Schools do away with "F" grades...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=6395403&page=1

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous! How is this preparing kids for life in the real world? Who has ever had a boss who said, "Ok, I know you didn't mean to do so poorly on that assignment. I'm going to give you 12 weeks to do a better job"?

My 10 y.o. heard me read this to DH, and yelled from his bedroom, "You're right, mom--that's crazy! Sometimes a kid deserves an F!" :lol:

Thus illustrating that the "powers that be" are often, NOT smarter than a fifth grader!

 

There aren't many who ARE smarter than a 5th grader in this world. So sad!

 

Well, as a matter of fact, this usually IS how it is in the "real world". Unless you do something totally heinous, employees usually get a verbal warning, then a written one, then they'll get fired. At every job I've ever worked at, I've screwed up somehow, but never got fired - I got another chance. And I never got grades. But there's a world of difference between a student and teacher and an employe and boss.

I think it makes sense to give the student another chance. Not endless chances - just a chance to do better next time. It's worth a shot to try it. Schools fail every year (and get to keep going on for years without changing much of what makes them fail). The nation's dropout rate is about 30%. I think any kind of new policy is worth trying.

p.s. My teenager's school does something like this and it's one of the highest ranking schools in the city.

 

1) The goal of the school should be to TEACH the students. Yes, some will have better retention than others.

2) While I don't believe in "not" giving "F's", I also the benefit of allowing a child to do additional work to bring the grade up.

3) If a child is doing poorly on multiplication tables, I'd rather see him continue working on them until they are mastered, rather than just moving on to division.

4) I think the majority of students in the high school fail because THEY ARE LAZY. They don't bother doing the assignements, and expect everything to be handed to them. My husband bends over backwards to get the kids to do assignments. Most projects are done in class, and he has after-school hours where the kids can come in and work on thier projects. He lets them know exactly what they haven't turned in, and is more than willing to sit down and work with them one-on-one. But very few bother. They even flunk open-book tests.

5) So I don't really mind additional opportunites to allow them to master a concept; I feel that is VERY consistent with what the school's goal is. But if the kids aren't going to take advantage of the opportunities presented, there's nothing that can be done, and the student deserves a failing grade.

 

Well, the politically correct grade should be an "A" for an "F" because you wouldn't want to hurt that child's self-esteem. We are all "A's" on the inside, aren't we? (written with sarcasm)

 

I have to disagree.
Any policy is not worth trying, just because it is new. Usually the tried and true methods are the best.

And some schools rankings mean nothing to me, because is they implement this plan, OF course, their scores will look better. Because no one gets an F. So, DUH. Of course they look better.

It is similar to "Dumbing Down". If students can't make the grade, lower the standard....
Hey! What do ya know! The school's rankings just went up!.

See what I mean?
So, any school that does this and then touts their new numbers means nothing to me.

 

In my opinion this is terrible. It doesn't teach a kid responsibility or that they have to earn the grade by doing the research or taking the time to study. It doesn't show that the any kid knows what they are doing in school and they will get continue to get passed in classes that they shouldn't and teachers that shouldn't have a teaching license will continue to earn a paycheck. Because it's going to tell parents and the state that they are great at teaching because none of their students failed. In my opinion, just because I still feel there's a teacher at our old ps who was completely useless as a teacher.

 

Ask yourself this....
If this plan was on the brochure of Sylvan Lerning Centers, or Kumon, or Huntington (Regardless how you feel about those companies) would you feel MORE compelled to utilize their services?

I would not.

 

I think it's funny that they think just changing the letter will make a difference. Give it a year or two, and that H will be an F and they will just go back to F, because "H" means something bad. A rose by any other name is still a rose - the kid is still failing. Hey, how about we address THAT issue instead of how the kids "FEEL" about an F. Gimme a freakin break.

 

The conflict I have with the "F" grade is that some students DO study and they DO try their hardest and yet they struggle and still receive a failing grade. Then there are students who just do not care. I am a person who believes in mastery before moving on. If this will allow some students to master their problem areas, then this is good. Yes there will be some students who take this for granted, yet I can see this as beneficial to those who are putting forth the effort.

I tried to see this through homeschooling eyes. I do not give Ems an F and then move on. When her work is poor, I give her the opportunity to redo the incorrect or poor work. I do not believe students learn much from being patted along when they aren't ready; either because they are slackers or because they simply struggle. For students who intentionally slack, sometimes having to redo an assignment in order to move on can be a deterrent from further slacking because they do not want to do an assignment twice, or more, in order to receive more than an "H".

 

We do not give F's. We just do not go on until things are done right. My children quickly learned to do things right. Under this system, if your child spends 3 yrs in the 5th grade..then they spend 3 yrs in the 5th grade. In the real world, until you do the job right, you cannot go on. You won't get paid, you will be fired and so on. In school, firing is not an option. So, you have to chose. Give a low grade and advance a child anyway, which means the low grade doesn't really matter. Or make the child redo it until they can get it.

 

Patty, I had a special ed student who, after trying her best, did poorly on a test. She was upset about it. I explained that my posted classroom rules said, "DO YOUR BEST WORK". I asked if she had. Yes.... Then she had obeyed my rule, and I wasn't upset with her. I went on to explain to her that it was MY problem, because I now had to find out a "better" way to explain it to her, to help her learn it. That really helped her!

I observed a special ed class in Tulsa back in the 70's that REALLY upset me. Those kids, if they got 100% on a paper, were given a "C" grade, because they were not doing the work the "regular" kids were doing. And it wouldn't be fair to those "regular" kids. So it was IMPOSSIBLE for the students to get higher than a "C" in a special ed class. Of course, if they missed some, that grade became an "F" very quickly. I thought at the time how discouraging it must be to get all perfect scores, and still only get a "C"!

 

I guess I do not have such a problem with them getting rid of F. I agree that a rose is a rose is a rose.
What chaps me, is that now they are getting rid of C and B. Because everyone wants an A.
I just finished a paper for a class...and it has the avg score for the assign...even though you can't see what everybody got... I recieved a 96...the avg score was 94.
How can the avg score be that high? it made me feel like I had put way too much effort into the paper.

 

Assuming it was a graduate level class. I can easily see that, because grad students are there to learn. They are willing to put the needed work into what they're doing. I mean, if a test was given no one got below 90%, would you question the results? If a person isn't performing at that level, then why are they taking a class at that level?

 

I could take up space and repeat basically what Jackie said or just say, "I agree with Jackie." LOL. I think Jackie has a nice middle ground approach of allowing for improvement without getting rid of giving deserved "Fs".

 

I think this is a tough one. Reason is this - it states in the article that the child would get extra work or be able to take the class again to get a better grade. If they still "fail" they would end up with a failing grade. So how is this different from me taking summer school in high school because I got a D in chemistry and retaking it and then the average of my 2 scores was taken?

 

I had more to add... lol - got side tracked.

Anyway - with my kids now if they know the stuff and goof off and don't do their "quiz or test" well - I will let them redo the problems and they get 1/2 credit back. So I guess it depends on HOW it is implemented. There have been times when I even gave my son an F because that was what he deserved period and he didn't want to try again and try harder and he KNEW his stuff. So you want to be lazy - give them an F.... but if they truly try I can see it as being a benefit.

 

The whole purpose of Grades, to begin with, was to be accountable to the parents, so that they would know how the student is doing in class. And for the teacher to be able to keep up with where everyone actually stands.

So they have a place, especially in a multi-student situation and where one person, a teacher, is accountable to another, the parent...

That being said, if the student fails the assignment, they deserve the F given. Granted, they might also deserve a chance to "Make Good" on that grade with a "Do over" or "Extra Credit". But the truth is they DID fail, and therefore eliminating the F only hides what really happened.

Keep the F's.
Offer chances to make up for it.
But don't pretend the F never happened.

 

Jen, I think you summed it up very well!

I also picked up a habit from other special needs teachers in my building. We would send home a paper, where we've sat down one-on-one with a kid, and they got them "all right", or mostly right. But this was done WITH an adult present, talking them through. It did NOT reflect the child's individual ability. So we WOULD put the good grade on the page (more to encourage the child!) but would add "With Help" so the parent would have a more accurate accounting. We would also label a paper "Without help", proudly when a child did very well independently!

 

I guess I agree with the first half of the article and disagree with the last part. I disagree that having grades and showing kids where they fail is bad for their poor little self esteems. However, I agree with the school that is giving an "H" then making them do remedial work, because they state that if that work is not accomplished, then they still get a failing grade.

When I'm schooling Brody and he takes a test and does poorly, I don't move on to the next unit (like a normal public school would) because I don't feel he has learned what he needs to learn. I also don't have him just correct the answers he got wrong, I make him do the whole unit over again (and by poorly I don't mean he missed 2 out of 30, I mean he missed far too many and would have gotten a D or and F). Either he goofed off and didn't pay attention to the unit, or he didn't grasp the concept in the first place, so he repeats it until he has it down.

To me, what they are doing at that first school in the article is trying to ensure that these kids are grasping the material and not getting left behind. I can't find anything bad in that in these days of graduating children who can't read or do basic math.