Cash for Grades

[tallman]

I'd never argue for SAT scores. I had to take mine 3x and add the scores together to get into college.

 

They aren't the best indicator of success, in college or in life.

I'm sure you're 3x more successful than some high scorers.

 

 

[g_frey]

Rediculous? Education is full of rediculous. Some high schools teach the answers to the "no child left behind" questions all YEAR LONG. Others, at college level, shorten the classes from say 48 hours of instruction to 18 hours (or less). And then NO ONE seems to wonder why honors are awarded to 75% of the seniors or why college teachers go home at 11, (that is NOT at night). Grades too low, lower the grading scale. Classes not learning?, who cares, lower the grading scale. Good teachers get paid the same as bad ones, NORMAL. Tenure awarded to poor teachers, NORMAL. I have taught for 30 years and some days I long for a kind death so I would not have to listen anymore to lazy, incompetent, pompous, self satisfied, etc.. This grading method does not surprize me at all. I have seen grading system where you CAN NOT FAIL. Don't attend, turn nothing in, you get a "C". Honestly guys.

[Ken H.]

We are way too insular in this society.

 

I recently showed my daughters cover story titles from news magazines at the local bookstore. "China Goes Shopping", "The Forbes 400", and a couple of cover stories on foreign education and the decline of our own. I tell my girls that they are not, ultimately, competing against other American kids. They are competing with the WORLD.

 

The WORLD doesn't care about our petty social norms and histories. It doesn't care about curves, grade inflation, race/gender based points, or any of that nonsense. Who can use their intellectual capabilities to create wealth, innovation, and move their society/country forward? WHO? That's who gets to eat, all others get to be servants. Those are the stakes! Just because you win with respect to your classmates, does NOT mean you win in the grand scheme of things.

 

It is not for them alone that they need to achieve, although they certainly need to do so for their own futures. But for their country, too. They're blessed in that they don't have to put on a uniform and pick up a rifle to fight for their country, but they must fight nonetheless. Those foreign kids are bringing honor to their country while ours largely bring shame to ours. No more. This has to change. Our kids have to learn to fight! My girls consistently, year in and year out, get excellent grades, but it's not enough and it doesn't necessarily mean anything. The real test is global in nature and it's yet to come for them. How they do then will determine their ultimate grade in life.

 

This is what I teach my girls.

Exactly.

 

We can sit here a play our own internal education games with norms, median scores, statistics, cultural weighting, various grading curves, and ‘buying up’ all we want, etc. In the meantime the rest of the world is simply learning more and getting smarter. How that (unchecked) is all going to turn out isn’t hard to predict.

 

Bottom line – Is your kid learnin' good?

 

[tallman]

g

Just so you know, there are no such things as answers to the "no child left behind" questions because there is no such test.

It would take a telephone book sized answer to explain NCLB, and that is for just my state.

Each state has different standards and then the Federal overlap comes in to play.

Some states have ridiculously low ones and some have much higher ones.

This makes it impossible to use NCLB as any sort of measuring stick comparing state to state.

[Huzband]

At least they aren't polluting the planet.

[RonStewart]

Ron, I'm curious. How a teacher who grades on a "well-designed curve" as you put it, would deal with a class in which the highest grade was, say, a 62, the lowest a 40, and all the rest evenly spread out in between.

 

Conversely, what happens when the highest grade is a 98 and the lowest a 79?

 

In the former, do you pass half the class and in the latter, do you fail kids with scores in the low 80's? These are some of the issues I see. But, as I said, school was a long time ago for me, yet it's your livelihood. At present, I think grading on a curve is counterproductive. However, I'm willing to learn how it can be otherwise.

Look, I am not claiming that any particular method of grading is best. I don't curve, but I have been curved. I have seen a classmate who could not log in to his account get an A+ in an educational technology course. I got an A- in a solid-state physics course in which I did not have a clue, but all but one of my classmates were even worse. And I have seen a high-calibre university student get a B because of quotas.

 

But if I were grading on a curve right now, those dozen A students I have would be fighting hammer and tong for the three available As. It would be very competitive, and their absolute acheivement would be higher. Nothing motivates like competition. My C students would still be getting Cs. My students with over 40% would get 50%, but that mark would not get them into any post-secondary schools.

 

The answer to your examples are what you would expect. Top one or two get As, etc.

 

A big problem with curving is it assumes that you will get a normal distribution (bell curve) from your class' scores. That assumes a random selection of students, and a broad-based test. In my class, I have nothing close to a normal distribution - heck, it looks more like an inverted bell.

 

Somebody asked about marks for behaviour. None. Nor for attendance or failure to attend or class participation or for completing homework. Marks may be awarded for correct homework, but not for a mere attempt. Marks should only be given for achievement, which means if you are going to give a mark for homework, you have to mark the homework.

 

I remind you that tests can be made to produce a wide variety of results. And there is nothing magic about 90% compared to 80%. It is true that the only thing test scores predict is a person's future test scores.

 

But selling marks is corrupt, corrupt, corrupt. I don't give a damn if that's the way the world works; I won't participate.

[Ken H.]

Welcome to my side of the center line.

Well if nothing else, pure random chance says we’d come close to converging on something or another once in a blue moon!