Putting a Square Peg Into a Round Hole

Putting a square peg into a round hole, or one size doesn't fit all. That's what I think is going on with these proposed grading changes for Rock Hill School District Three. Maybe I think that because the administration has made no presentation to the board (first is to be this Monday)? Maybe it's because of the way I was brought up? Or perceive how the community believes? I do know this is a very complex discussion, and one I'm having a difficult time trying to put down on paper.

Should there be a rule  applied to all subjects? For example, they say class participation should not be a part of the grade. What about for; Physical Education; Chorus; Band; Art; Public Speaking; Home Arts; and/or Foreign Language to name a few. Wouldn't class participation be integral to these subjects?

They are trying to set how much certain grades should be worth. But in subjects where skills build upon themselves, such as math, foreign language, and science - shouldn't tests toward the end of year  count more?

They say teachers are abusing the system now. How many teachers? How do their students perform on required state testing? Why can't our Principals manage this? - Isn't that their job?

They say students should  have limited penalties for cheating, late work or no work. Is this the real world? Is that the way we operate our district? If an employee puts down wrong information on a time sheet, what do we do? If a teacher always turns grades in after the deadline, what do we do?

What problem are we trying to solve? Will this rule change really work? If I was the teacher, I'd make the requirement for retesting so comprehensive that the lazy students would soon realize it  would be a lot easier to study and do well the first time.  Does the administration really believe the rule will change anything ? And do the teachers really believe they will be losing control? Wouldn't all this discussion be better served with the Professional Development we hear so much about?

Believe me, I have a lot more questions. I will be making several blog posts, or actually, reposting of other blogs today - which I believe are related to the discussion. I may not agree with the articles, but believe they should be part of the discussion.

And now, a few comments  I have collected for you to think about:


I don’t think that the world is fair, nor do I believe that it can be made so.  But, I do think that adults showing children that they can be rewarded for being irresponsible is very wrong, indeed.  It is also a very poor lesson for the children who work hard and do the assignments on time.  They are being given a backhanded lesson that they skim on their work and it just won’t matter, so hard work doesn’t have its own rewards. 


This is just one more example of how we are dumbing down our society and teaching our children that they do not need to be responsible for themselves and that their actions don’t have consequences.  We need to teach our kids that setting the bar high is a good thing.  Striving for something is a good thing.  We also need to teach our kids that world is a competitive place.  Instead, are teaching our kids that laziness will be rewarded.  Not a lesson that I want a school system teaching kids. 


"It seems as though our school is doing everything they can do make the failing rates go down, but this is not the way to do it,"  "Teachers need to learn that sometimes failing is the only way to teach a kid to do the right thing."


 It took away a lot of responsibility from the kids at West Po," student Sandra Miller said. "It took away almost every purpose of giving students a deadline on work because with the "I" policy, kids could turn in work at anytime. 


"I hope the school system has learned that they have to include the community,"  "You can't just assume that we don't know what's good for us and our children."


For some, the notion of a policy which allows students caught cheating to get away with it amounted to, according to Chuck Van Dyck, "undermining the ethics and values which parents are trying to instill at home. The now rescinded policy would, if it remained in effect, reinforce the culture of cheating that is rife in our schools and render good parents insignificant."


Reducing the possibility of outright failure gives teachers less leverage while also giving students unrealistic expectations about the adult world they soon will enter.

Mary Mathewson, an English teacher, says a number of her colleagues are "livid" about the grading change, which "takes away one of the very few tools we have to get kids to learn." The possibility of failing is a motivator, she says, and now "kids are under the impression they can do it whenever they want to, and it's not that big of a deal." In the first quarter, half of Mathewson's grades for two 10th-grade English classes were incompletes. "I don't believe it's an extra chance," she said. "It's an out. The root problem is motivation. The root problem is not that we're not teaching them."

Many parents ask about fairness: What about the conscientious student who keeps up with class, studies until 2 a.m. and pulls an A on a math test? Should a peer who skipped class and flubbed the test twice or three times get an equal grade? With the new policy, the ultimate grade on a student transcript could be the same, even though the two students took very different paths.

"I think there is a fairness issue involved for the kids who do play by the rules," parent Carol Farquhar Bolger said. "The question becomes: What is a grade  going to mean now? What does an A mean now?"

Student Harmain Rafi, 16, said she views it from a similar angle, failing to see how it "balances out" not to hold students to the same deadlines and test opportunities. "It more or less says all the hard work I'm doing isn't going to be worth anything," she says.

When will teachers find the extra time to work with students who have incompletes? What about students who game the system? How can learning continue sequentially if makeup assignments remain undone?

“They’re smart, shrewd kids who will do the minimum to get by,” he said. “

 If students don’t get at least 50 percent on their  final, they should have to retake the course. “This would go a long way to improving our true objective, which is to teach kids and have them actually learn,” said Stephens. “It would also dramatically change the culture of the school and put the pressure on the students, where it should be.”

The only reason he contacted me, he said, was a growing sense that teachers are being blamed for lax student performance, when the fault is a whatever culture nourished by district grading rules.

From Charles Osgood, CBS News
Pretty Good
There once was a pretty good student, Who sat in a pretty good class, And was taught by a pretty good teacher, Who always let pretty good pass.


He wasn’t terrific at reading; He wasn’t terrific at math: But for him education was leading, Straight down a pretty good path. 


He didn’t find school too exciting, But he wanted to do pretty well, And he did have some trouble writing, And nobody had taught him to spell. 


When doing arithmetic problems, Pretty good was regarded as fine; Five and five needn’t always add to be ten, A pretty good answer was nine. 


The pretty good student was happy, With the standards that were in effect, And nobody thought it was sappy, If his answers were not quite correct.


The pretty good class that he sat in, Was part of a pretty good school, And the student was not an exception; On the contrary, he was the rule.


The pretty good school that he went to, Was right there in a pretty good town. 


And nobody ever noticed, He could not tell a verb from a noun.


The pretty good student, in fact, was A part of a pretty good mob, And the first time he knew what he lacked was, When he looked for a pretty good job.


It was then, when he sought a position, He discovered that life can be tough, And he soon had a sneaky suspicion, Pretty good might not be good enough. 


The pretty good town in our story, Was part of a pretty good state, Which had pretty good aspirations, And prayed for a pretty good fate.


There once was a pretty good nation, Pretty proud of the greatness it had, But which learned much too late, If you want to be great, Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.