Lowering the Bar

[MMiz]

My school is moving towards a policy that will:

• Allow students to turn in assignments any time before the end of the semester for full credit.
• Allow students to re-test for full credit.
• Require that students that score below a 60% on any assessment, including a quiz, test, or homework assignment, receive a 60% for the assessment.

Is it fair? Does it support student growth and achievement?

 

[DesertMedic66]

IMO it shows that we will accept low standards. I personally don't agree with it.

Assignments that need to be turned in should be turned in on a certain date (or before). If the assignment is not turned in it should be no credit.

If you score a 40% on a test you should get the 40%.

Heck, I never had the option of retests in high school let alone college.

 

[terrible one]

What school is this?

 

[MMiz]

What school is this?

This is a state-wide initiative in North Carolina to improve graduation rates in our public schools.

The first part, ensuring students remain in class, was implemented this year. It is nearly impossible to get suspended or removed from class.

This is the second piece that they plan to implement next year.

 

[terrible one]

Public schools from K-12? Colleges and universities too?

 

[abckidsmom]

It is not fair and it cheats the kids out of an expensive, taxpayer subsidized education.

But if a kid can do all the work in the last week of the semester and get good grades, did they really need to be there the whole time?

Maybe high school should be online too. As technology progresses, it's something to think about.

 

[TheLocalMedic]

Yay for lowering standards! Everybody graduates!

 

[Carlos Danger]

Maybe high school should be online too. As technology progresses, it's something to think about.

In SC you can go to high school online.

 

[NomadicMedic]

I know several states offer a free, online high school option and there are many regionally accredited online high school programs, many affiliated with a university.

Online programs sound like a reasonable option, but lowering the standards for grades and credit for work turned in late ... Well, that's just silly.

 

[abckidsmom]

Coming from a homeschool mom point of view, plenty of high school students do all of their course work online as homeschooled students. That works. I wonder if it was a more mainstream choice, would the quality of high school students in the classroom over all drop or what?

It's interesting to think about.

 

[Christopher]

This is a state-wide initiative in North Carolina to improve graduation rates in our public schools.

The first part, ensuring students remain in class, was implemented this year. It is nearly impossible to get suspended or removed from class.

This is the second piece that they plan to implement next year.

North Carolina is a Trailer State, you don't need education to fight for minimum wage jobs or be barefoot and pregnant. We're pretty proud of it too.

When I moved here in the 7th grade, I'd completed Algebra and was working on Geometry...which was considered advanced in Ohio (we'll ignore my initial public schooling in California...CA made NC look like a PhD program). There was no means for me to take these classes, since in NC Algebra is "advanced" in the 8th grade.

I took the End of Grade test for algebra and messed around for the rest of the 7th grade. In the 8th grade they would not let me take geometry because, "middle school kids are not mature enough to take high school classes." So I sat in algebra again, although due to having taken the EOG, I did not actually have to pass the class.

The sad part of all of this is I am living in an area with some of the top public schools in NC too. Sigh.

 

[phideux]

Yeah, that makes sense, the dropout rate sucks, people are getting dumber every day, the graduation rate sucks, so lets lower all the standards so that we can graduate more stupid people.
Great system.

 

[Handsome Robb]

In SC you can go to high school online.

Same here in NV.

 

[NomadicMedic]

Yeah, that makes sense, the dropout rate sucks, people are getting dumber every day, the graduation rate sucks, so lets lower all the standards so that we can graduate more stupid people.
Great system.

Yeah! I dun graduated now I make *****in' money.

 

[MMiz]

It is not fair and it cheats the kids out of an expensive, taxpayer subsidized education.

But if a kid can do all the work in the last week of the semester and get good grades, did they really need to be there the whole time?

Maybe high school should be online too. As technology progresses, it's something to think about.

I'm all for advancement opportunities like curriculum compacting and testing out of units and classes. These changes aren't aimed and supporting high achieving students.

Instead of providing resources for remediation and support, the suggested "progressive" grading policy is a band-aid fix for a complex problem.

 

[abckidsmom]

I'm all for advancement opportunities like curriculum compacting and testing out of units and classes. These changes aren't aimed and supporting high achieving students.

Instead of providing resources for remediation and support, the suggested "progressive" grading policy is a band-aid fix for a complex problem.

Oh yes. I read an article on leadership somewhere recently that said, essentially, that the mindset of "begin with the end in mind" has destroyed all concepts of baby steps and diligent labor to achieve a goal.

It was talking about young EMS providers who can see what a badass medic looks like and then have frustration and anxiety with their failure to perform at that level because they don't have the patience to stick it for the process.

I see this testing-based "success" in the educational system as one more symptom of the same problem. News flash: everyone doesn't get a trophy, we are not going to get all students to the same level. Without huge upticks in parental support, teachers are so fighting a losing battle. Where are the days that we prepared strong students for college, mediocre students for a trade, and weak students for labor?

WHY does our culture insist that you can do anything you want, without having the determination to WORK toward success???

I just was precepting an 18 yo EMT. He asked me "how is it that you are so good at reassuring people? They always believe you when you tell them everything's ok. Is it because you're a woman?"

In a long, drawn out explanation, I told him that even though I'm not old, I'm definitely a grownup, I don't let their anxiety feed mine, and I don't participate in their drama. Also, I have a judgment and clinical knowledge to KNOW FOR SURE that the patient is fine and there no need to freak out, we are definitely set up to survive the 30 minute ride to the hospital even though they have a big impressive fever.

He said "But I'm not new! I've been doing this for 2.5 years! I've seen dead babies and dump trucks overturned! I know what I'm doing!"

And I couldn't convince him that wasn't what he was looking for. Couldn't.

And he's one of the bright ones who asks good questions and thinks. Beginning with the end in mind blinds you to the process.

 

[adrenalin]

Here is how I look at it. We as EMT's are responsible for the well being of our patients. Thus, we should know what we are doing. Allowing multiple mistakes and irresponsibility like this school does (as the original poster stated) is setting future EMT's up for failure and possible patient deaths. I would rather have a strict professor and grading system, have my hard work mean something, and know that I am prepared to face the challenges that lay ahead of me. Some people may not agree with me and that is fine. However, I want to know that the people that I work with are as capable as I will be in any given situation.

 

[firetender]

Seriously, Matt, I see this as a logical continuation of what has to be a policy of progressively dumbing-down the upcoming population. Critical thinking skills have long ago taken a back seat to regurgitation of information. Now, everybody slides by, preparing no one for anything that may include questioning the existing order of things.

From where you sit, do you see a pattern?

 

[mycrofft]

What school?

My school is moving towards a policy that will:

• Allow students to turn in assignments any time before the end of the semester for full credit.
• Allow students to re-test for full credit.
• Require that students that score below a 60% on any assessment, including a quiz, test, or homework assignment, receive a 60% for the assessment.

Is it fair? Does it support student growth and achievement?

If we are talking EMT school now, maybe they are responding to the trend to keep making instruction more baroque and expensive to demonstrate they are reacting to events (e.g., if someone chokes on a dung beetle, the next semester of EMT classes must all have a dung beetle unit in them). However, cutting the dung beetle unit out is not the same as having students crowd learning together which ought to be paced throughout the semester to support didactic and clinical as or before it goes on.

As in: Week One has pt assessment, so the students need to complete assignment #1 to support the class and clinical. So often the two get dissociated due to poor curricular planning and schedule hash ups.

The sixty-percent thing though makes it a certificate mill. IS that actually correct? No one gets under a 60%?

How about they ought to try making it so they students may turn in assignments anytime before or up to the due date for that assignment? Or prove why they couldn't make it on time (personal issues, illness).

The more I teach the more mickeymouse I see in curricula. I only teach day-long courses but I am consistently done early because my students are adults and usually capable of going faster (and needing to go faster) than the curriculum does. Their written tests and practicums are good, that's my litmus test.

 

[Chimpie]

This is a state-wide initiative in North Carolina to improve graduation rates in our public schools.

'Everyone graduates' is not the way to improve graduation rates. Students will still leave school uneducated and a drain on society.