[Indiana] gives 'F' to current report cards - [A's and F's to be replaced]

Indianapolis Star online ^ | 07-28-03 | AP

[Teacher317]

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.

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.

[boilerfan]

I our school district (SWAC in Fort Wayne) the early grades of K-2 use the 1,2,3 system and then are changed to the letter grade system for 3-12. Until my kids got to the third grade I never realy new how well thay mastered the actual material.

Telling a parent that their child has mastery over a subject is different than telling them they have other problems that are hampering their ability to learn that material.

We struggled for years with a child that we were told could do that work, but when he started to get letter grades that were not in line with the mastery chart we were perplexed to say the least.

After 6 years and a repeat of the first grade we finally found out he had a learning disability that required additional training and medication.

Nothing gets your attention like a D or an F on the old report card.

[Bluntpoint]

"Nothing gets your attention like a D or an F on the old report card."

Or a 1 or a 2. Or a fail compared to pass. Or a sad face compared to a happy face.

[steveegg]

I give a big, fat "F" to this latest "dumbing down America" plan.

[SouthernFreebird]

I can't tell you how my children compete with each other to get the A's, actually they do this with their friends to. My second grader can't wait to get an official report card in 3rd grade to finally see an A.
I can't imagine the kids getting worked up to be #3...jeez, yeah thats a motivator.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

Apparently binary systems are beyond our Dept of Education

there are 10 kinds of people in this world. Thos who understand binary and the rest.

Guess where they fall? (And I mean fall)

[Boss_Jim_Gettys]

My son's elemetary school here in the People's Republic of Maryland gives grades of "A" through "E." Too much of a stigma associated with the "F' grade, don't ya know.

[Capt.YankeeMike]

I thank God that he gave me the strength, determination, and ability to have my boys in Private Christian School since pre-school up to now. Can public education get any stoopidder?

[Capt.YankeeMike]

ref; your post #21. Maybe YOU should have been paying more attention to your own kids, instead of relying on the public scrool idiot teachers to do it for you! How could you let a learning disability go unnoticed for 6 years! WAKE UP and get your kids OUT of the public scrools.....

[Pan_Yans Wife]

When I was in school in MI, the grades on the report card were A-D and then F. I thought that an E would equal an F. But, I cannot imagine the issue ever coming up. D always meant big trouble.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[wabash]

I think putting both on the card is the best way to do it. I remember back when I was in elementary school; along with grades many of the teachers would list a ranking of different skills using a 1-5 scale.

I do agree that eliminating grades is a stupid idea, especially considering it came from the liberal as long as you "feel good" philosophy (thus, for them, it has nothing to do with improving skills). However, posting skills might be a good idea (though it should be left up to the local school board, not the state).

[LibertyGirl77]

Aren't letter grades just number grades represented by a letter?

[Richard Kimball]

Yes, yes, yes. But this is entirely different. This is numbers represented by numbers.

Want to fix the school system?

1. Kill all the lawyers
2. Throw students out who are unwilling to learn
3. Refuse to pass students until they actually know the subject matter
4. Don't let people play sports who can't write a paper and do basic math
5. Get rid of rain forest math, diversity, and earth day celebrations
6. Treat boys like boys, and make them do pushups or laps when they get out of line, don't drug them into a stupor

Several other ideas, but if you did #1, you'd solve 75% of the problems.

[Political Junkie Too]

Changing the grading system is a way to stop comparing today's children with prior generation's children. They are only doing this to hide the fact that kids today aren't learning at the pace that past children learned.

-PJ

[dufekin]

We did this in kindergarten. There was a report card every four weeks or so. When I got my first report card, I got an "F" in almost every category (it was pass/fail, or whatever, on about 100 "skills;" I don't remember the exact designations). My parents were furious, as I was the firstborn and they weren't familiar with the system yet.

It turns out that they used "FAIL" to mean either "fail" or "not evaluated." Of course this system didn't give parents more information; it gave them less information because they didn't know which skills a student could have passed. Apparently they did this because regulations prohibited blank lines and there was no place to state that the teacher hadn't covered that skill yet. Teachers obviously didn't want to face parents' fury when a "pass" turned to a "fail," so they just started everyone on "fail."

[Liberal Classic]

New grades to replace letter grades:

'A' becomes Doubleplus Good
'B' becomes Double Good
'C' becomes Good
'D' becomes Ungood and
'F' becomes Doubleplus Ungood

[Teacher317]

You got an A in Algebra, didn't you? ;^)