[edcoil]

Moderator or others, I looked on the site but could not find the old links. Can a local in Maryland or the mod put that link up for me? Thanks.

[3AngelaD]

Oh, they've entered into competition with the District of Columbia public schools in the race to dumb down.

[beltfed308]

WTF???

[Robert A Cook PE]

That's nice.

Pretty soon the "graduates" won't be able to read the paper ...

[kimmie7]

Homeschool is so-cool....

[Integrityrocks]

Pathetic. There has to be something done about our taxes paying for an "education" system that is totally defunct. Scrap it and privatize ie.

[Fighting Irish]

[reagan_fanatic]

This is so unfair to the other 59%

[Cagey]

Here you go.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-te.md.promotion15aug15,0,1701987.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

[ClearCase_guy]

What the Bush Administration ought to do is legally define "rich" as any family earning more than $25,000 a year. Then, the President can go on TV and declare that under his adminsitration, virtually every American has become rich.

Of course, the media might complain about such sleight-of-hand.

[Tired of Taxes]

Funny, I was just telling my kids yesterday how 60 was a passing grade in my public high school (25 years ago). But then it was raised to 70.

However, in our home, I expect 90 or above. Anything lower than 85, and we have extra work to do...

[Rio]

This may be the link you're looking for...

Mayor Martin O'Malley rallied yesterday to the defense of city school board members who lowered the passing grade for key subjects taught in Baltimore's schools, but the move drew criticism from several City Council members and a spokesman for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.

During an appearance at an East Baltimore middle school, O'Malley said lowering the minimum passing grade from 70 to 60 changed the grading scale, but it did not lower standards. He said the school board acted properly by aligning the city school system with others around the state that use 60 as the minimum passing grade. "We do not want standards lowered," O'Malley said.

[SMARTY]

That makes 'teaching' a regular cakewalk. More money for administrators, more money for 'teachers' and LESS WORK for everyone. Super!

[george76]

[Red Badger]

What do you call the person that was DEAD LAST in his graduating class at Harvard Medical School?.....................Doctor............

[Past Your Eyes]

Good. Now maybe we can have grade deflation. Or maybe just plain old flation.

[wallcrawlr]

one of the graduates write that too

misspellings included?

grae = grade

[randog]

Leave it to the child to put it in perspective:

Jessica Gaines, 15, a junior at Carver, said many students will be pleased to learn of the change.

"It'll be good for the students who don't work hard, because some kids don't like to go to class, and you can get a 60 without going to class now, anyway," she said.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

[The_Reader_David]

Given that classroom rigor is not measured by a passing percentage, this may, paradoxically be a good thing.

Since teachers are already under pressure to pass 'enough' students, they make usually vaccuous extra-credit assignment, give 'redos' on tests and the like, all of which waste student time, and sometimes class time, with very little educational benefit. Also, work assigned tends to be watered down and easy so that 'enough' students can get 70% or above.

One can run a rigorous classroom without any fixed 'passing' score: give tough work, and grade on a curve (the old-fashioned way, based on parametric statistics--means and standard deviations--with cutoffs based on SD's above and below the mean, and devil-take hindmost even if he or she got a 70%).

[stm]

Another wonderful decision by a blue state. If the kids don't meet the standard, just lower it. God forbid you should put the kids and teacher's feet to the fire to meet the standard, that would be too logical. Compare this to Florida, where in 1999 Jeb Bush started his education initiatives that (from his website) "In 1999, Governor Bush introduced the A+ Plan for Education, a plan based on high standards and expectations, clear measurement and accountability, and rewards and consequences for results. Since then, the state has raised the bar on accountability by providing remediation and eliminating social promotion, making reading instruction a primary focus in elementary years, providing reading coaches, using the latest in research-based reading curriculum and setting higher standards in how schools are graded."

The plans are not perfect but FL has risen noticeably in it's national education ranking since this program was initiated 7 years ago. It's been a while since I looked at the rankings but FL's two neighbors to the west were ranked 49 and 50. Now that is sad.

[kaboom]

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