Stop the planet! I want off! (public school insanity)

The Lawdog Files ^ | August 19, 2008 | Lawdog

[MtnClimber]

The Dallas Independent School District has decided that their 20% drop-out rate amongst DISD high school freshmen is a wee bit of a problem and have decided to go about fixing things.

To me, the first step in fixing something is usually to find out why it needs fixing............

Anyhoo, it is readily apparent that I am not an employee for the Dallas Independent School District, because those worthies have decided that what is required is actually something called "effort-based grading"..........

Under "effort-based grading" if a student turns in homework, and the grade received on said homework would lower the students grade point average -- well, that homework grade does not count. Only homework grades that raise the students GPA are to be recorded.

[MtnClimber]

Truly amazing! Talk about burying their heads in the sand....or somewhere!

[Apollo 13]

Post of the day. By this logic, the general standard of every, but every young world citizen will rise and continue to rise in the future - and all diseases and shortages and pain and sorrow will be gone by 2525. Or so I’m told.

[The Lumster]

In a related decision, beginning this year, DISD athletic teams will only count wins thus ensuring every team an undefeated season.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Though many claim Bush’s No Child Left Behind act to be a disaster and a liberal program, embedded in it is accountability. What all this dancing around is about is to boost their performance rating to either keep or gain back federal funds lost because of NCLB.

[MtnClimber]

Surprised that they didn’t think about collective grading where all grades go into the collective pool and then divided according to need. That way the worst students would get the best grades.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Unfortunately, this is a typical liberal response to a problem. And liberals run the majority of big cities in the country.

[The Lumster]

Surprised that they didn’t think about collective grading where all grades go into the collective pool and then divided according to need. That way the worst students would get the best grades.

From each according to his ability to each according to his need! I'm surprised no one has thought of this before

[Federalist Society]

As a former prosecutor turned teacher I feel confident saying that “effort based grading” will lead to an increase in an already huge criminal case backlog in our judicial system.

[Apollo 13]

And also: if I were at that school, I would make sure that I would score max. points for the first exam (A, or 10, whatever)... and by sheer logic I would never have to do anything anymore in my whole school career (except turning up, perhaps).
I envy the sheer inventiveness of America. Really, I do.

[taxcontrol]

So a student who knows how to game the system, studies hard, very hard, for their first test and gets a 100%. From then on, they can turn in minimal homework and not lower their GPA?

[al_c]

•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."

The DISD administration has been off the deep end for some time now. But this just shows that they've somehow found an even deeper abyss to fall into.

[M203M4]

I was reading about the teaching methods used by the most enlightened of elementary school educators, and it dawned on me that there is much that those in academic contact with the young can do to instill the virtues of equality and social justice.

Into their coffee shops and houses, the children were building their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys, assumptions that mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society, a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive. As we watched the children build, we became increasingly concerned.

These children seemed to squirm at the implications of privilege, wealth, and power that "giving" holds. The children denied their power, framing it as benign and neutral, not something actively sought out and maintained. This early conversation helped us see more clearly the children's contradictory thinking about power and authority, laying the groundwork for later exploration.

As teachers, we were excited by these comments. The children gave voice to the value that collectivity is a solid, energizing way to organize a community, and that it requires power-sharing, equal access to resources, and trust in the other participants. They expressed the need, within collectivity, for personal expression, for being acknowledged as an individual within the group. And finally, they named the deep satisfaction of shared engagement and investment, and the ways in which the participation of many people deepens the experience of membership in community for everyone.

From this framework, the children made a number of specific proposals for rules about Legos, engaged in some collegial debate about those proposals, and worked through their differing suggestions until they reached consensus about three core agreements:

* All structures are public structures. Everyone can use all the Lego structures. But only the builder or people who have her or his permission are allowed to change a structure.
* Lego people can be saved only by a "team" of kids, not by individuals.
* All structures will be standard sizes.

With these three agreements, which distilled months of social justice exploration into a few simple tenets of community use of resources, we returned the Legos to their place of honor in the classroom.

Children absorb political, social, and economic worldviews from an early age. Those worldviews show up in their play, which is the terrain that young children use to make meaning about their world and to test and solidify their understandings. We believe that educators have a responsibility to pay close attention to the themes, theories, and values that children use to anchor their play. Then we can interact with those worldviews, using play to instill the values of equality and democracy.

The full heartwarming progressive article can be read here. That dose of social justice invigorated me, and I set out to formulate a teaching technique to spread the values of equality and democracy. What I came up with has the power to shake the very foundations of the education system. I call it FairGrade.

Suppose there is a classroom, free from thought crime, which has three upstanding members of the proletariat; we will call them Proletariat 446245232-A (pA), Proletariat 425425423-C (pC), and Proletariat 450085834-F (pF). Under the regular fascist grading scheme, pA has a grade of 95%, pC has a grade of 75%, and pF has a grade of 40%. It should be clear to everyone that 95% is an excessive amount of grade points for only one member of the proletariat. Would it not be more equitable if we were to transfer some of those grade points to the less fortunate, say, to pF? From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

Under FairGrade, we take 25 grade points from pA, 5 grade points from pC, and give 30 grade points to pF, resulting in each member of the proletariat having a grade of 70%, which is perfectly respectable - I will call it the Equal Winner Grade. Perfect academic equality has been reached, and everyone passes. You have to understand that there are root causes to poor academic performance. Things like mental illness differentness, George Bush, sickness, the bible, family village trouble, global warming climate change, fast food restaurants, second hand smoke, gender confusion, Halliburton, homophobia, socioeconomic status, lack of access to abortions, processed food, addiction, corporate advertising, being differently brained, SUVs, species extinction, American hegemony, AIDS, child molesting priests, guns, cooked animal flesh, etc. FairGrade compensates for these social crimes and returns education to the equitable place that is the right of the people.

Thoughtcrime is the only way to have a lower grade than the Equal Winner Grade, with those grade points removed being placed into the People's Grade Bank to be distributed to those harmed by displays of social injustice (i.e. Hate Crimes - which includes all thoughtcrimes). Failure will thus be taken as a crime against the state akin to treason, with the guilty Hate Terrorists sent to reeducation camps to be rehabilitated for the common good and for the security of the motherland.

[LearnsFromMistakes]

Better yet, convince the teacher to give a very easy quiz as the first quiz, and the whole class earns merit-pay for 1 very successful teacher.

I just didn’t like your idea of having to study...once...

[Apollo 13]

OK point taken. It’s a win-win situation really... teachers become ever more popular instead of the old grouches they once were; and kids can spend all their time at McD.

[MtnClimber]

The Fairgrade idea is perfect. The only thing to add things that can subtract from Equal Winner Grades may Politically Incorrect Parent Demerits. That way teachers can remove grade points if a student has one or more parents that are conservatives.

[WinMod70]

So why don’t they just do away with grading. Everyone get’s an A if they show up, most of the time, when they feel like it.

[Rogle]

In New Mexico we came up with a far more creative way of reducing our dropout rate. The democrat controlled legislature passed a law increasing the minimum dropout age to eighteen and in a separate law established that if a student earns a GED in the first year after dropping out then that student is counted as successfully completing K-12 education and is not a dropout.

[MtnClimber]

I agree! Grading is so judgemental and could damage self-esteem.

[ArchAngel1983]

” So why don’t they just do away with grading."

Why don’t we just do away with government schools. They are fundamentally flawed and can’t be fixed.

[Arkansas Toothpick]

Actually, I think that schools SHOULD do away with grading...to an extent, anyway. It would make much more sense if we went to a system where MASTERY of content is the focus instead of using a chronologically-based system (grades based upon age). In other words, if you can master the content in 8 years of school, then you graduate. If it takes you 15 years, then you graduate (or quit). Mastery should be measured by an end-of-course examination; get rid of all the intermediate static. Our system is seriously flawed and this type of stuff being pulled by DISD is a band-aid on a terminally-ill patient.