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Selling candy didn't raise much money last year, so a Goldsboro middle school tried selling grades.

It used to be that the worst grade you could receive in school was an F, and that was bad enough. But B.C.'s Simon Fraser University is taking punishment to a whole new level, introducing a grade of FD -- meaning failure with dishonesty -- the worst possible grade a student can receive. Dr. Rob Gordon, director of criminology at SFU and acting chair of the senate committee on academic integrity, says the new grading is intended to curtail cheating using the internet. "What used to be a lot of cheating in libraries has changed quite significantly," he told ctvbc.ca....

Senioritis Cured by: Deborah Lambert, May 21, 2009 Senioritis is that time-honored “disease” that affects graduating seniors during the last half of their senior year. However, it might just be in remission, according to USA Today, which reports that “skipping classes, missing tests, attending parties instead of athletic practice and generally slacking off at the end of the last year of high school,” might not be a winning option this year. Here’s why. Since colleges are swamped with a record number of applications from the largest graduating classes in history, they have decided to over-enroll their freshman classes....

What do you think of Obama's decision to reverse Bush's policies on embryonic stem cell research? Thumbs up Thumbs down And: How would you rate Obama's first few months in office? Excellent Good Fair Poor

If you were grading Barack Obama on his performance as president, what would he get? A B C D F

Back in the day, a good report card earned you a parental pat on the back, but now it could be money in your pocket. Experiments with cash incentives for students have been catching on in public-school districts across the country, and so has the debate over whether they are a brilliant tool for hard-to-motivate students or bribery that will destroy any chance of fostering a love of learning. Either way, a rigorous new study — one of relatively few on such pay-for-performance programs — found that the programs get results: cash incentives help low-income students stay in school and...

by Gina L. DiorioHigh school students in Grand Rapids, Michigan will soon have a new grade category on their report cards. Beginning this trimester, the school district is adding “H” to the traditional “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D.” If you’re thinking “F” is missing from this list, well, you’re right. But that’s only because it’s also missing from the report cards. Yes, in a purported effort to boost student achievement and lower dropout rates, school officials have decided to forego failing marks in favor of less dispiriting “helds.” As the Grand Rapids Press explains: Students will have the option of...

Last week, just before Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) big speech, Tim Cavanaugh and I attended a small fundraiser for Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee Wayne Allyn Root. The chatty Vegas sports bettor, memorably profiled by David Weigel two months back, was in a mind to talk about a fellow classmate of his at Columbia University back in the early 1980s, a guy by the name of Barack Obama. Root is no fan of the Democratic nominee: "A vote for Obama is four years of Karl Marx, and no one should be happy about that," he told us and a few...

The eight students walked into a room at Lincoln High School prepared to discuss an issue many people, including some of their teachers, considered taboo. They were blunt. Carlos Garcia, 17, an A student with a knack for math, said, "My friends, most of them say, 'You're more Asian than Hispanic.' " "I think Carlos is Asian at heart," said Julie Loc, 17, causing Carlos to laugh good-naturedly. Asian students who get middling grades often get another response, she said. "They say, 'Are you really Asian?' " Julie said. "It's sad but true," said Eliseo Garcia, a 17-year-old with long...

...To earn an A in Fairfax, it takes a score of 94 to 100. In Montgomery, it takes a score of 90 or higher. Standards for grading in the two counties, including bonus point calculations, are so out of sync that it appears possible for a Fairfax student to earn a 3.5 grade-point average for the same work that gets a Montgomery student a 4.6 GPA. Parents nationwide are increasingly frustrated with wild variations in grading systems that, they say, are costing their children thousands of dollars in merit-based scholarships and leaving them disadvantaged in college admissions. [snip] While suburban...

As tempting as it is to take widely known "easy" classes to keep GPAs up, all those A's may actually not be good for future career opportunities. In fact, anthropology professor Charles Nuckolls calls it "an epidemic." Nuckolls was recently appointed to the State Advisory Committee of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, a committee that history professor David Beito has been selected to chair. The purpose of the committee, according to a recent UA press release, is to study and collect information relating to discrimination or a denial of equal protection of the laws under the Constitution because...

BATON ROUGE, La. -- The West Feliciana Parish school system must pay more than $1.4 million to an English teacher who was suspended and demoted after refusing to change the Ds and Fs she gave to 70 percent of her students, a federal jury has found. The jury of four men and five women deliberated almost four hours before finding that the school board, superintendent and the principal at West Feliciana High School had harassed Paula Payne, violated her First Amendment rights and retaliated against her. "This is civics in action," Superintendent Lloyd Lindsey said. "The jury has spoken." He...

A 15-year-old girl and her parents recently came in for a chat with Dr. James Perrin, a Boston pediatrician, because they were concerned about the girl's grades. Previously an A student, she was slipping to B's, and the family was convinced attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was at fault — and that a prescription for Ritalin would boost her brainpower. After examining the girl, Perrin determined she didn't have ADHD. The parents, who had come in demanding a prescription, left empty-handed. Perrin, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other physicians...

<p>Failure in the classroom is often tied to lack offunding, poor teachersor other ills. Here's athought: Maybe it's thefailed work ethic of todays kids. That's what I'm seeing in my school. Until reformers see this reality, little will change.</p> <p>Last month, as I averaged the second-quarter grades for my senior English classes at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., the same familiar pattern leapt out at me.</p>

SAN JOSE — Republicans concluded their state convention Sunday with mixed grades for GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — remaining neutral on his infrastructure push even as he promoted the public works plan on national television. General assembly delegates tabled support of his $222 billion, 10-year proposal to upgrade everything from roads to levees with $68 billion in voter-approved bonds and other funding mechanisms, over concerns about state debt. Meanwhile, on "Meet the Press," the governor said that "those people that are criticizing my infrastructure deal and my strategic growth plan are people that are a little bit confused about the...

IQ has been the subject of hundreds, if not thousands of research studies. Scholars have studied the link between IQ and race, gender, socioeconomic status, even music. Discussions about the relationship between IQ and race and the heritability of IQ (perhaps most notably Steven Jay Gould’s Mismeasure of Man) often rise to a fever pitch. Yet for all the interest in the study of IQ, there has been comparatively little research on other influences on performance in school. Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman estimate that for every ten articles on intelligence and academic achievement, there has been fewer than one...

America’s favorite professor is taking a disappointing report card back to his tepee. Ward “I really am an Indian” Churchill, who teaches at the University of Colorado at Boulder, received a disturbing message from students concerning his performance during the spring 2005 semester. According to student evaluations made available to the public, Professor Churchill’s most recent grades are anything but great.

Back during the Presidential Election, Kerry enthusiasts were constantly gushing over the perceived intelligence of John Kerry. If it was not praises toward his “nuanced” approaches of how to creatively surrender to the United Nations and international terrorists then it was how all of his aides had to run around carrying dictionaries just so they could understand his “big words.” Well, the truth is out. Eight months after everyone quit caring about John Kerry’s records, he has finally released them to “The Boston Globe.” Chance of chances, these records show that Senator Kerry was a “C” student with a virtually...

BOSTON --Sen. John F. Kerry's academic performance at Yale University was virtually identical to President George W. Bush's academic record, despite repeated portrayals of Kerry as being more intellectual than his Republican rival, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday. The Globe, which obtained Kerry's transcript from his U.S. Navy officer training school application after Kerry gave permission for its release, said Kerry had a cumulative grade average of 76 for his four years at Yale and received four Ds his freshman year. In 1999, The New Yorker published a transcript showing Bush had a cumulative grade average of 77 his first...

When Nicole Kristal couldn't make a living making music in Hollywood, she tried her hand at an older profession. Well, sort of. "I was an academic prostitute," she says. "That's harsh, not really. "I mean, I sold my mind for money." As CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts reports, Kristal's "clients" paid her to cheat. At $40-an-hour, she wrote college admission essays for high school students and term papers for college seniors. One kid, she says, would've failed his class without her help. "He flunked all the tests," says Kristal. And where did these kids get the money to pay her?...

Kids could have another reason to fear getting an "F" on their report card — especially if F also stands for fat. Georgia lawmakers concerned about childhood obesity are proposing legislation that would require schools to list students' body mass index — a measure of whether they're overweight — on their report cards. The intent is to "wake up parents who may not be aware their children are obese or heading that way," said state Rep. Judy Manning (R-Marietta), one of the bill's co-sponsors. Students' weight problems are "showing up in their grades, their ability to stay awake, their ability...

Good news: In the near future, no Albuquerque elementary or middle school student will get an "F" on a report card. Bad news: No elementary or middle school student will get an "A," either. That's because Albuquerque elementary and middle schools are throwing out the old familiar grades. Albuquerque Public Schools is following a growing trend of scrapping traditional grading systems for one that measures No Child Left Behind Act proficiency levels. Within a few years, A's, B's, C's, D's, and F's will be history on Albuquerque elementary and middle school report cards. In their place will be a new...

An online service riles some - but others say it's only fair to turn tables. By Randy Dotinga | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor When Eric Piotrowski wonders what his high school English students think of him, he simply logs on to RateMyTeachers.com, where millions of anonymous teacher critiques await anyone with an unrestricted Internet connection. At the site, a smiley-faced icon with sunglasses sits next to Mr. Piotrowski's name, indicating he's especially popular. Eighteen students gave Piotrowski an average rating of 4.1 out of 5, with one saying he's "one of the coolest teachers I've ever had." Piotrowski...

I think I heard Michael Medved mention that George W. Bush had better grades in college than John Kerry. Verification of this and proof would help me win an argument with and arogant liberal. Any information?

Apparently I am an Oreo. According to the past few generations' terminology, an Oreo is not a cookie made by Nabisco but a person who is black on the outside and white on the inside. Now, I admit that I could switch places with any member of *NSync, a late-'90s boy band, and perform a concert, and the fans wouldn't notice. But that doesn't make me an Oreo. And, if *NSync's fan base is mostly white, that doesn't mean I'm not black anymore. I'll be black forever. The words black and white don't just mean color anymore. They describe actions,...

From the 8/4/04 edition of Soxblog: "Something’s been bothering me about John Kerry. I just don’t think he’s that smart. One of the axiomatic dynamics of this presidential race has been that Bush is a dolt while Kerry is highly intelligent. But if Kerry is so bright, where has he been hiding his allegedly fearsome intellect? Does “I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it” sound like the workings of a brilliant mind? And yet the Adam Nagourneys of the world continue to insist that Kerry is remarkably “complex” with an uncanny sense for nuance. But I’ve...

<p>MARION, Ind. -- State education officials are urging Indiana's schools to adopt detailed new report cards that track student performance with numbers, not the familiar letter grades.</p> <p>Instead of a letter grade for each subject, a student's progress is charted on a numerical scale from 1 to 3 in different areas of each subject.</p>

'There's something that's not quite right' Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The former teaching assistant who has made allegations of possible academic fraud among Ohio State football players says she did so in hopes the program would be investigated.Norma McGill says that she, in her words, "just knew there's something that's not quite right" with the Ohio State program.McGill told The Columbus Dispatch in a story the newspaper published today that she was an unnamed source referred to in a New York Times last Sunday.The story reported that running back Maurice Clarett received assistance from a professor who allowed...

Where All Grades Are Above Average By Stuart Rojstaczer Tuesday, January 28, 2003; Page A21 I recently handed in my grades for an undergraduate course I teach at Duke University. They were a very limited assortment: A, A-minus, B-plus, B and B-minus. There were no C's of any flavor and certainly no D's or F's. It was a good class, but even when classes aren't very good, I just drop down slightly, to grades that range from A-minus to B-minus. The last time I gave a C was more than two years ago. That was about the time I came...

<p>Los Angeles — Fall is just around the corner and many students are on their way to college. But a lot of California high school students aren’t headed to the campus they wanted to go to.</p> <p>"Normally, a student with a 4.5 GPA and high test scores would get into Berkeley and UCLA but I didn't," said high school student Kyle Taylor.</p>

I spend time with my old college roomates this week. It was time for our annual get together. They are all well-educated, socialist, radical leftists. I am a well-educated, capitalist, conservative, evangelical. Let us say that I provide much needed diversity. I care for thse women very much, they are a link to my misguided youth!!(smile). We do not debate politics. That is not what we are there for. We are there to reconnect. These gals all went to school in New Haven. They all hate W. At dinner last night one said to the other as an aside: that...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Authorities in eastern Turkey have set up a hotline and are providing police escorts for schoolchildren who do poorly in their annual reports and fear punishment at home, officials said on Friday. "We are sending out escorts to schools for children who are afraid to go home because they've failed or have low grades," said a police officer in the city of Erzurum. "If it's necessary, we will talk to the family. It's also to let the family know we will protect the children," he said. Two children had already telephoned police on a special hotline to...

Teachers dislike test being key to pupil promotions Few favor state's new policy By MELANIE MARKLEY Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Only 10 percent of Texas teachers believe a test should decide whether students are promoted or held back a grade, a recent survey found. David Henderson, who has conducted the biennial teacher survey since 1980, said this is the first time he has asked teachers their opinion about the state's new testing policy. Next year's third-grade class will be the first required to pass a state-required test in the third, fifth and eighth grades before they are promoted to the...

Harvard University, addressing concerns about grade inflation, is considering restoring a B as the average grade, and clarifying the meaning of each A on transcripts. The Harvard student-faculty committee, which met Wednesday, also is considering changes in the way honors are earned, including the elimination of the honors track for freshmen and sophomores, and the all-honors majors in some departments. Last June, a record 91 percent of Harvard seniors graduated with some kind of honor on their diploma, The Boston Globe reported. About half the undergraduate grades last year were A or A-minus. The Globe report on grade inflation led...