Sunday, November 16, 2008

Maintaining Standards

On the November "Start a New Post," Anonymous wrote:

Two bits of information I found alarming:1)As per the BOE website...If an assignment is not turned in it still receives a grade of 50% and,2) Some teachers have been directed to assign less homework because the students who are not turning in the work are ruining the Board's statistics for improvement.WHAT ARE WE TEACHING THE STUDENTS!!

4 comments:

Kathy Fine said...

Do we have any real instances of this happening? Anyone with knowledge of the practice of teachers assigning less homework, please post!

Anonymous said...

The practice of students figuring out the new system I have examples of...both from other parents and from my own child.

"You're missing an assignment here."
"It's not worth much and I still get 50% if I don't hand it in!"
"Grrr, do it anyway!"

It also hurts that lower students -- those who do struggle but who work hard and make an effort. Their grades are often not much different than those who did only a few things and nothing else.

Anonymous said...

At a recent meeting, several teachers expressed strong disagreement with the "no less than 50%" policy and suggested that parents held more sway over the school board than they did. The feeling is that the very reason that was given for the policy, that kids will just give up if they receive zeros, will apply to the kid doing his work and struggling for a passing grade watches a kid do nothing and earn almost the same grade.

Questioner said...

Some parents may want this policy but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that most parents want it. The 50% policy is apparently so unusual that the story received national and even international attention.