Posted on 02/22/2007 9:21:45 AM PST by redpoll
WASHINGTON - Large percentages of high school seniors are posting weak scores on national math and reading tests even though more of them are taking challenging courses and getting higher grades in school, say two new government reports released Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I'm not even including the general shoddy condition of the colleges of education, the need to get rid of tenure, the way "my union" (sic) protects all of us, right down to the most inept, and the lack of school choice to promote competition. However, the issue of grades relates right back to the welfare state mentality of much of the community, which feels that they deserve something - such as a high grade - for nothing more than showing up. It's the sad truth. During a parent meeting for some students, my inner voice is screaming, "Your child is rude, mean-sprited, never does the work, and expect and demands everything." My outer voice knows about attorneys, so I tend to couch my words in soothing platitudes to avoid a lawsuit. And so the problem continues.
I was tough when I homeschooled my kids. They didn't desrve it, they didn't get it.
desrve=deserve sheesh.
Thank you for doing your thankless job!
I wanted to be a teacher but along the way I worked in the college library with a grad student who'd left a high school in an affluent neighborhood because she was made to give grades that weren't earned and because someone objected to her way of teaching Romeo & Juliet.
What a sorry state. I've heard competition of any kind is being eliminated so a losing kid won't 'feel bad.' Sheesh!
I sure do like your tagline!
A friend of mine was employed briefly by a charter school here in Michigan. Her experience match Redpoll's.
My friend found out quickly that parents were more interested in high grades rather than in high achievement. When she insisted on giving students grades that reflected their comprehension of the materials, the phone calls from parents started immediately.
Her principal quickly let her know that one student = $6800, and unhappy parents means a drop in enrollment. Ultimately, she was told that her contract would not be renewed.
A week after she was giving verbal notice, but before she got the written notice of her termination, the standardized "MEAP" test scores came out. Her students scored at the top of the county's schools for science scores. Suddenly, her principal was boasting of my friend's success. The written notice was never delivered.
My friend now teaches in a public school again.
The pay is better. Public schools are saddled with tenured loser teachers and misbehaving students. Charter schools are saddled with teachers that can't be replaced due to low pay, and students whose parents expect straight A's, and who represent a paycheck to the staff and owners. The outcomes, sadly, are the same.
You're welcome. Despite that self-piteous little diatribe up above, I consider myself kind of a mole inside the system. I actually teach grammar and spelling. I won't allow crap to cross my desk and call it "awesome!" I push my kids as far as I can - which doesn't make a popular guy, either, but I'll bet in 20 years those kids will appreciate a real education. I am also very, very thankful that this school district out here far away near the Arctic Circle supports my kind of approach, too. My principal has my back - which is absolutely essential. It's still a tough call, though. I actually quit two schools that essentially demanded that I slack off. Kids are here - gotta go.
I remember going to my kids schools and noticing that the honor roll included about half the kids in the school. When I was in HS, only about 10% of the students made the honor roll. I think grade inflation is the problem.
I knew someone who did the "troops to teachers" thing and had the same problem with his principle. She expected all students to be given passing grades even if they turned in blank test papers. It made her statistics look better. She would say, "Success breeds success." My friend would answer, "Only if the initial success was earned. Otherwise, it breeds contempt for the system."
He only lasted a year.
Our society is addicted to socialism. They pay for the property taxes, they want something is return. We all pay into Social security, many won't let it end because they payed into it, they want their money. The sad thing is that most of us know we won't ever get back what we have been forced to pay into, at least anything of equal value.
So what happens? People get demanding, want what they can't have, but then will the people put a stop to the socialism? Noway!
It sounds like your job brings you no pleasure, you yourself are suck in a socialist bureaucray. It seems you intend to stay there. How sad. As a teacher of history, I would hope that you understood and did when you started on this path, that it would be so.
What gets me is that we all know how good it feels when the lightbulb above the head goes on. The fake grades rob a kid of that, I think. Achievement is a gift they may not get to appreciate as a child, and that's criminal.
In ghetto schools,you can almost be assured at least a C grade if you come to class on a regular basis and don't call the teacher a bitch.
The level of work in most of those schools is a travesty.A halfway motivated kid can get on the honor roll with very little true work accomplished and then end up getting a very rude awakening in college when truly difficult material is presented to them and they haven't been prepared nearly enough to grasp the material.
Yet they took mostly"college prep"classes in these schools.Problem is that even college prep classes demand very little at many schools.
My wife and I just started Foster Parenting classes and I was quite suprised to find out that you must send your foster kids to public school. Okay, the homeschooling maybe I can understand (no slight at homeschoolers intended), but if I want to pay my own money to send them to a good private school, no way no how.
The answer is to seperate instruction from evaluation.
Well, it ain't easy to make all kids above average.
It not only robs them of the lightbulb, it makes them part of a Big Lie that they're not going to understand until they try to get a challenging degree in college, get a good job, etc. We have some of the least accomplished students on the planet, but with the highest self esteem. How many of these kids are going to be righteously p*ssed when they figure out that although they spent the first 18 years of their life being told everything they do is wonderful, the rest of their life isn't going to be nearly so easy and comfortable?
The Dems have thought of that. They're taking steps to lib-up and dumb-down the colleges as we speak. Oh, and make sure illegals can go, too.
A big red 'X' next to your name!
Here's the problem in a nutshell. When I was a kid, a "C" was average, a 3.0 average qualifed you for the National Honor Society (a small percentage of the kids), and "A" grades were unusual.
The new formula seems to be: C = shows up for class most of the time; B = shows up and occasionally learns something; A = actually learns more than half of what's covered in class. Those who earn the old type of "A" grades, by actually learning everything covered in class, have no way to differentiate themselves, until nationally standardized test time.
The kicker here is that even the "standardized" tests have been subject to grade inflation. A given level of performance on the SATs will yield a score about 100 points higher than the same performance would have produced 30+ years ago. Most of the SAT "grade inflation" has occurred on the verbal portion of the test.
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