Students Are Always Half Right In Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Public Schools officials have enacted a policy that sets 50 percent as the minimum score a student can receive for assignments, tests and other work. District spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said, the 50 percent minimum gives children a chance to catch up and a reason to keep trying. If a student gets a 20 percent in a class for the first marking period, he or she would need a 100 percent during the second marking period just to squeak through the semester. The district and teachers union issued a joint memo to ensure staff members' compliance with the policy, which was already on the books but enforced only at some schools. At this rate, it won't be long before schools institute double extra credit Mondays and Fridays to ensure students don't take three day weekends.

Comments

Or more reasonable policies

[Helios1182]

Or they could work on policies that reward significant improvement throughout the year. A rough start can be just that. Mandating that everything is at least 50%, even when a student gets a 0%, is a terrible idea.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[tekiegreg]

Really, I have no problem with a "lousy start" policy of some sort, but to guarantee 50% while other students are giving and earning 100% annoys me to no end. How about simply this, guarantee that all quizzes and tests can be made up after hours (before/after class) that were taken in the first half of the semester for a maximum score of 80% of the total points awarded (gotta at least give a small late bloomer penalty)? Higher of the 2 scores will apply. Thoughts there?

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[Helios1182]

I would argue that gym is different than academic courses, and therefore should be graded differently.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[Anonymous Coward]

And maybe you should get exactly that? Seriously? Why the hell do bright students have to waste their time sitting on their ass while morons take all the teacher's attention?

Starting from grade 8 or so, you should be able to challenge any course. If you know your stuff, then you know your stuff, and you could use your time to do something productive, like university prep, sports, or volunteering... Something that'd be much better for your life and career than wasting time with idiots.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[maglor_83]

Lisa: I _have_ to join the team or I'll get an F that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

[in the future, Lisa is being sworn in]

Man: I now pronounce you President of these United --
Reporter: Stop the inauguration! I just discovered our President Elect got an F in second grade gym class!

[crows gasps; Lisa is handcuffed]

Man: In that case I sentence you to a lifetime of horror on Monster Island. [to Lisa] Don't worry, it's just a name.

[Lisa and others are chased by fire-breathing monsters]

Lisa: He said it was just a name!
Man: What he meant is that Monster Island is actually a peninsula.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the fact that one makes a successful career in America by gaming the sociopolitical system at work, I see nothing wrong with teaching kids how to game the system. Successfully manipulating through your environment to your own advantage is one of the most important skills a kid can learn to do good in life.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[calmofthestorm]

At my school you could:-) And I did:-) And it was glorious.

Got out of algebra, sex ed, and government because I already knew how to do it all.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[calmofthestorm]

I got out of them because I was *able to pass the tests* for all of them. Fixed that for myself:/

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[Surt]

Given the fact that one makes a successful career in America by gaming the sociopolitical system at work, I see nothing wrong with teaching kids how to game the system. Successfully manipulating through your environment to your own advantage is one of the most important skills a kid can learn to do good in life.

To do well in life. To do good in life, you need the opposite set of skills.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[Kid Zero]

If you can slide by with a 50% for doing nothing, people will do exactly that.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[Loki_1929]

In my high school, there was a kid in the class that graduated the year before my class came in as freshman who only showed up to classes for quizes and tests all four years. He graduated with a B or B- average.

After he graduated and it was brought to the attention of parents and school administrators, a new rule was put in place that any student absent from a class more than a certain number of days during the year (I think it was 20 or so) for any reason could (at the discretion of the teacher) be failed.

Anyway, the point is, there are kids who'll use something like that to skate by while doing even less work. Those kids shouldn't be skipping school; they should be found out and set aside for advanced studies that can actually push them. Otherwise, we're giving up the notion that we're actually trying to teach anything and accepting that all we're looking for is some basic cookie-cutter standards for well-disciplined automotons.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[Anonymous Coward]

I got out of them because I was *able to pass the tests* for all of them

Did you pass them with your left hand, or your right?

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[xero314]

Anyway, the point is, there are kids who'll use something like that to skate by while doing even less work.

We call them "Executives."

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[D Ninja]

My HS had a BASIC programming class on a WANG.

Sounds like someone's teacher is going to be in the news fairly soon...

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[WTF Chuck]

On a good day I would half-ass pay attention in my math classes and never bothered doing homework unless it had serious potential for affecting my grades. All honors classes, all tests aced.

This 50% minimum is bull shit any way you slice it. Sure, give the kids a chance to fix-up their fuck-ups by getting with the program and doing the work, although late, but don't give them grades better than the shitty one they earned. There are no breaks like that after they get to the real world, it will only hurt them later in life if they learn to expect them.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[ebuck]

Better yet. Make the grading percentile distribution more like:

A - 100% - 81%
B - 80% - 61%
C - 60% - 41%
D - 40% - 21%
F - 20% - 0%

At least then they will have coherency between letter grade and percentile of accomplishment. With their current distribution, they have no coherency because a student that performs 50% is equal to one that performs nothing.

As far as the admitting colleges go, they will quickly draft their own plans to adjust for the new grading policy, probably relying even more so on the SAT and other measures to determine their admittance criteria. As far as the school is concerned they just doubled the number of "A" students, even if it was only done by lowering the bar for an A.

If what they were suggesting was padding everyone's score by 50 percentage points, then it would be fair (if awkward). Instead what they are suggesting is padding the worst performer's score by 50 percentage points. In statistics, this would be called "cooking the books", and I'll bet they're cooking the books for more than just "a second chance, whenever the student tries to take it". I'll bet that the new point system is presented to performance boards as equal to those school systems that let a student hit dead bottom zero.

If you want to provide a "second chance" to achieve, do what other institutions have done. Let the student take the course again, with the new grade replacing the old grade. It costs the student an elective and another four months of their life; that makes sure it won't be abused by the student body: time is precious. It maintains the current standard of the school because the course will likely be taught the same way.

What they are doing is unconscionable from a statistics point of view; basically they are taking the numbers they don't like and changing them to 50. The "average" will likewise jump (even thought no corresponding jump in work will be performed). Kudos for them on learning how to lie with statistics. Shame on them for doing it by substituting undesirable values with those more palatable.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[Korin43]

If the kid can pass the class without being in it, why are we forcing them to take it anyway?

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[Nathan Boley]

My experience (as a teacher) is that effort doubles between grades. So a D is twice as much effort to get as an F

Making the assumption that you can earn an F with 0 effort, and then following your logic...
an F is 0 effort => a D is 0 effort => a C is 0 effort => a B is 0 effort => an A is zero effort.
So you're an easy teacher. QED.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[Macgrrl]

Sitting listening to some idiot talk about something you already know is a valuable life skill that will stand you in good stead throughout your working life.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[tsa]

But why should you work hard at school if you can get by like this? I know of no school that has the time and resources to challenge students like that one. If I were him I'd be somewhere else than at school too, working on problems that interest and challenge me. Who says this kid was doing nothing while not at school?

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[The Master Control P]

Even programming needs zero math skills.

Pardon me, but... LOL WUT? Lady Ada and Messr's Babbage, Turing and Godel would like to talk to you before they beat you up and leave you for dead in a bad neighborhood.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[BitZtream]

Because he/she is smart enough to realize that grades matter exactly 0 after you get your first job anyway? Because he/she is smart enough to realize the field they intend to go into doesn't depend on having a A in math?

There are plenty of reasons not to waste your time doing something and being 'good enough'. Thats why, although I can cook, I don't bake my own bread. I'm good enough at cooking for most of my needs and I have baked bread in the past, but I specialize in other things and let someone else make far better bread that I can buy for a price less than the cost of making it myself.

But in reality, when I was in highschool, I did this exact same thing, IN honors classes. I did it because it was far more enjoyable for me to 'get by' and go half fun out side of school than it was to sit in some class listening to some teacher drone on about shit that he/she barely understands better than I do. I know its an odd concept, but kids are thinking about having fun and a social life, not their career. Well okay, the balanced kids are, there were kids who only cared about school work, had the best grades, all that stuff that makes you the most likely to be someone great. The valedictorian at my highschool went off to Yale, and returned less than a year later because she got knocked up by the first guy who looked at her. The salutatorian went to the University of Florida, only to be kicked out after the first semester because she became a total drunkard. They had absolutely flawless grades, but 0 social skills which resulted in the not lasting the first year, now last I heard they both live back in the town we grew up in, with several kids and basic, meaningless jobs. Theres more to succeeding in life than school.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[BarryJacobsen]

they should be found out and set aside for advanced studies that can actually push them.

As someone who's worked for a public school for the past year, I can definitively say that if there's one thing public schools are entirely unable to do it is detect and promote excellence. We're too busy leaving no child behind (and I assure almost all of the ones that would have been left behind WANTED to be left behind and are resentful (at least now, maybe when they grow up some they'll be thankful), and as sad as it is their parents would generally be perfectly fine with them being left behind, too). We're a society hell bent on having everyone be normal - whether that means dragging up the under performers by lowering our standards or neglecting those who would love some extra guidance - and it's absolutely shooting ourselves in the foot.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[tist]

If the kid can pass the class without being in it, why are we forcing them to take it anyway?

The idea of our education system should be to make the smartest members of society that we can. It doesn't make any sense to have them take that class, they have already mastered it. It makes sense to have them take a more advanced class and keep them learning. The policy of letting them just skip it drives those kids back the the average rather than providing for them to excel.
Obviously "No Child Left Behind" simply means "Lower the standards so everyone passes". The combination of these two policies just produces kids with ever less education.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[h4rm0ny]

I cheated - I got the girl at the next desk to do it.

Re:Or more reasonable policies

[residieu]

It could be argued that wasting time with idiots is very likely to be a signficant part of any future career, and it's important that you learn how to do that.

Good Preparation

[iamhigh]

From TFA...

"And she said one teacher she knows already worries about how awkward it will look when a student correctly answers three of 10 questions on a math quiz -- and gets a 50 percent."

That's just preparation to work in the American financial sector.

BTW, a decent idle story??? Idle still sucks and quote tag doesn't work???

Re:Good Preparation

[bsDaemon]

Well, if the student only got 3/10 correct, I wouldn't worry about them figuring out that their grade is off in any measurable way.

Re:Good Preparation

[moderatorrater]

I have a hard time figuring out how this qualifies as an idle story. This is a serious subject with potentially far reaching effects since bullshit policies like this tend to spread like wildfire by school boards who believe dumb kids can be loved into knowledge.

Is it that they want us to suffer through a comment box that inhabits 10% of the page's width? Do they not like the quote tag? Is this a power struggle between samzenpus and the other editors?

Re:Good Preparation

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't spell nochildleftbehind without "idle".

I KNEW IT!!

[Eggplant62]

I'M SURROUNDED BY ASSHOLES!!!

Yep, the Idiocracy is well on its way to becoming a reality. Let's not grade on a child's actual performance in school, let's make certain they can at least "catch up." Yep, way to go. This mollycoddle society just irks the living shit outta me.

Re:I KNEW IT!!

[Eskarel]

The idea, and whether it works or not is debatable, is to not discourage kids from trying.

In the old system, if you tank badly enough in the beginning you have to do extraordinarily well to get a passing grade.

With rare exceptions, most kids who are going to get less than a 50% on something are never going to get the grades in the second semester that will give them a passing grade.

They might be capable of improvement, and hard work may help them, but excluding certain exceptional cases(i.e. good student with something major going on in their life) which should be handled in other ways, they're not likely to get 100%.

If you're going to fail anyway, then anyone who isn't a total idiot is going to realize that putting any sort of effort in whatsoever is a big fat waste of time. There's no reward for that effort.

This system, and again, implementation may not give this result, is designed so that if a kid screws up the first half of the year, that they still have the opportunity to at least pass if they work hard and apply themselves.

50% isn't a passing grade, so it's not like they're going to skim through, all it does is reduce the depth of a failing grade so that kids can pull themselves out of it.

A good analogy would be being under 6 feet of water as opposed to 600. If you don't do something about it, you're still going to drown, but it's possible to swim to the surface.

If implemented correctly, it could ensure that certain members of your "Idiocracy" actually learn something, and maybe improve their knowledge, this is a good thing.

Of course that does't mean that this system might not be flawed(haven't read the details) or that it's implementation may not cause it to run counter to the intention, but the intention is good and has nothing to do with lowering standards or any sort of "idiocracy".

When people have no hope of improving their lives, they don't try to improve them. You can't, and probably shouldn't, improve someones life for them, but you can give them a hand up so that when they do try to improve themselves(and I mean genuinely try) that they are rewarded for it.

Re:I KNEW IT!!

[maxume]

The solution to kids falling behind is to de-emphasize social promotion, not to give them more chances to keep up.

Also, I'm pretty sure that making it harder to fail is pretty much exactly the same thing as making it easier to pass.

Re:I KNEW IT!!

[camperdave]

In the old system, if you
tank badly enough in the
beginning you have to do
extraordinarily well to get a
passing grade.

Wouldn't it make more
sense to weight the tests
and assignments so that
the early assignments
wouldn't have as big an
impact?

Re:I KNEW IT!!

[Firehed]

With rare exceptions, most kids who are going to get less than a 50% on something are never going to get the grades in the second semester that will give them a passing grade.

Most students who get less than a 50% don't deserve a passing grade. A for effort is bullshit - if you don't know the material, you shouldn't pass the class.

Maybe it'll help a few people who got a rough start. It'll also allow anyone of even moderate intelligence to coast right through every class. This mentality of doing something that helps a few while creating a massive loophole for everyone else (see: no child left behind) serves no purpose but to accelerate the growth of stupidity. It certainly wouldn't be much of a stretch to call it a government conspiracy (as an educated populace is far harder to swindle and control), especially given what else we've seen happen as a result of this administration.

As a resident of a suburb of Pittsburgh...

[east coast]

Let me warn all of you right now, if you do not live in Pennsylvania and you have any thought that it's a state that you would like to try to lead a productive life in, especially the south-western corner, please abandon those thoughts. Pennsylvania is a black hole of taxation and asshattery. Our governor isn't worthy to hold the position of a used cars salesman and the city of Pittsburgh is a financial and logistical burden for anyone who lives anywhere close to it.

Not to even get into the fact that Dan Onorato and Luke Ravenstahl are both self-serving bitches.

Great Life Lesson

[clang_jangle]

District spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said, the 50 percent minimum gives children a chance to catch up and a reason to keep trying.

Yes of course, and while we're at it, let's make it the law that everyone gets at least $50k/year, whether they actually work or not. That way we all get a "chance to catch up" and a "reason to keep trying".

Re:Great Life Lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

All I can think of is the rant Pixar inserted in to the Incredibles between the parents. Praising mediocrity and condemning truly exceptional people in the process is exactly how this country has gotten as fucked up as it is.

Brilliant minds are not needed for success! Don't worry! You can be amazing without ANY reason! Just because you were born in the USA, you have the not only the right, but the ENTITLEMENT to be rich, successful, and pampered!

There isn't a teacher alive

[Troy]

If a student gets a 20 percent in a class for the first marking period, he or she would need a 100 percent during the second marking period just to squeak through the semester.

There isn't a teacher out there who wouldn't pull the 20% kid aside and say "Look. You bombed. But, over next quarter/semester, if you do all/most of your homework and manage to get a C/B/whatever, I'll pass you."

My school district is looking at a similar policy, and I'm not happy with it. I don't mind putting a "floor" under students in freefall (especially when there are out-of-school forces in play), but its something that you do on a case-by-case basis according to the needs of the student.

If a district's teachers are not looking out for their kids this way, you have a deeper problem than a grading policy.

Re:There isn't a teacher alive

[globaljustin]

If a district's teachers are not looking out for their kids this way, you have a deeper problem than a grading policy

Yes, I think this indicates a teacher problem more than a school policy problem.

If bad teachers are the problem, then good teachers are the solution, however, so many bungled ideas about how to attract quality professionals to education have made it impossible to attract quality applicants in many, many districts across the country (here in Indiana it's worse than the national trend)

If you want quality professional teachers who know when to "pull a kid aside" and give them some targeted help to pass a class, then you have TO PAY THEM.

Why would a quality teacher leave the serenity of the university town they lived in for school and go to some backwards dysfunctional derelict school district for half the pay as they could get at a functioning district?

The only solution is to have a national teacher's minimum wage, subsidized by the Fed. Gov't if necessary (some red states would rather pardon child murderers than raise teacher salaries).

Anyone who disagrees needs to think hard about what teachers are asked to do in today's america. They are expected to do so much but paid like unionized factory workers.

$50,000 is a good starting figure. You could pay for it by ditching NCLB and all the wasteful bureaucracy that it created.

Fed, state, and local gov't wastes millions on ineffective programs that try to do systematically what a good teacher will do intuitively.

For the record, IANAT...I used to be until I realized I was carrying the burden of absent parents and ignorant policy makers.

Grading system is broken.

[arcade]

This indicates a broken grading system with a bad kludge of a hack on top.

If someone gets 5% at first half, and then majorly improves during the second half and gets 80% - and would easily be able to redo the tests of the first half and get 80% on them too at this time -- then of course the final grade should be around 80% - and the first grading should be ignored completely.

It's the actual knowledge at the end of the semester that should be graded - not the performance throughout the year. It's the knowledge one possesses at the end that is important.

Bleh.

Broken sysem with a bad hack .

Nothing new

[dunelin]

Our district has had this policy for a long time. As a teacher, it's not too much of a hassle because the whole point of education is to get the kids to learn. If it's impossible to pass the year because of what a student scored the first quarter, they'll give up for the rest of the year. With this policy, there is still hope. In our district, they get their actual scores for midyear and final exams and for the 4th quarter, so they will get killed eventually if they do nothing.

By the way, the bigger problem is with kids who do the work but don't think. I have lots of students who copy their friends' work, so they have great homework grades, but bomb tests because they have no clue what they're talking about.

Oblig

[AaxelB]

Calvin and Hobbes

I know, don't be a lazy teacher

[nick_davison]

So, the problem is the teachers can only be bothered to test twice per class... Meaning a student getting 20% on the first test has to get 100% on the second to get a 60% average.

As a radical suggestion, somewhere in the long summer vacations, after the 2pm finishes... Get off your lazy asses and come up with say ten tests throughout the course.

Now a 20% on the first test only knocks 8% off the total grade, not 40%, and is quite surmountable without needing pity grades.

I realize this is clearly advanced rocket science so take your time to fully digest the idea. I'm freely offering it for the good of ull duh stoodnts in pitsbug.

Let's try not to make their being even stupider any more acceptable. One of these kids could end up becoming president one day and the last thing we need is a moron spending eight years in the whitehouse, driving the country, its military and its economy in to the ground. Let's keep that an unthinkable impossibility people!

OK, I'll take the contrarian view...

[pongo000]

As a high school teacher, I often assign a score of 50 to anything less than a 50. Why? Because it's fundamentally unfair to offer a student with a 60 (a failing grade) a "smaller spread" to get to a 70 than a student who bombs a test with a 20 (also a failing grade). Why should one failing student have an opportunity to make up for a bad test grade, while giving another failing student no opportunity to do the same? The concept of having a 70-point spread for failing students, and a 30-point spread for passing students (on a scale of 100) is fundamentally flawed.

That said, I do assign a grade of zero to the students who simply don't bother to do the work. I would have issues with any school district that mandated that I give a grade no less than a 50, because that removes the option for me to assign a zero if I believe it's warranted. At any rate, we just need to scrap all this grading scale granularity and assign pass/fail grades: Either you have subject mastery, or you don't. No subject (not even math) is so objective as to ensure fairness for all students operating at the same level of content mastery.

This is also in the works in Texas

[Crudely_Indecent]

Much like the current economic crisis, shouldn't failure be allowed? As some banks should be failing for bad investments, some students should fail to allow them to do-over.
I blew off a year of math and I went to summer school, once. I'm not proud, but it was a motivational experience. Summer school sucks.

SMU Dean David Chard In support of DISD's new grading policy

On a more frightening note, public education now seems to be king, in California at least. Homeschooling Banned in California

Does anyone else notice that things are going downhill? And they're speeding up?

Negative Infinity

[TejWC]

There is one course that I took that made us write down not only our answers in the test, but also our certainty for our answer. The scoring was a logarithmic scale such that if you say you are 100% sure of an answer but get it wrong, you get Negative Infinity for that question and you end up failing the class. Oddly enough, this course was in CMU at Pittsburgh.

Re:Negative Infinity

[nlawalker]

I remember that class.

I said I was -100% confident of one of my first test questions and they gave me a diploma.

I would have skipped everything and passed.

[Jason Pollock]

Has anyone thought of what this actually means? Mathematically?

For example, let's say there are 5 assignments and 2 tests. The tests are worth 25% of your final mark.
The assignments are worth 10% each.

Additionally, let's go with the ABCDE scheme, and the student needs a 60% to pass with a D.

What's the minimum mathematical grade needed to pass?

First the tests: 0% on either test.

We've now got 25% on the course.

Then the assignments:

3 assignments: 0%

We've now got 40% on the course.

2 assignments: 100%

We've now got our 60%, D grade for the course.

That means even though the student received a mathematical 20% when their entire coursework is taken into account, they would receive a D.

That is definite grade inflation.

Based on my behaviour in high school, I would have most definitely gotten 100% on the first two assignments, and then skipped the rest of the term, walking out with my 60%. Would I have known the material? Definitely not. Would I have known 60% of the material? Definitely not.

Great life lesson

[MasterC]

This teaches a great life lesson and ethic. Let's see how well it carries over into the working world!

Not leaving the struggling behind is noble and all, but when the rope pulling up the strugglers is tied around the neck of the non-strugglers the nobility ends and the entire system is degraded.

If you blow off a test you damn well deserve a zero. If you don't turn in homework then you damn well deserve a zero.

If you just. can't. get. chemistry then the teacher should be willing and have latitude to help you.

Why should someone who works their ass off for a 55% be completely marginalized by someone who skipped class to get 50%?

Government intervention in the housing market has royally screwed things up. School administration intervention into teaching will royally screw things up. In both cases we lose as a whole.

Don't worry about the 100% students

[Chuck Chunder]

but to guarantee 50% while other students are giving and earning 100% annoys me to no end

It's the students that are trying hard and only getting 60% that could be hurt by this.
A 'free' 50% means their is little reward for their hard work and little incentive to continue putting in.

I can certainly see that giving students an incentives not to give up is a good idea, but it's something that needs to be done carefully.