School district eliminates all grades below 50%

[proud2BlibKansan]

Changes to the Elgin Area School District U-46 grading scale were never intended to be issues requiring school board approval. After weeks of intense opposition by some teachers and parents, the board's newest members — Frank Napolitano and Veronica Noland — pushed for a vote anyway.

It isn't going to happen.

Bartlett High School students will begin next year with possible grades of 50 to 100. The lower half of the traditional scale will be eliminated, which means As, Bs, Cs and Ds will not change, but Es — the traditional F for U-46 — will span scores of 50 to 59 instead of 0-59.

Elgin, Larkin, South Elgin and Streamwood High Schools will implement 0 to 5 scales, which accomplish the same result for U-46 administrators who are trying to make every letter grade reflect an equal range of scores — i.e. 10 points for a failing grade just like 10 points for an A or one point for each on the 0-5 scale.

"What we're doing is we're adjusting the grade so that a teacher's average ... is mathematically justified," said Streamwood High School Principal Terri Lozier, who co-presented about the grading changes during Monday's school board meeting.

more . . . http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130617/news/706179713/

[customerserviceguy]

1. Shades of Lake Woebegon

Where all the children are above average.

Is it any wonder that the reich wing goes after the schools? They make themselves such an easy target.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. LOL! My first thought as well!

[pnwmom]

24. Except not really.

In a standardized test, the median is set at 50% with half the scores above and half below. A score at the 60% isn't failing -- it means you scored higher than 60% of the other students who took it. A score of 50% would make you about average.

But an average grade on a regular test is much higher because these tests aren't usually put on a curve. A C would be somewhere in the 70's.

[customerserviceguy]

31. Mathematically

of course you are correct. However, this story just sounds like something we used to call "grade inflation" back in my days at the University of Washington. It did serve the important purpose of keeping us in college and out of Vietnam. Not sure what they're trying to protect the kids from here.

[LWolf]

44. Every classroom, and every school

IS Lake Woebegone, if they don't want the Obama/Duncan "turnaround."

I have heard my principal refer to the need to be Lake Woebegone on several occasions.

[Chan790]

2. I support this.

It's odd but I had a classmate that was basically very-observably afflicted with a learning disability* but passed all the diagnostic tests. By the mid-point of senior year he was so far down the hole that he had no way to pass 2 of his classes no matter how much tutoring and extra-help he received.

So he dropped out.

If they'd artificially inflated his 1^st Q. 33 and 27, 2^nd Q. 41 and 30 to 50s, he'd have had at least a path to potentially graduate. Nobody was of any illusion he was going to college but a HS diploma would have at-least given him a shot at some sort of post-HS job-training or enlistment into the service, an opportunity to do more than work at menial jobs.

*-We now know he was dyslexic. He's friends with my cousin and they still hang out.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. I think it's insane

[HereSince1628]

37. It's just about how an ordinal level of measurement maps onto a percentage scale

The relationship of an assigned of the letter grade and a percentage is unambiguous in one direction and not the other.

It isn't so much insane as it is a tempest in a transcript.

This problem has existed for generations, it's once again illuminated by the current extraordinary attention to grades as a method for evaluating not only students progress but also teacher and school performance.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

18. There should be different tracks

vocational tracks, certificate and resource classes which actually serve the needs of students with certain learning difficulties. Putting children in large inclusion classes does not assist these students. Many of the teachers do not have time or the will to modify work as set out in the IEP even though they are legally supposed to. Teachers are overwhelmed with huge classes and no time to tier work for their students. Adjusting grades is not going to solve anything.

[Igel]

5. Truly "The Onion" material.

On the other hand, I know people who do this kind of thing fairly often. If a kid makes a mistake one 20 can make it impossible for him to recover for the semester or year, and at that point there's absolutely no point for him to try. So he stops trying--a rational, reasonable decision.

A lot of kids at that point become a ready source of disruption, leading to suspensions, leading to problems in other classes. So some teachers give kids who have tried or have some extenuating circumstance a minimum grade 5 points below the upper limit for a failing grade. Then they can score a 75 and average it out to passing. For a lot of them, that's a hefty amount of work.

It's a common enough practice that some administrators I know wince when they see a truly bad grade with no obvious justification. It's considered either lazy or indifferent. Sometimes it's justified.

But I live in a state where *70* is the cut-off for failing. A 69 would get you an F.

[Art_from_Ark]

10. At my elementary school, 93-100 was an A

85-92 was a B, 77 to 84 was a C, 70 to 76 was a D, and yes, 69 and below was an F. The grading scale changed somewhat in high school, with 10 point spreads for D, C and B (and 11 for A). So below 60 was failing in high school.

[MadrasT]

36. That was the scale in my district through 12th grade (n/t)

[csziggy]

27. I had teachers that would throw out the lowest score

Of the tests, papers or projects for the term. I always thought that was a pretty good idea - even the smartest student can have a bad day, not understand one aspect of a subject, or simply blow a test or project.

It also brought up the averages of poor students, sometimes just enough to keep them going and let them move on in school.

[dsc]

6. My district partially does this

We are on semesters, with grades each 9 weeks, so one's grade is a weighted average of the first nine weeks (40), the second nine weeks (40) and the final exam (20) or if the class is an EOC the weight is 1st (37.5), 2nd (37.5), FE (25). In my district the first nine weeks can't be below a 60 (70 is our lowest D). We have been talking about doing something similar to what this story is saying. I can see some merit but think the bad outweighs the good.

[femmocrat]

7. We have had this for years, but I forget why! LOL

It annoys me that kids who do extra credit cannot receive over a 100%.

[Travis_0004]

9. Why does it matter

At the end of the year, they can get an A (maybe an A+ in some schools.

Does it really matter if they have a 101%, or a 90 (assuming both are graded as an A)

[femmocrat]

11. I think it matters for their QPA.

Probably doesn't matter much in middle school, but in high school it is used to determine class rank.

[liberal_at_heart]

45. class rank doesn't matter anymore either. The valedictoiran at my daughter's school didn't get

into the college he applied to.

[actslikeacarrot]

8. I am of two minds on this...

....on one hand, if you only do 40% of the work on an assignment, you have earned that 40%. But I have been in a few classes where one bombed test or hmwk assignment can screw you the rest of the semester.

[fishwax]

12. the 0-5 scale makes sense to me -- the 50-100 seems odd, but

I guess it ultimately does the same thing. I assume that anything below 50 will just be counted as 50 for purposes of averaging? It seems odd to count a 30 as a 50.

As to the 0-5, I had an elementary school teacher who did something similar, but with a 13-point scale, where 13 was 100, 12 was an A, 11 an A-, and so on down to a 0 for an F. Overall it bumped scores up a bit, because tanking a single assignment or quiz didn't have as big an effect on your overall score. Everyone in the class hated it at first (he was the only teacher in the school to use this system), but everyone wound up liking it, working hard, and thinking the system was fair.

[Rod Walker]

13. So if a student gets every question wrong on a test, he'll receive a 50% grade?

[caraher]

16. Yep

0=50

It's the new, new math

[femmocrat]

17. It is just on the report card in our district.

Assuming that the grade would be based on more than one test score, all of the student's grades for that quarter would be averaged. But you are right, if he/she did absolutely nothing, he would still get a 50%. As teachers, though, we are responsible for that kid doing his work and not sitting there idle for 9 weeks. If it gets to that point, the teacher would be called on the carpet.

[Rod Walker]

20. But there'd be no way to differentiate between a kid who did nothing, receiving a 50%, and a kid who

got half the questions wrong, also receiving a 50% grade.

If it gets to that point, the teacher would be called on the carpet.

I knew some kids in high school who regularly received grades in 50% range, and as far as I know their teachers were never held accountable for the poor performance of a few students who were, frankly, drugged-out slackers.

[femmocrat]

34. Well, times have changed! LOL

There are no bad students now. We have to find ways to motivate them or die trying. (Again, I teach middle school, not HS.)

[Rod Walker]

35. That reminds me of Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan in "Boys Town" (1938) wherein he states:

"There's no such thing as a bad boy".

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/360028/Boys-Town-Movie-Clip-No-Such-Thing-As-A-Bad-Boy.html

All I can think is, "Don't be absurd, of course there are...and plenty of them."

(Good luck to you with the bad apples!)

[HappyMe]

47. That's ridiculous.

These kinds of grading systems screw the kids that put in the effort and do the work.

[Fastcars]

14. I would have loved it....

Once I had accumulated enough total points that no number of 50s would have produced a failing grade I would have packed it in, zeroes made me at least try a bit longer to ensure a passing grade. Of course that attitude has come back to haunt me later in life.

edit for typo

[caraher]

15. The principal was pushing this where my wife did student teaching

The stated reason was so that students who fail to turn in work or otherwise get terrible scores will be motivated by still having a chance to pass if they get started late in the semester.

I think this is just silly, at best. If you want to decouple letter grades from percent scores for any of a number of potentially good reasons, go ahead; but there's also a fairness issue because grades are used to rank students' academic performance (which is also problematic; but that's another issue for another day). A student with an "earned" 50% on an assignment is no better off than the student who blows it off entirely; how is that motivating to the student who is genuinely trying but just not "getting it" when they see people around them not try and get exactly the same grade?

[MichiganVote]

19. Sounds like a perfect way to disguise student irresponsibility

[X_Digger]

21. More 'special snowflake' syndrome. *sigh* n/t

[petronius]

22. I don't really get what this means: are they saying that the score on every

individual assignment must be rounded up to at least 50 (i.e., if a student takes a 100 question/100 point test and gets 10 correct, he automatically scores a 50)? Or is it that the final class percentage is rounded up to 50%, which is still an E (F)?

The latter wouldn't really change anything; if it's the former, I wonder if a teacher can declare that there is just one single multi-part assignment, divided up into 'subsections' and spanning the entire quarter...

[caraher]

30. It's the former

At least it was where my wife was student teaching. The latter would, of course, have no real effect (since it leaves final grades untouched).

[petronius]

40. Thanks for the clarification - that is bizarre. One way I can see this working

is if teachers were allowed to give 'no credit' for (true) scores below 50%, and require students to repeat assignments until at least half the points were earned. That would still be grade inflation of a sort, but it would encourage learning to some degree.

However, I gather that option is not available...

[caraher]

46. Probably not

This is one of these things that tends to be imposed top-down. Though I'd imagine if I were teaching under that kind of system I'd be highly tempted to maintain a sort of "shadow gradebook" in order to avoid the worst perversities of the system. Or maybe I'd find I had to suddenly start making a lot more "corrections" to my entries than I had been before...

I ran across a similar bit of nonsense as a lab TA in grad school, where by decree we had to give some particular weight to a course-wide multiple-choice final exam. And we also had to grade on a prescribed curve, with a fixed percentage of A and B grades. It was a terrible exam - it didn't test lab achievement so much as knowledge of the material in the accompanying lecture, and worse still, the range of scores on the exam was always so great that the exam score determined the course grade for most students.

What I did was renormalize everything before doing the weighted sum, so that the wide variation in scores on one component of the grade (final exam) didn't dominate over the variations in other, mostly more-important measures of student preparation and achievement in the lab (quizzes, lab reports and notebook grades). I also managed to convince a lot of other TAs to do the same (and did gain the blessing of the lab supervisor). The whole policy was driven by the engineering school's concerns about grade inflation, and in the end they didn't really care all that much how we did it so long as at least 40% of the grades were C or lower.

[petronius]

49. That does sound extremely frustrating, and a good solution. I always get a laugh

when my students ask me if I'm going to "grade on the curve" - most of them wouldn't be nearly so eager for it if they knew what it actually was...

[caraher]

50. Yeah

In the student imagination sometimes "curve"=grade inflation.

My default is a sort of adjusted straight scale. I tell them they are guaranteed at least the grade corresponding to a given percent score according to whatever weighting I lay out in my syllabus (typically it's crafted such that the student who does all the work but bombs the exams is still withing sniffing distance of a C-), but that I may adjust grades upward. This ordinarily only affects students at the top end of the distribution - if the high scores are in the high 80s, those will be A grades. I make a histogram and make sure everyone in the same "clump" gets the same grade, unless there are extenuating circumstances.

The only real head-scratcher I've run across was the guy who didn't turn in much work all semester but got the high score on the final exam! By the numbers he was guaranteed no better than a D (he might even have been in high-F territory). Fortunately he was a second-semester senior already accepted to a MS program, so it wasn't going to matter much what I did. I know his course grade was at least a C but I don't remember exactly what I made it. And it was a student I knew pretty well; he was certainly capable of A work, he just didn't always feel like doing it, so I'm sure he didn't cheat on the final.

[SoCalDem]

23. keep arranging those deck chairs

[vinny9698]

25. If you got 90, 90, and 0 on one exam your average would be 60 failing

Even though you had an A average that one 0 will keep you from passing.
Plus students would give up if they get a couple of 0's in the beginning of the semester, why try when you know that 100 are not going to get you to pass the class.

[name not needed]

26. As well it should.

A 0 would indicate either the student didn't take the test at all, or is monumentally stupid and shouldn't pass to begin with.

[vinny9698]

43. People have bad days, sometimes through no fault of their own

Maybe a death in the family, parents up all night fighting, emergency room incident,
If your are absent for whatever reason, illness, some teachers do not allow to make up tests, it is in their syllabus. I know I have had courses like that.
With your logic, a professional sports player, having one bad game, and he should be traded and banned from the sport.
I am sure you have had a bad days.
I have had bad days. Where I have missed important meeting because of flat tire, traffic accident ties up freeway. Your late you are fired.

[liberal_at_heart]

41. I see your point. I could see how this could be beneficial to special education students or

students who are at risk of dropping out. My son who is in special education still has to take general education science. He has a difficult time keeping up with the assignments. He had a ton of missing assignments, but the grades he got for the work he turned in were all As. He ended up with a C in the class because of all the missing work even though he got As on all the work he did turn in. And I certainly see how this might help kids who are so far behind they could never catch up if they tried. We have a horrible track record when it comes to drop out rates in this country. We dismiss them. We discard them. We throw them away, and we tell them it is their fault. When in actuality, their failure is usually due to poverty, abuse at home, not getting enough to eat or sleep. Their failure is our failure, so before some on this board go off and say this is just a way of excusing kids who don't perform maybe we should ask ourselves why they don't perform and ask the question how can we help them get back in the game and graduate.

[David__77]

28. They should rescale the 100, not impose this monstrosity.

This is so worthy of mockery. There is not nearly enough academic discipline in this country. Educators are filled with nonsense theories of "multiple intelligences." Progressives should not buy in...

[AZ Progressive]

29. Apparently a bunch of DUers advocate cold hearted punishment

I would like to think that DU is a place to get away from harsh judgmental American culture, but I guess I'd be only fantasizing. They like many other Americans love to be meritorious snobs.

For the record, I was no slacker, I was an A's and B's student in college, and I graduated.

[liberal_at_heart]

42. yeah, apparently poor kids who struggle in school don't deserve a second chance.

[Rod Walker]

48. So if a student turns in a blank test and receives a "0" he's being punished?

[One_Life_To_Give]

32. Common sense isn't very common

This is alot like arguing about the type-font used to create a novel. Sometimes you need to take a giant step back and look at the forest.

[Recursion]

33. The 0-100 scale has been inflated into meaninglessness as it is

It's nice to see somebody rethinking it, though it sounds like they're going about it in a dickish way.

[Ms. Toad]

38. The school district I taught in tried to do this

or at least a slight variation of it.

They wanted to do this for all Fs in the first two of three grading periods, so that students who failed those two grading periods wouldn't be too discouraged to work in the 3rd. The thing that really pissed me off about it was that it treated the goofballs who never came to class, and turned in no work at all the same as the students who were there every day, turned in every assignment, but still struggled to get a grade that was not quite passing. Such an insult to the effort those students made.

The teachers ultimately convinced the school board (or the principal - I don't recall which level the decision was made at) it was a really bad idea.

[Nevernose]

39. It's called "Minimum F"

Schools in bad neighborhoods are usually the ones who try this, and at my last school we compromised. If a student tried -- hell, if they bothered putting their NAME on the paper -- we'd give them the minimum F of 50%. However, if they didn't bother doing anything at all or even showing up, they'd receive a zero.

My wife's school, though, instituted the other kind of Minum F, wherein, not turning in anything earned a fifty percent and just turning in a paper with a name on it would earn a sixty. Kids pretty quickly figured out that they didn't even have to come to school, show up the last day, have a written excuse for the absences, and turn in thirty pieces of paper with their name on it (because teachers were required to accept all late work). The principal would even go online and change their grade books.