RT @TWERadio: Vanderbilt University stands firm against campus-ministry groups 
Click to Print
Include Comments
Dallas schools redefine “fair”
In an effort to create a “fair system” for grading students, the Dallas public school system recently revised its grading policies and now requires that students who flunk tests, blow off homework, and/or miss assignment deadlines be allowed to make up the work without penalty.
According to district records, the policy changes are intended to move teachers away from performance-based grading to effort-based grading. But teachers like Ray Cox aren’t pleased with the switch: “It’s like we’re sending the message to kids that deadlines don’t matter, studying is optional, and no matter how little you do, you’re still [going to] pass all your classes anyway.”
Highlights of the new grading policy include the following:
- Homework grades should be given only when the grades will “raise a student’s average, not lower it.”
- Teachers must accept overdue assignments, and their principal will decide whether students are to be penalized for missing deadlines.
- Students who flunk tests can retake the exam and keep the higher grade.
- Teachers cannot give a zero on an assignment unless they call parents and make “efforts to assist students in completing the work.”
As one 2007 Dallas high school graduate pointed out, the new rules won’t prepare students for the real world: “Babying the rules so that [students] have almost unlimited chances to pass, that’s unreal. In the real world, you don’t get a whole lot of chances or other ways to make something up.”
back to top28 Comments to “Dallas schools redefine “fair””
Once again I wonder if I haven’t lived too long.
Report comment to moderator
Insanity. Abject insanity.
Report comment to moderator
This is a real head-scratcher. We went through a similar revision in our city, as well. In fairness, what the schools seem to be trying to address is the rather rattled lives of some students (some will work odd hours, or have difficult home situations that make “home”work more difficult to complete).
A second rationale has been to shift the focus from classroom performance to mastery of material. There’s something to this, since the well-known correlations of socio-economic status and general school performance suggests that poorer students work at a general disadvantage — their circumstances in effect lengthen their learning curve. The danger is that a policy like that of Dallas will not actually shift to a mastery mode, but only call”good” what already is a failure to educate — a dumbing down. Sigh.
And then there are the teachers. Well, it will certainly make their efforts more difficult.
Report comment to moderator
I teach. I give students a second chance to turn in the work for half credit. Usually they don’t. As for exams, if a large percentage fail, or the highest grade is less than 90%, I give any who wish a chance to raise the grade by redoing what they missed with book and notes open, then I average the two scores. That makes it so no one can get 100% on the redo, but they learn the material.
Report comment to moderator
Are we all going to pretend we don’t know what this is all about?
I am sure Dallas is under tremendous pressure not to flunk too many black and hispanic students.
Report comment to moderator
My method when I taught was nearly identical to Peter L’s. My only takers were the kids who already had A’s or B’s and were simply trying to maintain them but had isolated incidents that resulted in missed deadlines. My kids with failing grades simply couldn’t see the correlation.
Report comment to moderator
effort based grading? try really hard and you get an A???
I’ll concur with others here. Any method I’ve used for children to make up failed tests or missed assignments is usually taken by students who already have a B- or higher. Students below this level rarely see the point.
Report comment to moderator
How many tests will the teacher be required to make? I would see it as distinctly unfair to those students who worked hard the first time to prepare and did well. If the teacher didn’t rewrite the test, then it is as if the student was given the whole test to study beforehand – that is a great advantage to the student. The student would be able to prepare without all that extra work studying what might or might not be on the test. I suppose this is the ultimate “teaching to the test.” If the teacher had to rewrite the test, then it is even more work for a teacher who now has to grade a second test for each one who retook.
In my two years of teaching, I had one student who wanted to make up six weeks of homework that he hadn’t done. He had been caught by the “no-pass, no- play” rule. I told him that I would give him credit for all of the homework that he turned in. So he asked me to write a list for him. Instead, I let him copy it for himself. I think he managed to turn in about 5 out of 30 assignments. The problem is that it is pretty hard to pass Algebra if you haven’t practiced by doing the homework.
Report comment to moderator
I think Peter L and Cameron have a good system. I once moderated a video Spanish class and did something similar.
The goal is to learn, but most of us need some incentive to work hard enough to do that. I would bet that there are thousands of Senior Citizens that could tell you amazing stories of students who applied themselves and managed to learn in spite of a bad enviroment. Just changing a grading system will accomplish very little.
Report comment to moderator
Obviously the clowns you call at the banks to try to straighten out problems with you accounts are functioning on an efforts-based rather than a performance-based paradigm. The practical consequences of an efforts-based ethic are horrifying – and possibly lethal – in real life.
Report comment to moderator
I was hoping this was a joke at first. The idea of a “fair” grading system like the one described here is actually so ridiculous to me that I decided to register for the site just so I could write a comment. This, after being a fairly consistent WorldBlog reader for more than 3 years without ever having commented! =)
Most of the points I’d make have been made already, but I’ll say that, from my perspective, it seems likely that this will have negative impact in schools for two reasons.
1. By making it easier for students to succeed in general, schools reduce the incentive for students who might have excelled in the old system and been recognized as outstanding. This will further reduce overall performance in schools as these students either move out or don’t try as hard because the rewards are less valuable.
2. By making it easier for the students who are uninterested in academic success to get good marks without the extra work, I would expect their participation levels to drop because they should be able to achieve similar levels of success as what they currently achieve, with less effort. Further, since the rewards for reaching the top will be less pronounced (see #1) they have less incentive to work hard, which will further decrease the effort they put in.
I imagine that, unless other correcting factors are applied to widen the distribution, the net effect will be an shift in the overall grade distribution, without much change in the mean, but a significant reduction in the standard deviation.
In less analytical language, there will be fewer failing grades and less distinction at the high end of the distribution, even though everybody puts less effort in.
Report comment to moderator
Parents are supposed to discipline and teach their children. They aren’t supposed to send them off to other people to do it for them in some large, overcrowded classroom where collective needs trump individual needs. So it makes sense that overworked, overloaded teachers want to get rid of grades. Maybe things have to get so out of hand and nuts before people will start taking their children’s education into their own hands – where it belongs.
Report comment to moderator
#10 said “The practical consequences of an efforts-based ethic are horrifying – and possibly lethal – in real life.”
I disagree. These students should be very well qualified to teach in the Dallas school system when they graduate — even more qualified to administer Dallas schools.
Report comment to moderator
Y’know, it has been nearly 30 years since I’ve been in a public school classroom, but even then I had a hard time, as a good student, being motivated. I did work quickly and turned it in, and mostly sat bored during classroom hours when teachers endlessly explained simple material to the students who didn’t understand it. I would have loved to be challenged with something extra to attain. I hated group projects where we were all given the same grade on something. I despised it when a teacher punished the whole class for something I hadn’t done. (”Too much talking in here! All of you put your heads down on your desks for the next five minutes.” That in a stuffy Phoenix classroom was a farily unpleasant–or, rather, an unfairly unpleasant–punishment for those of us who hadn’t been talking.)
My school did one example of this when I was growing up. Arizona required a history test to pass eighth grade. The Social studies teacher made a big deal of it the whole school year. It was cumulative, over all the material covered all year, so we had to take good notes. I took good notes, but when it came time for the test, I realized I understood all the material we covered, and I chose not to study for the test (and got an A). One of my fellow students took the test at least three times, four times I think, because we simply had to take it over and over until we passed. I remember at the time being dismayed–why should my passing with an A on the first round, and her barely making it through after repeated tries, be considered equivalent? (The test didn’t count for a grade in any class, just a pass-fail.) If that kind of stuff was done regularly, I’d have lost all respect for the teachers and the system–because the one thing it isn’t is fair.
Report comment to moderator
I want to know what happened to the Dallas school system that used to flunk the miscreants out as soon as possible so they would not hurt the rest of the students that want to learn something, willing to sacrifice to learn something, are prepared to learn something and might lactually earn something – even if it is something offered publicly, may be below standard, probably awful, hardly worth knowing and taught by Marxists posing as Socialists
I find this whole makeup without penalty idea to be not only pervasive in our society but horrible for the rest of us too because we are the ones who pay for it in the end and we should not be the ones being punished. But we are the only ones nbeing punished for the actions of insane people.
You buy up home mortgages with a 32 to 1 leverage and you get bailed out. You run your company in the ground they buy you out with a huge golden parachute. You borrow money you know you can’t pay back – you get bailed out. You loan money to people you know can’t pay it back you get bailed out. You rob banks and no one cares, they wonlt even catch you.
You can’t make it in society for any reason you get bailed out. You go to prison for as short a time as possible no matter what you did and we let you have conjugal visits with your wives, your girlfriends, your sisters and we let you have sex with your bunk mates and do all the drugs you want too – TV, weight room, library, fine food anything you wnat – no problem – for you.
No job, no problem. No food, no problem. Sick, no problem. No saving for retirement – no problem. Kids a mess – no problem. Can’t keep a mate – no problem. No education, no problem. No insurance, no problem. No nuthin’ – no problem.
Illegal too, really it’s no problem and go ahead and vote too, take all these benefits, its not your fault you are a criminal and came here illegally – my citizenship isn’t worth very much to me and certainly not worth enough to keep it from you – no problem.
I certainly have to agree with that one since there is nothing I could do about it even if I wanted to it seems. No one cares about anything anymore – so we get what what we get – it’s just not worth much when there are no good character attributes worth having, nothing is sacred, nothing is bad and there is nothing worth working for. No wonder kids won’t do the work – any work. It’s just not worth it and it’s no probem becsue there are no penalties.
No penalties just means that there is nothing really good to get either.
If you don’t think that you are going to have to pay for it, you just haven’t been hit in the head with a baseball bat hard and long enough yet – by those who will not, no not ever, pay for it.
Report comment to moderator
tI’m a teacher, too. I read a fantastic book last summer entitled something like “The Quality School.” The book’s premise, to which I was resistant at first but with which I finally came to agree, was that teachers should demand quality from students instead of accepting failure. Just as a workman who did a shoddy job gets called back to correct it, so too the student who turns in a C paper gets called back to correct it. Don’t lower standards, but give your students the opportunity to — and even force them to — meet a minimum standard of quality.
I did this in my Algebra class and it worked wonders. Any paper lower than a B had to be corrected and handed back in. It was a 0 until then. And since the students were doing the work, they got full credit for it. A student could choose to correct any homework paper and receive a higher grade.
It was great. This method worked particularly well for one boy who had struggled so much in Pre-Algebra that it was recommended that he not proceed into Algebra I. I asked for him, anyway. (He didn’t fail Pre-Algebra, the teacher just didn’t think he would be capable of Algebra.) This boy was intensely strong-willed and independent. He flourished under the “quality work” system. Being given the power to improve his math grade, he took ownership of it. He would improve every homework paper until it was a 100. A 98 was not good enough. It had to be a 100. I think he also took perverse pleasure in giving me extra grading.
So that’s kind of like what the Texas schools are doing, but a key difference is this: I do recognize that some projects in life you get one shot at. Do or die. So quizzes and tests could not be corrected, except in special cases. If a student made a very bad grade, and they took the initiative to come to me and request it, they could retake the test on their time (break time or study hall), not mine. I’d average the new grade and old. I’d do this only once a semester for a student.
Report comment to moderator
How unfair to the students who get held back in their learning due to the laziness of others. How unfair to the students who do their homework the first time, and study hard so they can do well on the test the first time. Talk about unfair! If you ask for little effort, you get little effort.
My husband teaches, and his students are mostly high-risk. He can give students notes to take posted on the board, and they don’t write them down. He will tell students that they won’t be working in lab – cooking – if they don’t do their homework assignment. Inevitably, there is at least one kid who doesn’t believe him, and is shocked when he isn’t allowed to cook that day! Kids who don’t want to bother, won’t – even with mulitple chances. Kids who want to succed will try even if no one else does. That’s the way people are. If we lower our standards to the lowest common denominator, we will get very little out of our students.
And, Bianca, it isn’t the teachers wanting to get rid of grades – this whole scenario makes their jobs a TON harder than it already is. Everything is subjective now, instead of objective. If everything is arbitrary, how easy is it to teach? Also, not every parent is equipped to teach their children. I could do it if I had to, but that is not my gift. Why is utilizing the gift of another person by sending a child to school the wrong thing to do? That doesn’t mean we aren’t involved parents, but using the talents of another is a good idea. I will be doing that in a couple weeks when my son attends his first day of Kindergarten – he can’t wait!
Report comment to moderator
Fine, TL.
Report comment to moderator
Actually I’d like to say a little more, I guess. TL, do you mean that you’re not gifted to teach your children ANYTHING? Surely you’ve taught them to eat, to pray, to walk, to read a little… etc. Sure you’re not gifted for it? Just a thought.
Report comment to moderator
I suppose I have taught them some things. But I am certainly not a teacher. I am not equipped, nor do I have the heart for, teaching my children math, science, history, etc. I will reinforce what they learn, and show them fun things on those topics, but teaching is not my strong suit. I just don’t think that making parents feel like they aren’t doing their jobs is a helpful or useful argument.
Report comment to moderator
Parents teach automatically, just because they’re parents. Kids see, and think, “That’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Anyway………
As a completely OCD student, I would be very frustrated if my efforts got me just the same grade as someone who really couldn’t care less.
Report comment to moderator
My 13-year old’s take on the Dallas policy: “That’s stupid. It kinda takes the point out of school.”
Report comment to moderator
I worry about the teachers. This will create a ton more of record-keeping for them. It will also create lots more paperwork, as they must grade more than one test or paper for each student.
Report comment to moderator
I do not think that this side of heaven it is possible to be “fair.”
Report comment to moderator
In this morning’s WSJ there’s more on the Dallas proposal. The one item missing in this discussion is that Dallas is 95% minority. To the degree that minority status also correlates with poverty and the like, this at least gives a window into what the problem is. That, and that they suffer from 24% dropout rate.
Since the schools can’t wave the magic wand and make everyone middle class or with two caring parents at home, what are they to do? I’m no fan of their solution, but I am sympathetic with the size and difficulty of the problem.
I suppose, that the real proof will be in how the students perform on the various standardized tests. To the degree they do better, well, then this plan will have to be acknowledged as “counterintuitive.” Let’s hope.
Report comment to moderator
The point of school is supposed to be learning, not grades. Grades are meaningful to the extent that they reflect learning that has taken place. Unfortunately letter grades, as typically given, are a composite that represent both degree of mastery of the material and behavior (attendance, participation, meeting deadlines), as compared with the rest of the student body more than with a truly objective standard, so the focus often ends up being on the grade rather than the learning.
In elementary school we didn’t get letter grades. We received grades (excellent, satisfactory, poor, etc.) that showed how well we had mastered certain subject matter, and on behavioral attributes. As a child I didn’t like this approach, because I wanted letter grades that showed I was smarter and better than my classmates, but as a parent I appreciate this approach to see how well my son is progressing.
For elective subjects for older students, the letter grade approach is fine – they do need to have some idea how they compare with one another, because colleges and corporations do want to find the people who are best at particular things. But for mastering the basic subject matter that is considered necessary for children to learn, the approach used by elementary schools can reduce to over-emphasis on grades.
If you learn the material, whether it took you one day and one try or three weeks and ten tries, it shows you learned the material. But it could also show whether you did your best, whether you met deadlines, etc. And there are enough supplementary curriculum materials out there today that students who complete their work promptly can do additional work (while waiting for slower or lazier students to catch up) – and a report card could show some kind of “units completed” to give an indication that some students do master more material than others.
Report comment to moderator
If I were teaching in Dallas schools, I think I’d take the approach that the gas stations take. Since they’re not allowed to penalize credit card customers with higher prices, instead they reward the cash customers with lower prices.
Students who turned in work on time would receive an automatic 5 extra credit points. Students who did well on all (or maybe most) tests the first time would not have to take the final. Things like this would give incentive to the more diligent and able students to keep up their efforts while still allowing the lower performing students more opportunities to learn the material.
Report comment to moderator
College-bound students, I would assume, would be taking honors and AP courses that low performing students wouldn’t take. AP students take a standardized AP test to show they’ve mastered the material, and the schools have no authority to allow them to take and retake them. They’re only offered once per academic year, and if a student doesn’t do well, I suppose he could take them the following year, but by that time, the material wouldn’t be fresh in their minds, and they’re less likely to pass, not more. Colleges would be able to make distinctions that way.
Report comment to moderator
back to topJoin The Conversation
You need to be a registered user of WORLDmag.com's Community section to "join the conversation."
If you are not a member yet, what are you waiting for? Register / Login Now!