow that school was the only place you could possibly learn?

When I got back to school, my grades had dropped (some considerably) since I missed a few assignments and a test. It was as if the whole experience meant nothing because I learned the wrong thing. But it would have been irrelevant even if it directly related to what I was studying because I still would have had to make up the work, listen to a lecture, and eventually take a test.

The main thing: You missed a test and some assignments. What did you expect your grade would be based on? Random behavior rubric? A report on "What I learned at the Conference"? If the teacher had said, "That sounds like a neat symposium, you get an A" he would be okay in your book? Instead, he said "That sounds like a neat symposium but irrelevant to our study of the Kreb Cycle and so you still have to take that test" and that makes him a bastard?

This symposium was irrelevant to the course and that is what you are graded on.

It may be relevant to your life (sounds like it will be and THAT's why you should have done it) but it was irrelevant to the course. 

Even if it were directly relevant, you can't expect a teacher to give you a grade based on self-reported and vaguely stated "learning" from a conference that the teacher did not attend. As much as possible, grades need to be based on objective standards not on participation rubrics and happy feelings.

Shut up and study hard.

But, please continue:

After returning inspired and ready to change the world only to be thrust back into the invariable cycle of desks, worksheets, textbooks, and lockers, education’s expectation for me hit me painfully hard. I realized that apparently my job is to shut up and study hard. If I’m so inclined, I can go out for a sport or join a club, but my schoolwork should trump all. 

Now THAT is funny. You went to a single conference and when you returned, you expect that the entire school would have changed to reflect and resemble a two-week student symposium. What did you expect, "Sure, you can skip all this material" or "Jack went to a conference, so we're changing the curriculum to match"?

I’m not supposed to contribute anything noteworthy to the world, but instead lay low and consume it until after I’ve graduated. Sure, adults applaud when we do something great outside of school. But ultimately school only cares if it meets some curriculum standard that can be measured. Oh, and it has to be the one we are studying right now, and it has to be part of an assignment that’s going in the gradebook. If not, I don’t get credit and therefore it’s a waste of my time.

No one is stopping you from contributing anything. Knock yourself out.

I certainly won't hold you back.

If I seem underwhelmed by your obvious brilliance, it is because that brilliance isn't so apparent. You aren't the first student to come back inspired from a summit and you won't be the last. What will set you apart from the rest is what you do from now on.

Will you spend your time whining about oppression by The Man or will you actually do something noteworthy?

Are you one of the crazy ones?

There's a big difference between being a rebel because you know something better or have done something important and being a rebel because you're immature.

Certainly, I wouldn't give you credit for something you haven't done. When I give grades, I do so based on things that I have direct knowledge of, like the tests that I write. I don't give credit for attending a conference I know nothing about, because that's what the students, parents, and school demand.

The grade is something you earn, not something I give. As best as possible, it reflects what you know and have learned.

I am required to address a certain number of curriculum standards, not because I have this random, indeligible list of checkboxes but because I know that students from this Algebra I class are going to be expected to know various things before going to Algebra II, before attending symposia, or before they can "contribute something noteworthy."

Was this symposium a waste of time? For you, it might have been. If the only thing that makes this type of experience worthwhile is a grade in the gradebook, I truly feel pity for you. If, on the other hand, you spent the summit "messing with perl" ...

Get Rid of As Bs Cs?

As a point of reference, for those who want to remove the "traditional" A-F scale and replace it with something more rubric based, you're not being particularly new or original. Changing a grade from "A" to "Proficient with Distinction" doesn't actually provide any more or less information - it's still a distillation of mounds of data down to a single indicator, with interpretation and fiddling for those students the teacher doesn't want to be truthful to. "F" means "Fair" or "C" means "Average" or "2" means "Didn't quite meet the standard" -- what's the difference, really?


I got this nugget from Black River Union High School, in southern Vermont:

Grade Inflation in College? I'm Shocked!

Who would have thought?

Go to this web site and search the course roster at the University of Wisconsin and find out what grades were given each semester for the last several years.

I wandered the Fall 2010-2011 Grades
Intermediate Organic Chemistry: 2.8
Evolving Universe (in the Astronomy Department): 2.9
Freshman Composition: 3.7
Curriculum and Instruction (EDU) had a department average of 3.927
Engineering: 2.902
Thermodynamics: 2.818

You get the knowledge you work for.  The grade hardly matters anymore.

LAUSD, 10% Homework policy and Class Categories.

Seems okay to me that homework is limited to 10% of a student's grade. I think that's probably about right since I can never really be sure that the homework wasn't

• copied from a friend
• done by a parent
• cut-and-pasted from Internet sources.
• removed from the older brother's notebook from two years ago and handed back in! (Happened to the chemistry teacher this year - pretty damn funny.)

For me, there are two categories; "graded" and "practice".

"Practice" includes homework, classwork, some group projects, notebook checks and some ungraded quizzes that are up-front "Will not be graded - just for seeing your understanding." If it's done fairly completely, I give it 5 points, 3 if half-assed and 0 if not at all. Anything given out as a worksheet is placed on the Moodle and can be completed later for full credit. "It's practice!"

If students did it with help and it's not all individual work, it probably falls into this category. Since "practice" implies errors and improvement, this work is not graded for correctness.

"Graded" : quizzes, projects, tests. If you did this on your own and YOU have the understanding, then it fits into this category. I am not a fan of group grades. We can argue about that later.

How does this balance out?

The younger the grade and ability, the higher the practice portion of the grade. Weak 9th graders in pre-algebra get a 60% graded - 40% practice to encourage the notebooks, homework, classwork. It also gives me leeway for the IEP and 504 students who have so much of their work completed for them by the Resource Room Staff.


Thus, 10% for homework will work just fine.
For the AP seniors, there is no "practice" category. The grade is based on quizzes, labs, tests, and binder-questions. Daily homework is for practice and has no effect on the grade, positive or negative. (There are some graded problems for homework, but that's specified ahead).

It's high time they get some experience in deciding what and how much to do, and figuring how much they truly understand - now, while the education is free. Conversely, those who know what's going on can focus on their science or English on any particular day, or on their soccer game since I have a lot of soccer players in my AP calc.

My ultimate goal is for the student to leave the class prepared for what's next. If she passes Algebra I with an A, then she'll be fine in Algebra II. If they get a "A" in calc, then I expect they'll get an "A" in MA121 at RPI.

Code in a nutshell:

• I try to always be aware of the social promotion aspects of grading. It does no one any good, least of all the student, to pretend that he passed Algebra I so then he gets put into Algebra II. Don't pass him on "Effort" alone. It's not fair to him. 
• There's nothing wrong with repeating a math course.
• The assessment of their abilities should be reflected in the standardized test scores they earn: SAT, NECAP and Regents results. If my students are consistently doing poorly on standardized tests, yet get As and Bs, I need to consider whether and what to change. ME, not the school or the district, or any silly value-added measure.
• If the transcript says "Math" then I have freedom do work on whatever I feel is appropriate for each student. I can take a two-week detour into fractions and basic math if that is what they need. If the transcript will say CP Geometry, then I base the course and the grading on what that means in my school.
• I refuse to differentiate if it means I am not teaching what the transcript says I am teaching. Differentiation should happen by class - if he isn't capable of CP Geometry then he should switch into a class more appropriate. The one-room schoolhouse lump-them-all-into-one class and differentiate is utter bullshit and was only done last century out of necessity. Since it's no longer necessary, I don't do it. 
• I don't "pass" a misplaced student if it means he'll be more badly misplaced next year. By all means, I'll help him pass on his own but I won't pretend.

"I won't lie to you and I won't lie for you. Here's the straight dope."

A 1, and a 2, and a 1, 2, 3, 4 !

Here we go!! When you can't fix the students, change SOMETHING.

From The Associated Press
SPOKANE, Wash. —

Spokane elementary schools switch to number grades

Parents looking at elementary school report cards this week in Spokane are seeing 4-3-2-or-1 instead of A-B-C-D-or-F. Schools have switched to a number-based grading system they say better records student standards and assessments.

The Spokesman-Review reports 4 means consistently extending knowledge; 3 means meeting standards; 2 means approaching standards; and 1 means below standards.

After three years of testing at six schools, the new system was implemented this year at all elementaries in the Spokane district. A learning services specialist who led the change, Tammy Campbell, says number grading gives parents a clearer picture of where their child stands.

This is SOOO much better. Now, you can't just assign a fake and inaccurate A, B or F. Instead, you have to give a much more authentic and fairer 4, 3, 2, or 1.

And I've always appreciated the "1=Below" being somehow different from the "2=Approaching but still below." Aren't all failing students below standard students "approaching" the standard? Does anyone think that giving a kid a "1" is going to make anything any better than giving him an "F"?

Of Valedictorians and Significant Figures.

Not to change the topic, but why is education a horse-race? How can averages be any real measurement of or comparison between two students, when they are taking different courses from different teachers at (probably) different levels of difficulty?

I have always been at schools with valedictorians chosen after semester 7 and I HATE it. The only thing worse would be if we had chosen them after 8 semesters because then the two or three kids would be driven batty for their entire HS careers rather than for most of it.

We're not measuring them in a vacuum. We're measuring availability of a GOOD algebra in the eighth grade, not the BS that most eighth grade teachers are pawning off on their kids.

We're measuring the amount of constant worry about grades, rather than a more measured balance between doing your best and trying a course that might not be a slam-dunk but might be interesting or challenging.

We're measuring placement, too. My classes tend to be different from the guy across the hall. I have a different homework policy. He grades homework but I don't. His tests were hand-written for many years. I always typed. For some, this makes a difference. We grade differently as well. I use an overhead, he uses a blackboard.

We're measuring placement - will the schedule allow you to take AP English and AP Biology at the same time? Is your French 4 conflicting with your AP Physics? Why are you taking AP courses anyway (for the percentage push or for the knowledge and enjoyment)

We're measuring their lives. The kids who win are rarely the three-sport athlete-scholar, even though that kid at #8 on the list is far superior in almost any measure except GPA. Who are we rewarding? The kid who drops out of nearly everything but the academic grind.

From the first day they show up in the high school, their entire focus is on grubbing points so they can be #1 four years later. They choose courses based on whether it "helps" their average, not whether it is something they're interested in. Every test is an exercise in brown-nosing.

A couple of years ago I had two students who were on the "track". One took pre-calc as a sophomore and got a 97, the other took it as a junior and got a 96. The difference between the two grades could have been as little as 5 points on the final exam and rounding by GradeQuick. They finished within 0.003 points of one another. All other courses being equal (as silly as that statement is) means that the difference in difficulty between two of my finals might have been all that distinguished one from the other. One got the UVM full scholarship, the other didn't. Guess which one wanted to go to UVM. You're right, the other one. The valedictorian wanted to go to RPI and didn't use the money. #2 needed the money badly, but didn't get it. Interestingly, this scenario is repeated in one of the comments on Scheiss Weekly, here. It happens far too often to be tolerated.

In engineering and science, we would deride this as excessive use of accuracy pretending to be significant figures. Only in education can we imagine that we can judge that accurately with numbers that fluctuate constantly.

The center circle in a soccer field may 10 yards radius but we drew the line with a spray can tied to a string that wound around the center post and shortened it and we were walking around hunched over and weaving back and forth a bit. You can't say the area is 314.15926535897 yds² and pretend you know it to one-hundred billionth of a square yard just because there's a π key is on your calculator. GradeQuick does the same kind of thing. The precision is fantasy.

When you look at your teachers' grades, as I have, you find that grade inflation is rampant, but not consistent. There are far more 60s, 61s, 62s than there are 67s, 68s. Why? Because of the "bump". Inconsistency is a bitch if you are trying to be ultra-precise. The same happens at the top end. 95s get pushed to 99s or 100s by the "curve." Wherever your school has cut-offs, you find this shifting occurring. Pass-fail, eligibility minimums, honor-roll minimums, NHS reqs, whatever. The distribution is NOT correct. The dips below the cut-off points and the bumps above them are noticeable, if you look. Of course, guidance would never allow you to look if you ever let them know what was going on.

Try searching for correlations between SAT scores and grades in math - there's a real eye-opener in many cases. Are those As really As? Are those top kids really that good? When the kid gets an A in math all the way up to Calculus, but can only get 480 in 3 tries at the SAT, do you still have the same confidence in your grading system, it's fairness and your valedictorian?

There are other kids also making 100s, not because they are perfect and can solve anything in the course but because they are in a class that they outshine and the teacher can't give 105s. If you put them in with their peers, they might only get a 97. If you put them in the class that would be most beneficial, they might get a B, but would work their butts off and really learn everything trying to keep up. Why should placement be a part of the kid's worth?

Why should an IEP kid who gets 100s all time be the valedictorian if she cannot write a paragraph-long speech, or deliver it? (True story. The school quickly changed its mind. Ruined at least 7 rants for this blog.)

We need a change here, people.

You can pretend that a photo-finish is appropriate but it isn't. It certainly isn't if you consider all the ways in which parents and school can affect the situation out of the control of the kid. Think of all the shifting around that I've mentioned and you can come up with a bunch more.

How can we say that Alphonse is better than Gaston?

I'm in favor of identifying the "bunch" at the top and having them all participate - call it the TRUE Honor Society.

Having just one may be more satisfying to the ONE, but it's not education and it isn't real.

Just sayin'.

Double Dose of Algebra and some Ramblings

Over at Curriculum Matters, they're asking Does 'Double-Dose' Algebra Work?

Across the country, one of the strategies schools are trying to help struggling students in algebra is essentially doubling the amount of time spent on that course. It's a popular tactic in other areas of math, and in reading, too.

A new study, however, says that double-dose courses produced mixed results in Chicago schools. On the one hand, the 9th graders studied saw their test scores rise. But the policy did not appear to result in fewer students failing the course, as school officials had hoped, the authors report. The grades of some struggling students increased, after the double-dosing, though the weakest students did not see their grades rise.

Ignoring the grammatical and structural problems in those paragraphs, I was struck by the apparent surprise. This result seems very obvious to me. With more time devoted to drilling and practicing for the test, you'd expect the test scores to converge on the mean. Look no further than KIPP.

The grades in the course, on the other hand, are based on different criteria. Teachers routinely count "participation," homework, classwork, and behavior. Extra credit and test corrections and grade-adjustment skew the scores. Parents routinely ask for "make-up work," code for "just give him more points without making him do anything or we'll raise hell."

Should advocates of double-dose math courses be pleased with these results? After all, one could argue that student learning—if test scores accurately reflect that—increased. Or should persistently high failure rates raise red flags?

Sure. But Red flags signifying which issue? That the class is different from the test? DUH. Would you be upset if the class averages were in the 90s and the test scores were dismal? Yes, you should. But you'd be worried about the wrong things. Do class averages measure learning? Does the State test measure learning?

When the State scores are low, the usual response is to bitch about the content of the course or the quality of the teacher. This is occasionally the problem. A few people complain about the motivation of the student, which is a big problem. No one ever talks about the idea that the teacher might be teaching material that the State isn't testing, like the algebra the kids need instead of the geometry that the State assumes they should be ready for at age 15.

When the scores don't correlate, too many people spout off about "test-taking strategies" and "test anxiety" and "some kids don't test well" and "only a snapshot."

What is wrong with a "snapshot," anyway? I can't tell you how many times I've had people tell me that the (3-hr, well-constructed and extensively peer-reviewed before and after the fact) State Tests are bad because they're only one day's measurement and thus should be eliminated. These same folks then turn around and push for a final exam (1.5hr, 'constructed' by the teacher at 12 midnight and never reviewed) to be 20% of the kid's grade.

No one ever complains about the most common problem and the biggest reason why grades and State Scores rarely correlate: the teacher has too much control over the way the course is graded and his tests are scored.

Even the newest, most inexperienced teachers are routinely given control over grading, curriculum and student progress.

I have had brand-new teachers tell me that they are going to teach chapters 1, 6, 8, 7, 2, 4, in that order. Why? They thought it was better that way. Ch3 and ch5 are ignored because why? The answer usually has more to do with the teacher's lack of understanding than the stated reason, "Those chapters on matrices and blahblah are not current and blah blah blah." No account is given for the idea that the book was written and vetted by people far smarter (and with a lot more time to consider these things) to be done in a particular order. No thought is spared for the linearity of the material and the fact that most of the problems in ch4 assume that you've done (or at least understand) ch 1-3. Going out of order confuses even the best students; they are constantly asking "Should I have known that really important fact or idea? Am I stupid or did we just not cover it?"

The standards-based movement exacerbates this problem. Instead of following a curriculum, the teacher is supposed to pick and choose from the Standards and individualize the curriculum for each kid based on test scores. The grades coming out of this train-wreck usually have more to do with some vague idea of "effort" than of any assessment of ability.

Beyond the curriculum matters, the teachers also mess up grading. Do you count homework or grade it? Some have participation and brown-nosing scores as high as 10%. Some have tests, quizzes and homework roughly equal. In my school, we even have control over the relative weight of the terms if you can believe it. Some faculty count the two terms and the final as 40-40-20 while others are 45-45-10. Others don't give a final.

Is it any wonder that grades aren't changing in lockstep with the State scores?

Is it surprising that we don't achieve in the same way as the schools in other countries do? You know, the ones that have a national curriculum that aligns with the TIMMS and PISA tests so that those countries will do well on the TIMSS and PISA tests? That have long (by comparison) teacher mentorships so that the new teachers are in line with the older ones and not spinning off like some subatomic particle in their own personal cloud-chamber? Have we learned nothing from the reality of Stand and Deliver or were we just seduced by the feel-good fiction?

I'm not saying this is the ideal but if we wish to repeat their successes, we'll need to at least partially repeat their processes. We also have to consider that learning might not equal scores or grades.

Curriculum Matters continues with another obvious point:

Chicago is, of course, coping with many of the same challenges in algebra that other districts are. The new study follows another one, released last month, which found that Chicago's failure rates increased when the district mandated that students take algebra in 9th grade.

I nominate Curriculum Matters for Poor Elijah's Emperor Awards 2009 (2008 here) "Archimedes Eureka Honorarium" which spotlights the imaginative world of education research. Congratulations to all.

More Musings on Grades

I'll have to think about it but it seems, at first blush, like this goes a long way towards explaining my dislike of cooperative learning but more importantly, my dislike of the grading that goes along with it.

Add in that wonderful quote from Old Andrew, "If you want to learn how to cooperate effectively with others, then the last place you’d start is in a group of teenagers being made to do school work. This is like saying the best way to learn how to make pork sausages is by being imprisoned in a pig farm with a half-dozen rabbis. Putting together people who are neither experienced at doing something, or particularly inclined to want to do it, is not how you learn to do that something."

From Theo Spark:

An Experiment in Socialism

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism."

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided that since they could not make an A, they studied less. The second Test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else. All failed to their great surprise and the professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder people try to succeed the greater their reward but when a government takes all the reward away; no one will try or succeed.

I'm not sure that it's all so cut and dried but the historical and cultural data is pretty strong.

More grade musings

In my other post of the day, I spoke about grading and talked about the emphasis on process or knowledge. I do agree with JD that focusing entirely on one or the other is probably less effective that a measured blend. I'll second his comment that "knowledge is key to passing" with an anecdote ...

A student dropped in. This is spring break and he was talking about his college and courses and "how it was all going." He had taken everything available while in high school and had gotten decent grades (Bs and As) in math. Spring of Junior year, he took the SAT and scored below 500 on the math. Then he showed up in my calculus class senior year. I had mentioned that, though it wasn't a deal-killer, a sub-500 score on the math should indicate that perhaps calculus wasn't the best placement. He insisted on staying - he'd gotten good grades all his life. Guidance repeated the statement with dramatic gasps of indignation that I was perhaps being "elitist" or something.

He failed. Everything. Limits were a horror story and derivatives were a chore. The limit form of the derivative was a perfect storm of frustration. He muddled through the year, withdrawing mid-year but Guidance said to keep attending to get whatever he could.

Flash forward to this year: College placement: pre-calculus. grade in pre-calculus: 92

How in the hell did this kid get As and Bs all his career and show up in senior year so deficient in algebra that the power rule is an enigma? I have my guess: group work and off-kilter grade proportions. Tests worth 60 points and homeworks worth 15. And that homework was group work and collaborative learning.

Teachers shouldn't dress on the SAT guidon, but you have to at least be cognizant of the correlation between your grades and standardized tests. If you find that your grades don't match up with states tests or SATs or APs, you must consider the reasons carefully. An "excellent" student (95%) in algebra II should not be getting a 400 on the SAT math without SOMEONE saying "hummm." If we teachers don't want the bigwigs to do this, we need to do it first.

Just sayin'.

Musings on Grading.

Progress reports due today. One boy has a 17. I managed to give him credit for participating in classwork and he earned a 7% on a test. Never did the test corrections. Doesn't hand in homework or even most of the classwork. Another works hard, hands everything in, tries to pay attention in class, but can't score better than 60% on tests. Still another pays attention, answers questions, hands nothing in but still gets As on tests.

Should we grade these students based on what they do in comparison with the rest or compared to a mythical norm? Should we give more credit for effort or for knowledge? What's the balance between homework and tests? Is it the learning at the end that counts or the learning process?

I've often thought about this balance between grading for effort/ improvement and grading for results. I guess I come down on the side of the latter. I'd much rather a kid who gets the knowledge in the long run.

I've been doing this teaching thing for a while now and I think the most frustrating part of a new class is figuring out how much the kids know and where to go from there. Are the kids similar in ability and knowledge to other post-algebra one students? I think that grading should reflect knowledge more than effort.

A grades is my way of telling the next teacher what to expect.

If the transcript says "B" in algebra I, then the kid's gotta know certain things. When you put him in algebra II, you are launching him into a course that assumes an understanding of certain things: factoring and distributive property (don't call it FOIL! h/t jd2718), linear functions and graphing, english-to-algebra translation (word problems), numerical and algebraic FRACTIONS, all those simple algebra rules, an intro to quadratics and radicals.

What happens if the kid gets a push, with too much credit for copying homework and "really trying" and "cooperative learning"? He was the lower man on the totem pole last year and needed a push - now he's even worse off. I don't think it's fair to him. Let him repeat algebra I. Better yet, let him repeat the eighth grade pre-algebra if needed.

This idea that process is more important that knowledge is killing our schools. We're also pushing the content lower and lower, replacing the practice and knowledge that middle school used to focus on. We've got kids who are taking a watered-down algebra in seventh or eighth grade who then wonder why they have so much trouble in calculus when they get that far.

21st century skills, my foot. How about some 20th century knowledge? It's 20th century knowledge and skills that built all these wonderful toys and technology - why change horses now?

Great State of Texas strikes again - Part one

Although, to be fair, this is an idea embraced by a whole bunch of "experts".

AT A GLANCE: Grading changes
•Homework grades should be given only when the grades will "raise a student's average, not lower it."
•Teachers must accept overdue assignments, and their principal will decide whether students are to be penalized for missing deadlines.
•Students who flunk tests can retake the exam and keep the higher grade.
•Teachers cannot give a zero on an assignment unless they call parents and make "efforts to assist students in completing the work."
•High school teachers who fail more than 20 percent of their students will need to develop a professional improvement plan and will be monitored by their principals. For middle school the rate is 15 percent; for elementary it's 10 percent.
•Minimum score on report card is 50.

As a spur to accountability, I'm not sure that removing all of the accountability from the students and placing in the laps of the teacher is particularly intelligent. As I say often, it's the students' education, not the teachers', and the responsibility for learning is on the student. I will do my job, the students must do theirs. If there is only teacher accountability, then you have addressed only one-half of the problem.

I generally approve of making policy that applies district-wide, but only for "strategic" not for "tactical" policy. Make a consistent dress code. Make a consistent calendar. Decide that marking periods are 20% and mid-terms and finals, 10%.

In another part of the policy, there are specifications on the relative weight of homework, classwork, quizzes and tests. This is where it gets silly. It is too much on the micro-management scale akin to LBJ picking targets from Washington. All that will happen is that I will mis-label a quiz as a test or vice versa.

On the other hand, they do pay us well and "He who signs the paycheck makes the rules." That principal can change the grade without my consent, anyway. At least this is all now aboveboard.
Stupid, but aboveboard.

See this next post for more of my snarky commentary on this issue.

Great State of Texas strikes again - Part two

Let's take these bullets separately, shall we?

"Homework grades should be given only when the grades will "raise a student's average, not lower it."

This has two problems. First, if the overall grade is a 50 from two homeworks, then a 75 will raise the average and thus should be counted. If the student does well on the first test and raises his average to 80, does that teacher have to go back and remove the scores below 80? When he does, and the average rises to an 83, does the teacher remove all the homework scores below that? Secondly, if the number must always raise the grade, why not mandate the actual grade: 100 for anything handed in, even if it's a name on an otherwise blank sheet of paper. That will certainly improve scores.  Am I being disingenuous? Yup.  But don't expect me not to laugh when such a statement issues forth."... only when the grades will "raise a student's average, not lower it."  It's not an assessment if it can only improve things.  It's grade inflation, not learning.

"Teachers must accept overdue assignments, and their principal will decide whether students are to be penalized for missing deadlines." 

While I can accept the idea of allowing the principal some say in the application of the lateness policy for some students, for he should know the reason for the absence and I might not, does it really make sense that the principal will be able to make those determinations for the 5-15% of the 4000 students who are late with their assignments in 6 classes a day? Seems like He might have something better to do with his time. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind the "$70,000 Special Assistant to the Principal for Academic Tardiness Penalization or Resolution" job.

And why should all teachers accept ALL overdue assignments? Is there no school website to post assignment deadlines and class work lists? Can the teachers not hand out long-term assignments weeks in advance? If I hand out a itemized list at the beginning of each chapter with instructions to record scores and grades (so students can keep track), am I being unreasonable to specify due dates? How far past the end of the marking period can late work be handed in (assuming that it raises the average, of course)? At what point does student accountability take hold here if there is no "drop-dead" deadline, ever?

"Students who flunk tests can retake the exam and keep the higher grade."
How many times? There are situations in my class when I will give students the option of retaking a test, especially if it is material they will need NEXT chapter. I make up an entirely new test. Students must go over the old one and make corrections before they are allowed to bother with the new one. "Have you made an improvement in what you know?" Otherwise, we are all wasting our time.  Since I have several versions of each test, this is easier for me than for new teachers - bless 'em if they can pull this off.

Additionally, I have no idea when these re-takes are supposed to happen. In class and lose another period, good student twiddling while bad student retakes test? Or after school? This would be my option but many schools ban that.

"Teachers cannot give a zero on an assignment unless they call parents and make 'efforts to assist students in completing the work.'"
Really? Even for work not handed in or the Name-on-blank-sheet work? How about for the "Hope you have a nice summer" and pictures of abstract figures answer that I got on an exam last year?

If the parents were so damn effective, why did they wait until 9th grade to get something going? Bottom line: it's the kids' education and education is not a spectator sport. Sure, we want parents involved and that's why we send out progress reports every two weeks and grade reports every quarter. The parents know what and how their kids are doing - my calling them and telling them each and every time isn't going to change anything. Besides, that would take an inordinate amount of time and I'd rather spend that time helping kids who want to improve. A good resolution to this is on-line gradebooks, but even they have problems - mostly with helicopter parents. 

As for that line "make efforts to assist students in completing the work." What do you think I've been doing? Writing on my blog all day?

Oh, yeah.  Good thing we haven't started school yet or that comment would have fallen really flat.

"High school teachers who fail more than 20 percent of their students will need to develop a professional improvement plan and will be monitored by their principals."

First off, principals should be aware anyway. That's their job. The idea of placing a teacher on probation for failing too many students is really silly, though. This bullet point will simply ensure that a lot of students will pass by 0.001 points - avoiding the penalty on the teacher. It will not magically enable them to have a chance in Algebra II.  Remember the lament "My day would be so much easier if I just gave everyone an A."

If Guidance places students in an Algebra I class, they should make sure that all of the kids COULD pass. They should be aware that progressing to Algebra II will require a passing grade in Algebra I and a certain knowledge of certain material. Otherwise, you are dooming them to failure (excuse me, barely passing another course).  If the policy also impacted on the Guidance counselor who scheduled them for the wrong class, that might make this more appropriate. If you fill an pre-calculus class with students who belong in basic math, who's at fault here? That's an exaggeration, of course, but it shows my point. Put the kids in the class that's appropriate and then you can lump more responsibility on me.

If you give me a class of ninth graders whose one common feature is having failed every major course in 7th and 8th grade, and are failing nearly every course again this year, don't be surprised if they fail mine, too. Sure, some will rise above their habits but many of them badly needed a wake-up call. "Sorry, I warned you all along and gave you how many progress reports? What did you expect?"  In basic math and beginning algebra, one of the assignments periodically is to calculate their own weighted average, and learn how to find "what they need to get a ..."

This drops us at the last one ... minimum 50 on a progress report. Grades should be based on what a kid knows and can do. It should not be based on "effort" and "Great to have in class" rubrics. I can fudge it a bit for late learners - I use the whole retest thing. I can base it on the later tests if the later work builds on the earlier work.

If I enter a Geometry grade on the report card, it should reflect how much Geometry the kid knows. Not how much the school would like him to know. Not how much he brown-nosed me. Not how loud and active he was, nor on how many questions he put his hand up for. The grade tells other people one thing: he knows roughly 65% of the material well. If you insist on a minimum 50, then you really should just mandate that everyone pass regardless and stop screwing around.