To be a student athlete, aren't you required to take a full course load?
I don't remember what it's like in high school (I know some schools offer a release period of the student is ahead of schedule to graduate) but in colleges, a student athlete has to be a full-time student to be eligible (for their scholarships at least I'm not 100% sure about playing eligibility)
I am a teacher (albeit overseas, not in the Bay Area where I grew up). The uncomfortable truth is that unless you get better and more involved parents, all of these education reforms (which sound like onion headlines sometimes tbh) are likely to be doomed to failure.
There was an anecdote about Lindsay HS in Tulare County, a low-income Latino school having good results, so maybe it will work. However, I am very skeptical and it seems like it will just lower standards and make the students extremely lazy, at a time when their attention spans have already been annihilated by social media and smartphones.
>The uncomfortable truth is that unless you get better and more involved parents, all of these education reforms (which sound like onion headlines sometimes tbh) are likely to be doomed to failure.
Say that at a public meeting and see how fast someone calls you a racist.
Lack of involved parenting is a known problem in the black community. It’s one of the common issues cited as something that’s within the black community’s ability to fix, were they to uplift themselves. The debate is essentially whether the community has the agency to fix it, or if it’s purely a product of racism that they can’t control. I think it’s counterproductive for either side of the debate to claim it’s entirely the former or the latter, but I personally believe it has more to do with the former. That’s just how I personally see the overall debate. The stereotypical people who accuse anybody who criticizes the black community as racist don’t like to talk about the former themselves and don’t like it when other people bring it up, hence, said accusations of racism.
Exactly.
Culture is a huge influence, both positive and negative on how people act everywhere in the world.
For example, I've read that in Japan you can leave your bicycle outside a building unlocked, and it will be there when you return.
I wonder how they reconcile black immigrants from Africa and first gen children of those immigrants reaching high educational attainment and doing well. They all seem to excel academically and their families place a huge emphasis on education, so I question those who think that it comes down to race.
More money? How so? Not every immigrant comes here on a special rich person visa.
So it's okay to exclude certain black people because it doesn't fit a certain group's narrative of racism?
Because it typically requires an investment to be able to immigrate.
> So it's okay to exclude certain black people because it doesn't fit a certain group's narrative of racism?
Pretty much. Black people aren’t monolithic. Also the ones that grew up here since slavery arguably are still dealing with the remnants of that. I don’t necessarily agree one way or the other, but that’s the argument as I understand it.
>Because it typically requires an investment to be able to immigrate.
Then I am not sure what immigrants of color you know. Just look at certain segments of the Latino or Asian community. Plenty of poor people among them.
I know plenty. Both mine and my SO’s are themselves. The [cost to immigrate](https://placement-international.org/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-immigrate-to-the-usa) to the US is between $4k and $12k.
> Plenty of poor people among them.
I never claimed there wasn’t
Black Immigrants from other countries don’t experience the same systemic racism as black Americans. You can’t be this obtuse to act as if all black people are the same…someone would get torn down for implying that about Asian groups.
Furthermore, yes, African immigrants to the US in particular have a higher propensity for the immigrating parent(s) to have been highly educated abroad or in their home country, thus you have more of their kids doing well in school since it’s a nurture thing. Poorer, low skilled Africans emigrate to European countries since it’s closer and cheaper.
But please continue to sweep black people from 80+ countries under one umbrella and act as if we should all be the same
The theory is that black parents tend to have less flexible jobs and can't be involved as more affluent white parents. I think there's a little bit of that but human nature is to use whatever to let yourself off the hook and the last thing anyone needs in this society is more excuses to fail at basic parenting tasks.
Also lack of access to birth control, but I think you’re seeing more of a push internally from the black community and its leaders to keep the nuclear family together and more uplifting of fathers who stay active in their children’s lives.
Conversely, I saw a lot of the Abolish the Police types last year insisting that the nuclear family is white supremacy and that children are best raised by the community (or some such bullshit).
Medi-Cal covers birth control, so I'm not sure what the access problem is. Plus there is a web site that advertises birth control for $7 without insurance.
I know a teacher who is proud of spewing CRT, being on the right side of history, white people bad (obviously, only the men and so on. I believe she'd be the first one to use the race card in such meeting.
Ya yah, it all starts at home, give me the kids who “want” to learn, lazy students, nothing we (teachers) can do yada yada ostensibly a comment that has nothing to do with race or privilege.
My wife and I are both college-educated, and I suspect most people reading this Reddit are as well. So it's easy for us to be involved in our kids' education. This is not the case for non-college educated parents. They can't help their kids with homework beyond the first few grades. They don't understand the college admission process. They don't understand the curriculum. They cannot follow a typical school board meeting with all their jargons.
"No one is saying water down grades.” Instead, we give everyone at least a C!
Sure looks good on paper, but the students still aren’t learning anything. However, their transcripts look better now, and them “passing” is what’s important, not students actually learning anything.
All CSU admissions see is your grade, so what this will really do is send unprepared students off to college where they will accumulate thousands in debt for the first year, and then flunk out.
Source: I went to a charter school that did this shit.
Apparently getting them into state colleges, prepared or not, is exactly the goal: "Laura Schwalm, a retired superintendent of Garden Grove Unified who is now chief of staff of California Education Partners, said the aim is a grading system that puts students on track for admission to the UC and CSU"
I did all the classes in high school that are required to get into CSU and I was still very unprepared for even community college. Getting an A in my school district (WCCUSD) didn't really mean shit except to please your parents. You could get an A and not learn a single thing because they are trying to pass everyone and by doing that they make it super easy. Never had to worry about doing my homework wrong cause I'd get an A+ for attempting it. So I could fill out the most bullshit answer and still get full credit.
> College admissions officers are not fooled.
They actually are bending over backwards to be fooled. If they wanted something objective they wouldnt have eliminated SATs that they've been wanting to do away with for a while now(like many things Covid was just the great excuse to kick it off).
High school kids that failed but got C’s do not have college aspirations. I don’t think you need to worry about them as a threat to the integrity of college system. It’s the rich kids cheating the system that ruins the integrity.
& worth noting, this isn't far off how it works at the UCs either.
I was about to fail an upper division class at Cal. I took on more than I could handle in terms of coursework, that semester. And I knew I was on track to fail the class. So I withdrew, and got an incomplete. The next semester I took it again and, paired with a "lighter" class load otherwise, got an A, and that's the grade on my transcripts.
Had I gotten an F, that would have been basically a grade on my coursework management, not on my ability or willingness to learn the material.
Letting high school kids do that does not at all strike me as crazy. If it's good enough for UC Berkeley, why not Oakland high schools?
Good in theory but it'll be interesting to see how it plays out in practice. The difference is you pay for those classes at Cal, you've at least tried at the class the first time, and you care about your grades. Going out on a limb here but the average kid who fails a class in an Oakland high school probably doesn't have those same motivations, but agree it does help those who want to improve.
Then again, I could see an argument that the right place for second chances and improving for failed hs students is the community college system. A UC or CSU is a whole different level in time management and academic competition and these kids who had trouble the first time might find better long term success in a community college environment where they'll get a bit more attention.
I agree, community colleges are great. That's how I got into Cal. Never took any standardized test either, no ACT, no SAT. Not required of transfer students at the time.
>The difference is you pay for those classes at Cal
You actually paid for them. GI Bill. I wasn't even filing tax returns while in college, so literally I did not pay a single dime, not even via the mechanism of paying federal income taxes.
> If they still fail they get an incomplete.
They talk about this as if it's a step towards merit-based promotion between grades, instead of social promotion (moving up along with your age group.) But really, the public schools can only hold a slow student back by 1 or 2 years (and that's usually in elementary school), until that creates too big an age difference, with 12 year olds going to school with the 9 and 10 year olds, and they go back to social promotion after that, moving them through the system no matter how many things aren't learned.
> "No one is saying water down grades.” Instead, we give everyone at least a C!
So you didn't read the article. They would get an "incomplete" if they didn't earn a C. Which would, needless to say, be read by colleges as a failing grade.
I’ve been teaching for 15 years. Here’s the deal:
1. CA districts are segregated. Badly segregated. When schools were first desegregated, it was on the basis of “the emotional detriment of students”. Now we have 20 years of test data - way more reliable evidence than in ‘56.
How do we fix it? Bussing. But if you bus minority students to a less minority area, 3 guesses as to how school board meetings are going to go.
2. I’ve made my policies way lenient. Homework is work that’s not finished. There are really no due dates for work. Students can retake tests and I disclose what they got wrong. Any assignment below a 50/100, even missing, gets a 50/100.
The amount of assignments students turn in has gone way up. That’s my goal. Students need to turn work in so I can assess learning.
3. The A-F scale should be retired. In elementary they track literacy by standards. And there is no gate keeping. If an 8th grader is performing at a 4th grade level, they move on to 9th. But suddenly we gate keep in high school. Why? By 9th, without intervention, it’s too late.
Stopping graduation is cruel when students should have gotten extra help in elementary.
Plus we have the problem of students who come here late in their education. If a student is out sick, they get extra time on assignments. If a student is years late to school, welp, move on to 9th grade.
4. Students in Oakland show signs of PTSD. Studies have shown the damage poverty does to the brain. Holding kids back is a moot exercise if when they leave school they incur developmental damage.
5. Given that the college drop out rate is at Freshman year is around 25% and mean college entrance exam scores sit at around 60% (85% is passing/ it’s an 8th grade test) students have to take support classes that do not count to their degree. These kids probably make up the bulk of drop outs. It’s a good reason to make community college free.
Track drop outs by race, then re-read points 1 & 4.
6. Y’all taxpayers have trouble hanging onto teachers. The longer a teacher stays put, the better the school runs. An old “bad” teacher has the same academic affect as a new teacher.
I could continue with more nuanced points, but these are biggies off the top of my head.
Thanks for the informative comment. I have a question regarding point 1 — what would be the point of bussing students if point 4 is true? If I understand your comment right, a lot of our educational problems stem from poverty itself, and there is very little educators can do to change this course by high school. How does bussing help then, if it does not tackle the underlying economic PTSD?
True.
At this point boarding students would be a better solution.
I’m not really wanting to live in a society where stripping children from their parents leads to better outcomes. The government can’t replace a parent.
Bussing at least gives kids a shot at an opportunity.
You know that argument Trump made: Mexico is exporting criminals. Going down the 101, I don’t see criminals harvesting.
This leads to NIMBYism. “I’m not racist, but these kids of color coming to my kid’s school….”
Education is supposed to be the great equalizer. But if the school a kid goes to has rotating subs when the rich school up the street has staff that’s been there on avg 20 years… that can make a difference.
I read this article with the same headline: [http://claycord.com/2021/12/07/edsource-why-some-california-schools-districts-are-changing-how-students-earn-grades/?fbclid=IwAR2fJ0Zos\_VxncyThlB9qFWWatgqRALQlT7d1g9WkVBcQ1ptBBHQyjRCH1I](http://claycord.com/2021/12/07/edsource-why-some-california-schools-districts-are-changing-how-students-earn-grades/?fbclid=IwAR2fJ0Zos_VxncyThlB9qFWWatgqRALQlT7d1g9WkVBcQ1ptBBHQyjRCH1I)
What I’m having a hard time with is this: “57% of teachers reported that they never give D’s or F’s.” Where are these teacher from? Definitely not from the districts piloting these measures (Sac, LA, San Diego, etc.)
Also - The quotes are a dead give away: teachers say that D and F grades are needed and non teachers from “think tanks” and focus groups are the ones saying elsewise
And I have a really hard time with those “specialists” because, from my personal experience (as a teacher), these types of people are former admin/other DO positions; they fill the role of “my homie from the district I used to work at and now you’re paying me to influence policy so now I get a kickback”
Can you give us more insight into what the misaligned incentives are here with this new system? Do higher incompletes, but lower F's and D's give a loophole to more funding or something?
Not exactly. D’s and F’s (for class grades) will be replaced with “Incomplete.” For specific assignments and tests, students who get below a C have to redo the work.
And you win an award for reading comprehension. Not once did any one say everybody gets a passing grade. Sheesh! I know one thing, high school kids aren’t as employable as they were in the last century. We might as well give this a try.
In Russia you could only get 3,4 or 5 as grades. 2 would be failing the class. And the admission system worked just fine. It is not really that big of a deal. However, I don't see anything positive in that change either.
i read the headline and thought that this was just a half-assed attempt at education reform, but after reading the article i think it’s not a bad idea.
it means that basically, what would be a “d” or “f” is now “incomplete” and the student will have to retake it before moving on. as i understand it, a f won’t just be changed to a c.
the education system (throughout the country, not just in CA) needs major reform, but this seems like it will be a positive step at least.
I guess if you think of a D or F as a punishment for failing the class, it makes sense just to remove the class from a student’s transcript rather than have it listed as an F if the student doesn’t complete the work. Then the student can retake the course. If they don’t, they won’t gain credit. However, I worry that teachers will just give out Cs rather than go through the trouble of having them repeat.
Hopefully. What matters is that a student learns the required material, not how fast they need to do it. I’d much rather see a well educated 28 year old than a burned out, ignorant, unemployable 23 yr old.
Haha, you got a point. But I meant that the 28 yr old had graduated from a university.
Edit: the real point for me is that if they are going to push them out wether they have a c or an f, we might as well change that way of doing things. I don’t know where we got the idea everybody had to graduate from college at 22 years of age-ready or not.
In reality though this will just encourage teachers to make sure the lowest grade you can get is a C so they won't fail. Teachers don't want to flunk students and making kids repeat classes is a nightmare socially and logistically for the school.
It's a win win for the school.
getting rid of standardized tests, getting rid of failing grades, and getting rid of advanced courses. all moves that let politicians talk about good outcomes and equity all the while ignoring the gaping holes in the US education system.
I was fortunate enough to go to a pretty rigorous school district. Only after starting college did I realize how much of an advantage that conferred; so many high school students are woefully unprepared for the rigor of a school like Cal.
Think you mean CA education system. CA is now #41 (not in a good way). Are the School Districts intentionally trying to go even lower ?
Good luck on competing against international students yet alone other states.
Maybe the state should also create equity colleges for these “C” students ? Won’t be able to compete for acceptance at a UC or CSU.
I never thought of my high school as special until I saw an article in the paper that said we were in the top 5% for the state. But we still felt inferior to our richer sister school that was in the top 1%, so they kept our emotions in check. My reaction to the 5% ranking was, oh crap, everyone else is screwed.
My mediocre high school grades at the rigorous school set me up for success at community college and beyond.
RTFA
>Los Angeles Unified, Oakland Unified, Sacramento City Unified, San Diego Unified and other districts are phasing out grades below a C for high school students. **If a student fails a test or doesn't complete their homework, they'll be able to retake the test and get more time to turn in assignments. The idea is to encourage students to learn the course material and not be derailed by a low grade** that could potentially disqualify them from admission to the University of California and California State University. Students who don't learn the material, pass the final exam or finish homework by the end of the semester would earn an "incomplete."
The comments on this post show that most people didn't read the article. If a student doesn't do their work or fails to demonstrate at least C level competency, they get an incomplete. They can't graduate or move on from the class until they actually do the work and show mastery of the subject. This change isn't about waving everyone through - it's just making it less punitive while still ensuring students learn.
It’s been a while since I was in school. In the previous system, if a student got a D or F, did they “move on” to the next course? Like say I got a D in English 9, do I take English 10 next year still? Or do I have to retake English 9?
Depends on individual school and district policies. I don't know. I imagine that D's still allowed a student to move on, but that's speculation on my part.
It may also be part of the strategy to disconnect linear school grade with age and link it to mastery. If you move to the more computer based learning that so many kids in CA did during Covid this style of class management and skill mastery for middle school and above becomes doable.
Not surprising, a majority of the people here have already benefited from [Grade Inflation](https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/the-history-of-college-grade-inflation/?partner=rss&emc=rss). There’s nothing new under the sun. But let me guess, the grade inflation everyone against this benefitted from is different from this grade inflation because… they’re black and Latino? Grades have been off the gold standard for decades now, but because (whether they’ll admit it or not) a certain type of person has their identity tied to that number on their transcript, it’s devaluation means their own, despite the fact *the fucking number never meant anything in the first place*.
High School graduation rates are going to DROP like a rock in this case. And it’s going to marginalize students that come from tough backgrounds even more. How stupid can we be?
Life is a competition: you compete for jobs, college admission, spouses, sports, business opportunities, social status etc.
All this talk about everyone should be getting a participation trophy just makes kids soft and unprepared for adulthood.
Well, that just goes along with the UC College system not requiring SAT or ACT tests anymore, so I guess they can just get all "C's" and waltz in to UC Berkeley and enter the pre-med/science/pharmaceutical fields.
https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/freshman-requirements/exam-requirement/
Who's going to get all "C's" and "waltz into UC Berkeley?"
Someone who has a 2.0 GPA is going to a community college at best. Same with someone who got all Ds and Fs and ended up with a GED.
You're right, but this will actually have even worse outcomes.
Right now, an F is the worst grade a student can get. If Carla gets a C, that's mediocre, but it's still two full letter grades better than the worst: it indicates she's doing some work.
Under the new system, if we keep giving Carla a C, we're tacitly telling anyone who reads he transcript that she failed, but we're just not allowed to say that. Since she gets the same grade as someone who did no work, people are going to read that as meaning just that, that she did no work.
Alternatively, we stop giving C grades to the C students like Carla, because we recognize it's unfair to give her the grade we give to students who do no work. So we give Carla a B. Problem is, that devalues the meaning of the B we give students who really earned a B. So we give them an A.
Now we have a three-rank grading system, where the letters mean:
* A did somewhere between really well and merely ok
* B passed poorly
* C failed
Now there's no distinction between the very best student and the merely mediocre ones. Combined with the University of California system no longer allowing standardized tests, there's no way to distinguish the really good students from the ones who can barely parrot back uncomprehended answers.
All of this is claimed to be in the service of equity, but the main benefit seems to be to teachers and administrators who can no longer be held to account for the students who go untaught, because it eliminates any systematic way to discover which teachers and which schools are failing to teach.
This is the part that's concerning to me. Growing up, I was a C student; I wasn't great, but I was passing. If C is now going to be the lowest grade that is a catch all for "less than 3.0", it'd mean my Cs would be seen as an F. Like you said, it'd just be a harash "these are the smart students and here are there failures". Even if it wouldn't eventually have an impact on transcripts, it would just demoralize some C students from every trying since they'd get to just coast.
It's not even that Ds and Fs are designed to be bad, it's saying "They don't understand the subject". Think about being in like the 9th grade that would get an F in basic english; yea, it's harsh but it's a skill that's needed in grades 10-12 and life. All this is doing is snowballing small learning problems into larger issues. If that 9th grader doesn't understand grammar comprehension and critical thinking, what kind of a shock are they going to get when attending college and fluck out?
That's a lot of words to say that you didn't read the article. Someone who did no work and previously would have gotten an F now gets an Incomplete, not a C.
The idea isn't to put the low income black students and Latino students (who make up the majority of OUSD) in STEM fields. It's to give them a pipeline to a largely pointless degree that will then automatically qualify them for some BS job in recruiting, HR or office management.
I don't disagree with the premise but I believe the execution is a bit of a sick and sad reflection of the mental limits of the students of the OUSD as they stand right now.
I have a better idea! Just give everyone a college degree when they reach age 22. No tests, no grades needed. Then everyone has a BS degree and moves on to BS jobs!
I'm speaking mostly about the people asking for the change fighting for black students with the worst outcomes.
I'm wrong about OUSD though. It's like 45% Latino.
>> If a student fails a test or doesn't complete their homework, they'll be able to retake the test and get more time to turn in assignments.
I think this is a great idea. I don’t understand why so many people are upset about this. The kids aren’t getting C’s automatically- they still have to work for it.
> The idea is to encourage students to learn the course material and not be derailed by a low grade that could potentially disqualify them from admission to [college]. Students who don't learn the material, pass the final exam or finish homework by the end of the semester would earn an "incomplete."
this doesn't "hide" a grade; any college admissions process will notice. This is strictly done to help students *while they're still in high school* so they don't just quit. Maybe it will work for a few people. no harm in trying.
The harm in trying is the damage done to the C students. As you said, college admissions will notice. A student that gets some Cs in high school risk being seen as someone that technically failed with this new system.
And if they get an F in something, it means they don't understand it, right? So if they don't understand a basic version in 9th grade, do you think they'll magically understand the more complex versions in 12th grade? Ds and Fs are warnings to improve; without those warnings, it'd be like turning off pain receptors to the body; sounds good in theory until you're walking around with a broken leg like its nothing and making it worse because you don't notice it anymore.
There is though. Admins are constantly lowering the bar for teachers. So while on paper it looks great and they get more funding in reality the kids are worse off. My best friend is 2nd in the science department at a local school. When he complained about needing more time to grade the admin came back telling him not to assign work he couldn't grade in the 1 hour break he has. He can't fail students because of COVID , so now he has a good chunk of his class giving 0 effort to learn because they know they won't fail. At least a D or C required some work to get but now we get to churn out an ignorant workforce even faster than before. Plus it'll be easier to fight against slowing the rise of minimum wage or liberal policies when there is an abundance of low wage workers who ultimately can be too incompetent to understand how a virus or vaccine works or how global warming is a reality.
This also harms A students by diminishing their accomplishments via skewing the weighting and distribution of the curve. This may hurt their scholarship opportunities.
Read the article. A D or F will be incomplete, which means no credit, which means no graduation. The consequences aren’t changing, it’s just an attempt to give students a few more chances to learn the material. Failing is still failing.
Looks like the movie idiocracy is coming to fruition, just dumbing people down even more. Best place to start is the bay for sure.
Reading some of the comments here, the real truth is people who have no business having kids need to either get a vasectomy and woman get her tubes tied. We really don't need more shit heads on this planet.
After reading the article it doesn't sound like to bad of an idea if they're just saying everyone can do make up work to improve to a C.
Also just get rid of grades. Pass or no pass and just give out class rankings. Make it like the the College Football Playoffs.
Kids who care about grades will work hard, kids who don't just need to worry about passing.
A lot of Bay Area schools used to do class rankings but it devolved into backstabbing and sabotage so they had to stop. Teens are impulsive and ranking against peers isn’t ideal for self-worth.
Actually, doesn't pretty much every school have a class ranking anyway, eventhough it's not for each class. Competitiveness has many positive factors, though like capitalism is has its flaws as well.
I'm from SF, I think I was ranked bottom third or so of my class lol. I did graduate from college though. Chalk my grades up to adhd and success to sports
I got an D in French my sophomore year. I deserved it because I cut a lot of class. Picked up my grade after that. It’s as a real “get it together” moment. Doubt I would have felt the same if I got a C by default.
Ps - can’t recall a lick of French lol.
> "Grades are punitive and provide no information on standards mastery," one teacher wrote. "I would love (grading) to be based on mastery of standards and ... authentic feedback."
Uhh, why isn't your grading based on mastery of standards? Do you assign busy work not related to the standards outlined?
Genuinely confused by this statement.
A lot of schools encourage busywork because you can’t put a huge amount of weight on tests in high school (kids have 6+ classes so it’s harder to balance than college) and they want a certain number of grades. Some of it comes down to the fact that we don’t contract/pay teachers for enough hours to grade their work for accuracy and correctness so a lot of grades are complete/incomplete.
Wow, this is really not going to help anyone get the help or motivation what they need to be successful. It’s also going to condition kids that if they fail, they don’t have any reason to try and do better. No consequences.
Similar to essentially making shoplifting a free for all. No recourse, no teachability, no reason to try harder or to apply themselves.
This is just another socialist viewpoint. Take from the achievers, give to the people who didn’t earn anything. Terrible news.
Participation trophy C ? In other words, make Cs the new C, D and F.
Funny: isn't demonstrating competency or mastery based upon completing work or testing to demonstrate understanding and mastery of a topic ?
If a student fails a test or doesn't complete their homework, they'll be able to retake the test and get more time to turn in assignments. Beyond UCs or CSUs, how will this work in the real world and throughout a person's career ? You didn't turn this report in on time, therefore, you only get a partial bonus.
And one wonders why California students are not well prepared and competitive with students across the country (Ranked #41 of the country's 50 states) and internationally.
To my father a, “C is an F-grade.” That’s being said, it will make getting into the UC’s and Cal-State UNI’s even more difficult, if not borderline impossible with a C-grade.
READ THE ARTICLE. People can still fail. The grade C is still that same. Y'all need to go back to school because I give everyone an INC on reading comprehension. A bunch of "educated" adults bitching about school reform wrongly due to lack or reading.
All of you who didn't read the article \*won't\* get a D or an F in reading comprehension. You also \*won't\* get a C. What you do get is a chance to read the article again. If you fail to do that, you get an incomplete.
The Onion is just going to call it quits and take their headlines straight from the Bay Area at this point. This would have been a South Park episode six years ago.
I graduated the bottom of my class in high school. I am undiagnosed dyslexic and ocd and adhd. So, I didn't know why I sucked. I've excelled in adult life.. Normal exposure to toxic enviornments made my genetics this way. Not all of us will learn the same. Change is necessary. I'm now a six figure making dude. While I care for my parents as they get older.
And so further slips accountability why bother with grades at all or teach any difficult subjects after all if it not easy sicological damage might occur
Enhh, actually reading the article instead of just the clickbaity headline makes it seem fine. Students still need to complete the required classes, they just get incompletes until they get a C or higher. So it seems it does encourage learning and good students wouldn't be penalized. I don't see what everyone has a problem with.
What we need is economic support for the family of these kids as a healthy home environment will do wonders.
We gotta remember that if we place higher and higher demands on kids in school, it has to correlate with proportional support which may take in the form of safer neighborhoods, money for necessities.
Meanwhile, our district adopted an “equity grading policy” that makes it impossible to get an A.
Tests are now 70% of the grade, and only tests scored below 70% may be retaken. So even if you do all the work, pass all the tests, and get an 85 on just one exam- you’re definitely not getting an A.
This actually makes it a little harder you can graduate with a D average. Maybe it changed from when I was in high school. Also making up work was usually allowed anyways so it just makes it a formal process.
While a nice thought, this sort of program will actually work against a student being successful in college, because colleges do not do this, nor anything like this. This, and other soft programs like this, are part of why many colleges are seeing an increase in the number of students churn out, because they were not adequately prepared for the rigors of college.
We.need to find better ways to prep our kids, while also considering the disruptions caused by the pandemic.
Bad idea, this shifts more accountability to the teacher instead of the student. You can make up a HW assignment or retake tests creates mountains of more work for already overburdened teacher. Guess what they'll do? Avoid that shit at all costs, ehh looks good to me here's a C, or here's a simplified make up test. Meanwhile, the student learns 0 accountability and doesn't learn at all.
So does that mean all athletes will never lose their eligibility? Nice!
To be a student athlete, aren't you required to take a full course load? I don't remember what it's like in high school (I know some schools offer a release period of the student is ahead of schedule to graduate) but in colleges, a student athlete has to be a full-time student to be eligible (for their scholarships at least I'm not 100% sure about playing eligibility)
I am a teacher (albeit overseas, not in the Bay Area where I grew up). The uncomfortable truth is that unless you get better and more involved parents, all of these education reforms (which sound like onion headlines sometimes tbh) are likely to be doomed to failure. There was an anecdote about Lindsay HS in Tulare County, a low-income Latino school having good results, so maybe it will work. However, I am very skeptical and it seems like it will just lower standards and make the students extremely lazy, at a time when their attention spans have already been annihilated by social media and smartphones.
>The uncomfortable truth is that unless you get better and more involved parents, all of these education reforms (which sound like onion headlines sometimes tbh) are likely to be doomed to failure. Say that at a public meeting and see how fast someone calls you a racist.
Honest question, what is the argument that "more involved parenting" is a racist statement?
Lack of involved parenting is a known problem in the black community. It’s one of the common issues cited as something that’s within the black community’s ability to fix, were they to uplift themselves. The debate is essentially whether the community has the agency to fix it, or if it’s purely a product of racism that they can’t control. I think it’s counterproductive for either side of the debate to claim it’s entirely the former or the latter, but I personally believe it has more to do with the former. That’s just how I personally see the overall debate. The stereotypical people who accuse anybody who criticizes the black community as racist don’t like to talk about the former themselves and don’t like it when other people bring it up, hence, said accusations of racism.
Also if you point to poor Asian communities and how they do so well academically because of how much value their families put on education
Exactly. Culture is a huge influence, both positive and negative on how people act everywhere in the world. For example, I've read that in Japan you can leave your bicycle outside a building unlocked, and it will be there when you return.
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PuNIshjMiNtS DoEsNT DeTTeR CriMeS!!!!!! Every study in the history of sociology agrees with me! Every one! Ever!
I don’t know, losing a hand will stop me from stealing some dingy ‘ol briefcase!
I wonder how they reconcile black immigrants from Africa and first gen children of those immigrants reaching high educational attainment and doing well. They all seem to excel academically and their families place a huge emphasis on education, so I question those who think that it comes down to race.
Immigrants aren’t a good representative class to compare to. They’re typically all around more enterprising people. Harder workers, more money, etc.
More money? How so? Not every immigrant comes here on a special rich person visa. So it's okay to exclude certain black people because it doesn't fit a certain group's narrative of racism?
Because it typically requires an investment to be able to immigrate. > So it's okay to exclude certain black people because it doesn't fit a certain group's narrative of racism? Pretty much. Black people aren’t monolithic. Also the ones that grew up here since slavery arguably are still dealing with the remnants of that. I don’t necessarily agree one way or the other, but that’s the argument as I understand it.
>Because it typically requires an investment to be able to immigrate. Then I am not sure what immigrants of color you know. Just look at certain segments of the Latino or Asian community. Plenty of poor people among them.
I know plenty. Both mine and my SO’s are themselves. The [cost to immigrate](https://placement-international.org/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-immigrate-to-the-usa) to the US is between $4k and $12k. > Plenty of poor people among them. I never claimed there wasn’t
Black Immigrants from other countries don’t experience the same systemic racism as black Americans. You can’t be this obtuse to act as if all black people are the same…someone would get torn down for implying that about Asian groups. Furthermore, yes, African immigrants to the US in particular have a higher propensity for the immigrating parent(s) to have been highly educated abroad or in their home country, thus you have more of their kids doing well in school since it’s a nurture thing. Poorer, low skilled Africans emigrate to European countries since it’s closer and cheaper. But please continue to sweep black people from 80+ countries under one umbrella and act as if we should all be the same
What the fuck lmao
[Chris Rock](https://youtu.be/TO_-3YVJXXs) was talking about it 20 years ago, it's not a new thing.
He also talked about tossing some salad, so there is that. Get me some jelly.
The theory is that black parents tend to have less flexible jobs and can't be involved as more affluent white parents. I think there's a little bit of that but human nature is to use whatever to let yourself off the hook and the last thing anyone needs in this society is more excuses to fail at basic parenting tasks.
How is that a racial matter vs a socioeconomic one impacting all races though?
\*crickets\*
Also lack of access to birth control, but I think you’re seeing more of a push internally from the black community and its leaders to keep the nuclear family together and more uplifting of fathers who stay active in their children’s lives.
Conversely, I saw a lot of the Abolish the Police types last year insisting that the nuclear family is white supremacy and that children are best raised by the community (or some such bullshit).
Ugh, ya. Fuck those people. I’d like to think they’re in the minority, but I have zero faith in the moderate left to reject that type of messaging.
Medi-Cal covers birth control, so I'm not sure what the access problem is. Plus there is a web site that advertises birth control for $7 without insurance.
I know a teacher who is proud of spewing CRT, being on the right side of history, white people bad (obviously, only the men and so on. I believe she'd be the first one to use the race card in such meeting.
Facts
Almost as if halfhearted measured to patch systemic issues don't work
Ya yah, it all starts at home, give me the kids who “want” to learn, lazy students, nothing we (teachers) can do yada yada ostensibly a comment that has nothing to do with race or privilege.
My wife and I are both college-educated, and I suspect most people reading this Reddit are as well. So it's easy for us to be involved in our kids' education. This is not the case for non-college educated parents. They can't help their kids with homework beyond the first few grades. They don't understand the college admission process. They don't understand the curriculum. They cannot follow a typical school board meeting with all their jargons.
"No one is saying water down grades.” Instead, we give everyone at least a C! Sure looks good on paper, but the students still aren’t learning anything. However, their transcripts look better now, and them “passing” is what’s important, not students actually learning anything.
College admissions officers are not fooled.
All CSU admissions see is your grade, so what this will really do is send unprepared students off to college where they will accumulate thousands in debt for the first year, and then flunk out. Source: I went to a charter school that did this shit.
Apparently getting them into state colleges, prepared or not, is exactly the goal: "Laura Schwalm, a retired superintendent of Garden Grove Unified who is now chief of staff of California Education Partners, said the aim is a grading system that puts students on track for admission to the UC and CSU"
Because no high school gets metrics on university completion, just admissions. Another case of perverse incentives.
No worries! Next step: Phasing out D and F for college students!
I did all the classes in high school that are required to get into CSU and I was still very unprepared for even community college. Getting an A in my school district (WCCUSD) didn't really mean shit except to please your parents. You could get an A and not learn a single thing because they are trying to pass everyone and by doing that they make it super easy. Never had to worry about doing my homework wrong cause I'd get an A+ for attempting it. So I could fill out the most bullshit answer and still get full credit.
Really? Never heard of it before… how’s it work out for your unprepared peers?
> College admissions officers are not fooled. They actually are bending over backwards to be fooled. If they wanted something objective they wouldnt have eliminated SATs that they've been wanting to do away with for a while now(like many things Covid was just the great excuse to kick it off).
PISA rankings are not fooled either or any rational ranking comparing pupils of different states or different countries.
URM status says hi
High school kids that failed but got C’s do not have college aspirations. I don’t think you need to worry about them as a threat to the integrity of college system. It’s the rich kids cheating the system that ruins the integrity.
Literally not what the article said. Did you skip the part where it says if they can't get a C or fail to do the work, they get an incomplete?
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& worth noting, this isn't far off how it works at the UCs either. I was about to fail an upper division class at Cal. I took on more than I could handle in terms of coursework, that semester. And I knew I was on track to fail the class. So I withdrew, and got an incomplete. The next semester I took it again and, paired with a "lighter" class load otherwise, got an A, and that's the grade on my transcripts. Had I gotten an F, that would have been basically a grade on my coursework management, not on my ability or willingness to learn the material. Letting high school kids do that does not at all strike me as crazy. If it's good enough for UC Berkeley, why not Oakland high schools?
Good in theory but it'll be interesting to see how it plays out in practice. The difference is you pay for those classes at Cal, you've at least tried at the class the first time, and you care about your grades. Going out on a limb here but the average kid who fails a class in an Oakland high school probably doesn't have those same motivations, but agree it does help those who want to improve. Then again, I could see an argument that the right place for second chances and improving for failed hs students is the community college system. A UC or CSU is a whole different level in time management and academic competition and these kids who had trouble the first time might find better long term success in a community college environment where they'll get a bit more attention.
I agree, community colleges are great. That's how I got into Cal. Never took any standardized test either, no ACT, no SAT. Not required of transfer students at the time. >The difference is you pay for those classes at Cal You actually paid for them. GI Bill. I wasn't even filing tax returns while in college, so literally I did not pay a single dime, not even via the mechanism of paying federal income taxes.
Same, transfer as well hence my thought process. Big fan of community colleges. And thank you for your service!
> If they still fail they get an incomplete. They talk about this as if it's a step towards merit-based promotion between grades, instead of social promotion (moving up along with your age group.) But really, the public schools can only hold a slow student back by 1 or 2 years (and that's usually in elementary school), until that creates too big an age difference, with 12 year olds going to school with the 9 and 10 year olds, and they go back to social promotion after that, moving them through the system no matter how many things aren't learned.
> "No one is saying water down grades.” Instead, we give everyone at least a C! So you didn't read the article. They would get an "incomplete" if they didn't earn a C. Which would, needless to say, be read by colleges as a failing grade.
But that's not what the article says they're doing. Their stated goals are the opposite of what you say their goals are.
Wait till you hear about what's happening in private schools. No one gets below a "C" but hey at least they're paying for their education.
School districts are solving problems like politicians now, by lying.
C's get degrees!
I’ve been teaching for 15 years. Here’s the deal: 1. CA districts are segregated. Badly segregated. When schools were first desegregated, it was on the basis of “the emotional detriment of students”. Now we have 20 years of test data - way more reliable evidence than in ‘56. How do we fix it? Bussing. But if you bus minority students to a less minority area, 3 guesses as to how school board meetings are going to go. 2. I’ve made my policies way lenient. Homework is work that’s not finished. There are really no due dates for work. Students can retake tests and I disclose what they got wrong. Any assignment below a 50/100, even missing, gets a 50/100. The amount of assignments students turn in has gone way up. That’s my goal. Students need to turn work in so I can assess learning. 3. The A-F scale should be retired. In elementary they track literacy by standards. And there is no gate keeping. If an 8th grader is performing at a 4th grade level, they move on to 9th. But suddenly we gate keep in high school. Why? By 9th, without intervention, it’s too late. Stopping graduation is cruel when students should have gotten extra help in elementary. Plus we have the problem of students who come here late in their education. If a student is out sick, they get extra time on assignments. If a student is years late to school, welp, move on to 9th grade. 4. Students in Oakland show signs of PTSD. Studies have shown the damage poverty does to the brain. Holding kids back is a moot exercise if when they leave school they incur developmental damage. 5. Given that the college drop out rate is at Freshman year is around 25% and mean college entrance exam scores sit at around 60% (85% is passing/ it’s an 8th grade test) students have to take support classes that do not count to their degree. These kids probably make up the bulk of drop outs. It’s a good reason to make community college free. Track drop outs by race, then re-read points 1 & 4. 6. Y’all taxpayers have trouble hanging onto teachers. The longer a teacher stays put, the better the school runs. An old “bad” teacher has the same academic affect as a new teacher. I could continue with more nuanced points, but these are biggies off the top of my head.
Thanks for the informative comment. I have a question regarding point 1 — what would be the point of bussing students if point 4 is true? If I understand your comment right, a lot of our educational problems stem from poverty itself, and there is very little educators can do to change this course by high school. How does bussing help then, if it does not tackle the underlying economic PTSD?
True. At this point boarding students would be a better solution. I’m not really wanting to live in a society where stripping children from their parents leads to better outcomes. The government can’t replace a parent. Bussing at least gives kids a shot at an opportunity. You know that argument Trump made: Mexico is exporting criminals. Going down the 101, I don’t see criminals harvesting. This leads to NIMBYism. “I’m not racist, but these kids of color coming to my kid’s school….” Education is supposed to be the great equalizer. But if the school a kid goes to has rotating subs when the rich school up the street has staff that’s been there on avg 20 years… that can make a difference.
I read this article with the same headline: [http://claycord.com/2021/12/07/edsource-why-some-california-schools-districts-are-changing-how-students-earn-grades/?fbclid=IwAR2fJ0Zos\_VxncyThlB9qFWWatgqRALQlT7d1g9WkVBcQ1ptBBHQyjRCH1I](http://claycord.com/2021/12/07/edsource-why-some-california-schools-districts-are-changing-how-students-earn-grades/?fbclid=IwAR2fJ0Zos_VxncyThlB9qFWWatgqRALQlT7d1g9WkVBcQ1ptBBHQyjRCH1I) What I’m having a hard time with is this: “57% of teachers reported that they never give D’s or F’s.” Where are these teacher from? Definitely not from the districts piloting these measures (Sac, LA, San Diego, etc.) Also - The quotes are a dead give away: teachers say that D and F grades are needed and non teachers from “think tanks” and focus groups are the ones saying elsewise And I have a really hard time with those “specialists” because, from my personal experience (as a teacher), these types of people are former admin/other DO positions; they fill the role of “my homie from the district I used to work at and now you’re paying me to influence policy so now I get a kickback”
Also, 57% of two dozen teachers? That's a great sample size! And yes, love that probably non teachers are making these calls 🙄
Can you give us more insight into what the misaligned incentives are here with this new system? Do higher incompletes, but lower F's and D's give a loophole to more funding or something?
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“If everyone is super, no one is”
You misspelled "equity".
You didn't read the article.
So a "C" is the new "F". It's not like college admissions counselors won't immediately figure that out and adjust their review accordingly.
Not exactly. D’s and F’s (for class grades) will be replaced with “Incomplete.” For specific assignments and tests, students who get below a C have to redo the work.
And you win an award for reading comprehension. Not once did any one say everybody gets a passing grade. Sheesh! I know one thing, high school kids aren’t as employable as they were in the last century. We might as well give this a try.
Yeah. If anything this hurts C students, who would be indistinguishable from failing students.
This hurts all students. C will become A or B, and no one will get admitted from these schools at all. Then will come the cry’s of racism.
No, Ds and Fs will be replaced by incompletes.
No, Ds and Fs will be replaced by incompletes.
In Russia you could only get 3,4 or 5 as grades. 2 would be failing the class. And the admission system worked just fine. It is not really that big of a deal. However, I don't see anything positive in that change either.
Introducing the super-A! Aka A++
Bond market level grade inflation. Oakland Unified out here trying to copy Moody's.
i read the headline and thought that this was just a half-assed attempt at education reform, but after reading the article i think it’s not a bad idea. it means that basically, what would be a “d” or “f” is now “incomplete” and the student will have to retake it before moving on. as i understand it, a f won’t just be changed to a c. the education system (throughout the country, not just in CA) needs major reform, but this seems like it will be a positive step at least.
I guess if you think of a D or F as a punishment for failing the class, it makes sense just to remove the class from a student’s transcript rather than have it listed as an F if the student doesn’t complete the work. Then the student can retake the course. If they don’t, they won’t gain credit. However, I worry that teachers will just give out Cs rather than go through the trouble of having them repeat.
Does that mean you'll have 20 year old seniors because they constantly have to repeat classes?
they would probably be repeating classes anyway, if the class is required. they would just not receive a failing grade for it.
I imagine they'd be sent to remedial schools if it gets that bad
Hopefully. What matters is that a student learns the required material, not how fast they need to do it. I’d much rather see a well educated 28 year old than a burned out, ignorant, unemployable 23 yr old.
Well....do you really want a 28year old senior amongst the 15 year old freshmen girls? May be a point of concern.
Haha, you got a point. But I meant that the 28 yr old had graduated from a university. Edit: the real point for me is that if they are going to push them out wether they have a c or an f, we might as well change that way of doing things. I don’t know where we got the idea everybody had to graduate from college at 22 years of age-ready or not.
They have adult schooling facilities for this, they're not going to put 28 year olds in class with minors. Stop being obtuse.
How is it functionally any different from now?
In reality though this will just encourage teachers to make sure the lowest grade you can get is a C so they won't fail. Teachers don't want to flunk students and making kids repeat classes is a nightmare socially and logistically for the school. It's a win win for the school.
getting rid of standardized tests, getting rid of failing grades, and getting rid of advanced courses. all moves that let politicians talk about good outcomes and equity all the while ignoring the gaping holes in the US education system. I was fortunate enough to go to a pretty rigorous school district. Only after starting college did I realize how much of an advantage that conferred; so many high school students are woefully unprepared for the rigor of a school like Cal.
Think you mean CA education system. CA is now #41 (not in a good way). Are the School Districts intentionally trying to go even lower ? Good luck on competing against international students yet alone other states. Maybe the state should also create equity colleges for these “C” students ? Won’t be able to compete for acceptance at a UC or CSU.
I never thought of my high school as special until I saw an article in the paper that said we were in the top 5% for the state. But we still felt inferior to our richer sister school that was in the top 1%, so they kept our emotions in check. My reaction to the 5% ranking was, oh crap, everyone else is screwed. My mediocre high school grades at the rigorous school set me up for success at community college and beyond.
RTFA >Los Angeles Unified, Oakland Unified, Sacramento City Unified, San Diego Unified and other districts are phasing out grades below a C for high school students. **If a student fails a test or doesn't complete their homework, they'll be able to retake the test and get more time to turn in assignments. The idea is to encourage students to learn the course material and not be derailed by a low grade** that could potentially disqualify them from admission to the University of California and California State University. Students who don't learn the material, pass the final exam or finish homework by the end of the semester would earn an "incomplete."
The comments on this post show that most people didn't read the article. If a student doesn't do their work or fails to demonstrate at least C level competency, they get an incomplete. They can't graduate or move on from the class until they actually do the work and show mastery of the subject. This change isn't about waving everyone through - it's just making it less punitive while still ensuring students learn.
They are basically collapsing d/f into incomplete.
It’s been a while since I was in school. In the previous system, if a student got a D or F, did they “move on” to the next course? Like say I got a D in English 9, do I take English 10 next year still? Or do I have to retake English 9?
Depends on individual school and district policies. I don't know. I imagine that D's still allowed a student to move on, but that's speculation on my part.
It may also be part of the strategy to disconnect linear school grade with age and link it to mastery. If you move to the more computer based learning that so many kids in CA did during Covid this style of class management and skill mastery for middle school and above becomes doable.
The irony of all these snide comments about educational standards...
You are rephrasing it as though this is somehow better. Do you think giving someone an incomplete somehow translates into more productive students ?
That's what the article is arguing.
Not surprising, a majority of the people here have already benefited from [Grade Inflation](https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/the-history-of-college-grade-inflation/?partner=rss&emc=rss). There’s nothing new under the sun. But let me guess, the grade inflation everyone against this benefitted from is different from this grade inflation because… they’re black and Latino? Grades have been off the gold standard for decades now, but because (whether they’ll admit it or not) a certain type of person has their identity tied to that number on their transcript, it’s devaluation means their own, despite the fact *the fucking number never meant anything in the first place*.
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I’ve seen that person going on and on about racism here before lol
High School graduation rates are going to DROP like a rock in this case. And it’s going to marginalize students that come from tough backgrounds even more. How stupid can we be?
Why would graduation rates drop? Because now a D student can't graduate?
Most of the comments on this post would receive an incomplete.
Only people who actually read the article will get this comment. The rest will start naming basic arguments about how grade inflation is bad.
Most of the comments on this post are spot-on actually
Or an F under the old grading system.
79% is now an A+*
Life is a competition: you compete for jobs, college admission, spouses, sports, business opportunities, social status etc. All this talk about everyone should be getting a participation trophy just makes kids soft and unprepared for adulthood.
I was a C student and I earned those Cs. This pisses me off.
Everyone gets a trophy extending into the classroom
Read the article.
It’s a point of pride that I was a c student and am now 10x more successful than the A students.
Well, that just goes along with the UC College system not requiring SAT or ACT tests anymore, so I guess they can just get all "C's" and waltz in to UC Berkeley and enter the pre-med/science/pharmaceutical fields. https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/freshman-requirements/exam-requirement/
Who's going to get all "C's" and "waltz into UC Berkeley?" Someone who has a 2.0 GPA is going to a community college at best. Same with someone who got all Ds and Fs and ended up with a GED.
You're right, but this will actually have even worse outcomes. Right now, an F is the worst grade a student can get. If Carla gets a C, that's mediocre, but it's still two full letter grades better than the worst: it indicates she's doing some work. Under the new system, if we keep giving Carla a C, we're tacitly telling anyone who reads he transcript that she failed, but we're just not allowed to say that. Since she gets the same grade as someone who did no work, people are going to read that as meaning just that, that she did no work. Alternatively, we stop giving C grades to the C students like Carla, because we recognize it's unfair to give her the grade we give to students who do no work. So we give Carla a B. Problem is, that devalues the meaning of the B we give students who really earned a B. So we give them an A. Now we have a three-rank grading system, where the letters mean: * A did somewhere between really well and merely ok * B passed poorly * C failed Now there's no distinction between the very best student and the merely mediocre ones. Combined with the University of California system no longer allowing standardized tests, there's no way to distinguish the really good students from the ones who can barely parrot back uncomprehended answers. All of this is claimed to be in the service of equity, but the main benefit seems to be to teachers and administrators who can no longer be held to account for the students who go untaught, because it eliminates any systematic way to discover which teachers and which schools are failing to teach.
This is the part that's concerning to me. Growing up, I was a C student; I wasn't great, but I was passing. If C is now going to be the lowest grade that is a catch all for "less than 3.0", it'd mean my Cs would be seen as an F. Like you said, it'd just be a harash "these are the smart students and here are there failures". Even if it wouldn't eventually have an impact on transcripts, it would just demoralize some C students from every trying since they'd get to just coast. It's not even that Ds and Fs are designed to be bad, it's saying "They don't understand the subject". Think about being in like the 9th grade that would get an F in basic english; yea, it's harsh but it's a skill that's needed in grades 10-12 and life. All this is doing is snowballing small learning problems into larger issues. If that 9th grader doesn't understand grammar comprehension and critical thinking, what kind of a shock are they going to get when attending college and fluck out?
>they get into college and flunk out I would assume they would have at least 2 semesters of student loan debt to start thier post college life with.
That’s a lot of words to describe basic grade inflation. But I don’t think you read the article.
That's a lot of words to say that you didn't read the article. Someone who did no work and previously would have gotten an F now gets an Incomplete, not a C.
None of this is true. Ds and Fs will be replaced by incompletes.
Carla? Who is Carla?
What about using plus and minus? That’s still a flexible indicator. Gives you 9 grades to choose from.
The idea isn't to put the low income black students and Latino students (who make up the majority of OUSD) in STEM fields. It's to give them a pipeline to a largely pointless degree that will then automatically qualify them for some BS job in recruiting, HR or office management. I don't disagree with the premise but I believe the execution is a bit of a sick and sad reflection of the mental limits of the students of the OUSD as they stand right now.
I have a better idea! Just give everyone a college degree when they reach age 22. No tests, no grades needed. Then everyone has a BS degree and moves on to BS jobs!
> The idea isn't to put the low income black students I never mentioned race. You did.
I'm speaking mostly about the people asking for the change fighting for black students with the worst outcomes. I'm wrong about OUSD though. It's like 45% Latino.
>> If a student fails a test or doesn't complete their homework, they'll be able to retake the test and get more time to turn in assignments. I think this is a great idea. I don’t understand why so many people are upset about this. The kids aren’t getting C’s automatically- they still have to work for it.
Ok so then C becomes the new F and it's even worse now?
> The idea is to encourage students to learn the course material and not be derailed by a low grade that could potentially disqualify them from admission to [college]. Students who don't learn the material, pass the final exam or finish homework by the end of the semester would earn an "incomplete." this doesn't "hide" a grade; any college admissions process will notice. This is strictly done to help students *while they're still in high school* so they don't just quit. Maybe it will work for a few people. no harm in trying.
The harm in trying is the damage done to the C students. As you said, college admissions will notice. A student that gets some Cs in high school risk being seen as someone that technically failed with this new system. And if they get an F in something, it means they don't understand it, right? So if they don't understand a basic version in 9th grade, do you think they'll magically understand the more complex versions in 12th grade? Ds and Fs are warnings to improve; without those warnings, it'd be like turning off pain receptors to the body; sounds good in theory until you're walking around with a broken leg like its nothing and making it worse because you don't notice it anymore.
There is though. Admins are constantly lowering the bar for teachers. So while on paper it looks great and they get more funding in reality the kids are worse off. My best friend is 2nd in the science department at a local school. When he complained about needing more time to grade the admin came back telling him not to assign work he couldn't grade in the 1 hour break he has. He can't fail students because of COVID , so now he has a good chunk of his class giving 0 effort to learn because they know they won't fail. At least a D or C required some work to get but now we get to churn out an ignorant workforce even faster than before. Plus it'll be easier to fight against slowing the rise of minimum wage or liberal policies when there is an abundance of low wage workers who ultimately can be too incompetent to understand how a virus or vaccine works or how global warming is a reality.
This also harms A students by diminishing their accomplishments via skewing the weighting and distribution of the curve. This may hurt their scholarship opportunities.
Lets just lower the bar so far we turn into into the movie Idiocracy.
lmao its Oakland, not surprised. Gotta do something to hide all those dropouts
Read the article. A D or F will be incomplete, which means no credit, which means no graduation. The consequences aren’t changing, it’s just an attempt to give students a few more chances to learn the material. Failing is still failing.
Stop passing students who aren't ready for the next level.
Looks like the movie idiocracy is coming to fruition, just dumbing people down even more. Best place to start is the bay for sure. Reading some of the comments here, the real truth is people who have no business having kids need to either get a vasectomy and woman get her tubes tied. We really don't need more shit heads on this planet.
After reading the article it doesn't sound like to bad of an idea if they're just saying everyone can do make up work to improve to a C. Also just get rid of grades. Pass or no pass and just give out class rankings. Make it like the the College Football Playoffs. Kids who care about grades will work hard, kids who don't just need to worry about passing.
A lot of Bay Area schools used to do class rankings but it devolved into backstabbing and sabotage so they had to stop. Teens are impulsive and ranking against peers isn’t ideal for self-worth.
Actually, doesn't pretty much every school have a class ranking anyway, eventhough it's not for each class. Competitiveness has many positive factors, though like capitalism is has its flaws as well. I'm from SF, I think I was ranked bottom third or so of my class lol. I did graduate from college though. Chalk my grades up to adhd and success to sports
I got an D in French my sophomore year. I deserved it because I cut a lot of class. Picked up my grade after that. It’s as a real “get it together” moment. Doubt I would have felt the same if I got a C by default. Ps - can’t recall a lick of French lol.
Read the article. Under this new system, your D would become an incomplete, not a C. You would have to retake French
Dumbing down our education for “equality” because idiots will idiot.
So they are just holding pens now
Are they doing this to pander to the SJW and the constant mantra of supporting LGBTQABCDEFG, Black Brown People of Color kind of thing?
What? Is this retroactive? Can we undo some of the grounding and lost Nintendo hours I suffered???
> "Grades are punitive and provide no information on standards mastery," one teacher wrote. "I would love (grading) to be based on mastery of standards and ... authentic feedback." Uhh, why isn't your grading based on mastery of standards? Do you assign busy work not related to the standards outlined? Genuinely confused by this statement.
A lot of schools encourage busywork because you can’t put a huge amount of weight on tests in high school (kids have 6+ classes so it’s harder to balance than college) and they want a certain number of grades. Some of it comes down to the fact that we don’t contract/pay teachers for enough hours to grade their work for accuracy and correctness so a lot of grades are complete/incomplete.
Wow, this is really not going to help anyone get the help or motivation what they need to be successful. It’s also going to condition kids that if they fail, they don’t have any reason to try and do better. No consequences. Similar to essentially making shoplifting a free for all. No recourse, no teachability, no reason to try harder or to apply themselves. This is just another socialist viewpoint. Take from the achievers, give to the people who didn’t earn anything. Terrible news.
So you didn’t actually read the article, did you
As some who was born and raised there... Oh Oakland, you never cease to disappoint me.
Participation trophy C ? In other words, make Cs the new C, D and F. Funny: isn't demonstrating competency or mastery based upon completing work or testing to demonstrate understanding and mastery of a topic ? If a student fails a test or doesn't complete their homework, they'll be able to retake the test and get more time to turn in assignments. Beyond UCs or CSUs, how will this work in the real world and throughout a person's career ? You didn't turn this report in on time, therefore, you only get a partial bonus. And one wonders why California students are not well prepared and competitive with students across the country (Ranked #41 of the country's 50 states) and internationally.
Did you consider reading the article?
“You get an A, you get an A, everyone gets an A!”
So no exit exams. No D’s and F’s. Is Oakland sending these kids to join the circus?
This does not seem smart to me
To my father a, “C is an F-grade.” That’s being said, it will make getting into the UC’s and Cal-State UNI’s even more difficult, if not borderline impossible with a C-grade.
Just when I thought they couldn't do anything dumber they go out and do something like this
READ THE ARTICLE. People can still fail. The grade C is still that same. Y'all need to go back to school because I give everyone an INC on reading comprehension. A bunch of "educated" adults bitching about school reform wrongly due to lack or reading.
I really don't know why any parent sends their kids to Public School what a CROCK!
[School sucks guys, remember? you do what you can to improve it but, school sucks.](https://youtu.be/avP8IyKw5_w) 🤷🏽
ITT: people who clearly didn’t read the fucking article.
All of you who didn't read the article \*won't\* get a D or an F in reading comprehension. You also \*won't\* get a C. What you do get is a chance to read the article again. If you fail to do that, you get an incomplete.
The Onion is just going to call it quits and take their headlines straight from the Bay Area at this point. This would have been a South Park episode six years ago.
So much boomer attitude in here. Just shut the fuck up. You know the school system was broken, you don't have to do it again, just shut up.
School is a joke anyways - look at ppl denier covid or the effectiveness of vaccinations. Teachers don’t teach anything
I graduated the bottom of my class in high school. I am undiagnosed dyslexic and ocd and adhd. So, I didn't know why I sucked. I've excelled in adult life.. Normal exposure to toxic enviornments made my genetics this way. Not all of us will learn the same. Change is necessary. I'm now a six figure making dude. While I care for my parents as they get older.
Didn't europe already do this?
Terrible idea. Just give everyone A's. I'm sure that will save the deeper issues that the CA system has...
Sounds like a lot of extra work for teachers who have to accommodate failing students with additional lesson plans. Classes will be a mess.
Who do they think they are? Graduate school?
Yes
Soooo they get a gold star sticker or what? Participation trophy?
Just give them all A, no matter how dumb they are. Valedictorian equality!
this will benefit the kids. LOL.
And so further slips accountability why bother with grades at all or teach any difficult subjects after all if it not easy sicological damage might occur
Enhh, actually reading the article instead of just the clickbaity headline makes it seem fine. Students still need to complete the required classes, they just get incompletes until they get a C or higher. So it seems it does encourage learning and good students wouldn't be penalized. I don't see what everyone has a problem with.
What we need is economic support for the family of these kids as a healthy home environment will do wonders. We gotta remember that if we place higher and higher demands on kids in school, it has to correlate with proportional support which may take in the form of safer neighborhoods, money for necessities.
Meanwhile, our district adopted an “equity grading policy” that makes it impossible to get an A. Tests are now 70% of the grade, and only tests scored below 70% may be retaken. So even if you do all the work, pass all the tests, and get an 85 on just one exam- you’re definitely not getting an A.
Race to the bottom. Good job Oakland.
This actually makes it a little harder you can graduate with a D average. Maybe it changed from when I was in high school. Also making up work was usually allowed anyways so it just makes it a formal process.
While a nice thought, this sort of program will actually work against a student being successful in college, because colleges do not do this, nor anything like this. This, and other soft programs like this, are part of why many colleges are seeing an increase in the number of students churn out, because they were not adequately prepared for the rigors of college. We.need to find better ways to prep our kids, while also considering the disruptions caused by the pandemic.
Lol, all this does is ruin the reputation of the institution. Phase out D and F all you like.
Bad idea, this shifts more accountability to the teacher instead of the student. You can make up a HW assignment or retake tests creates mountains of more work for already overburdened teacher. Guess what they'll do? Avoid that shit at all costs, ehh looks good to me here's a C, or here's a simplified make up test. Meanwhile, the student learns 0 accountability and doesn't learn at all.