Grade Change - Part 2
The second issue in the August first Times’ article was the fact that the principal had given the student a second math test which she passed and then changed the grade to allow the student to graduate. The article quoted the mother as saying something about not being able to afford a second prom. The affect was to trivialize the real concerns that many parent feel about their children’s educations. I think this was a cheap shot.
If you look at this kid you can see that she spent 5 years in high school. Her attendance seemed to have been spotty, but she did stay with it even after her cohort had graduated. The kid clearly had problems in math. This is too bad. We should make sure that kids leave high school with enough math skills to survive. I see people in stores all the time getting into arguments with cashiers because they can’t follow what is happening and they feel cheated. This is a sad way to lead your life. You are either being cheated or you think you are being cheated.
A kid who has failed many courses and has taken five years to finish high school is not going to get into Harvard, they are not going to become doctors or pilots or pharmacists. They may work in a restaurant, or in a grocery store. When we give them a high school diploma signed by the principal and bearing the seal of the New York State Board of Regents we are not saying anything more than that they have survived high school. This is an achievement, but it is not that strong of a statement about their intellectual ability. Any college or employer is going to ask how they did in high school. This girl’s transcript is not going to say that she did well.
When we refuse to give a kid like this a diploma we are being arrogant about what high school is. We are putting a barrier in her way to starting her life that has no meaning. Why would we want to do this? Are we really afraid that someone will misinterpret this document? Do we think that some employer will call us up and yell at us for giving a girl a high school diploma even though she is not very good at algebra? The world understands what a high school diploma is worth. It says something about a kid’s ability not to give up. This is really all it says.
I love teaching high school because I can facilitate the transition of a kid from lost to having a direction. It is the direction that is the most important thing. I send the kids out into the world with the statement that this kid does not give up. When they get their first job they will impress their boss or not. If they go to college they will thrive or not. They will start creating the transcript of their life. This will be more important than the high school diploma. High school can be very important, not the diploma. Give the kid a break, let her get on with her life. Mr. Math Teacher, you were being a jerk.
I guess the point is to not think of grades as an objective measurement of students, they are not, but to think of them as a statement about the student’s readiness to move on. It would be great if we could personally testify to each student’s abilities like they do in elite private schools. I doubt if that type of grading will ever be practical in a large urban school system.
On a personal note; I received a 98 on my Algebra Regents because I did not check a problem even though the directions said to show the work and show that I had checked my work. I did not forget to check my work. I though it was stupid to check it. The problem was easy and I knew I had gotten it correct. Checking it would have involved adding 3 numbers together backwards from the way I had done it in the original problem. I thought this was stupid and chose not to do it.
3 comments:
numbers are significant because it does measure effort and not just intellectual ability. (i.e. homework, quiz grades). If you give one student a C who shows up every day or almost every day and then give another student who shows up half the time a D what does that tell a C student. However, if you give the first kid a 75 and the second kid a 65, now they are 10 points difference. More significant and fairer. A high school diploma also means to a potential college/employer that the child showed up enough to pass. Don't tell me you haven't seen, because i know i have, students who come to school about half the time graduate high school. And the teacher who "holds the line" is considered the bad guy. Laughable. My experience is that many of my students WILL show up to a job when they are getting paid for it, and do a passable job. However, how about real world jobs which they don't get paid for but that we should be preparing them for anyway? Like, for instance, oh I don't know, PARENTHOOD. Making excuses for these kids and saying the "real world" will weed them out once they leave high school is at best naive and at worst educationally neglectful. I loved your previous post about the candy bars. How do you go from that relatively "real world" or GASP conservative viewpoint to this liberal gobbledygook you just posted.
This is sad. Merit rather than pity should prevail.
Ed, This is the tough question that we all wrestle with each term. It is hard to tell what is right. The fact that a 65 or 95 in one school is certainly not a 65 or 95 in another is part and parcel to this issue. In fact, as you well know, this is not even the case between programs and classrooms in your old school. I guess the idea of "holding the line," seems a bit pompous or self-righteous on one hand, yet as you pointed out in your example about not being able to understand the cash register, we really cheat kids when we allow them out of school without an education.
There is currently a commercial on tv where a principal claims that the Bloomberg administration has ended social promotion. This is of course totally laughable as the times article illustrates. In fact, mayoral control probably encourages more social promotion in that we now will have a complete "overhall" of the system by every mayor that takes over. How could anyone get elected without widspread education reform in a city with such a low graduation rate. In an attempt to show their own progress, mayors and chancellors will exercise new found powers over administrators who will then put pressure on teachers to "take another look" at regents and offer all kinds of other second, or twentieth chances. This is basically social promotion any way we slice it.
Good to see you for a drink that night in South Slope, will call when I am back.
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