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2015-04-01 3:41 PM
in reply to: gsmacleod

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Master
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Loughborough, England
Subject: RE: Public School...is it really this bad?

Originally posted by gsmacleod
Originally posted by Left Brain

Originally posted by tridantri

I agree with your four points above.  I would add a 5th: Teachers are held to account on the grades of their students, therefore constantly extending deadlines makes them look better.  I would add that this is the fault of management, rather than the teachers.

Apparently my son's English teacher did not get that memo. 

Nor did I - I've had classes with very high failure rates and nobody batted an eye. Shane

 

Just the attitude of certain schools then, thankfully.  Not that I don't think we should be held to account, just not to the point where students are essentially being gifted grades so management keep of the teachers backs.



2015-04-01 3:52 PM
in reply to: gsmacleod

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Master
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Oceanside, California
Subject: RE: Public School...is it really this bad?
That doesn't become a problem when you run correlations of teachers grades with test scores.
No judgments or conversations, you just calculate and share the correlations.

2015-04-01 7:53 PM
in reply to: gsmacleod

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Subject: RE: Public School...is it really this bad?
Originally posted by gsmacleod

Originally posted by ChineseDemocracy

Have you ever heard something so ridiculous that it renders you speechless?
That was me this week.
Two things.
First, my 6th grader had a project due last Friday. He did some good hard work on it and turned it in on the due date (as did one other student in his class of almost 30 kids).
We asked him that afternoon if he turned it in. "Actually, she wasn't taking them today because everyone else except for one girl didn't turn one in."
"Really?" we responded.
So I guess they'll be docked for their projects being turned in late then, huh.
"No, actually she just moved up the due date a week. No penalty."

Sooo, what we found out is that there no longer exists a "hard" due date for projects.


The no penalty for being late has been around for quite a while now however, it is often the end result of a poorly considered policy that is based on not penalizing students for things that are not expressly covered in the curriculum documents. For example, in my Physics 11 class, one of the learning outcomes is "apply Newton's laws" but there is no outcome that says, "hand stuff in on time." So the thinking is that since handing stuff in on time isn't an outcome, if they student can demonstrate the application of Newton's laws, then they met the outcome. IME, the issue then becomes with the interpretation of the assessment policy by admin and beyond so that teachers are pressured to accept assigned work at any point. In my board, the policy clearly states that students must hand in work by the assigned due date and if they do not, they are responsible to meet with the teacher in order to consider a new due date. While there are those who accept anything at any time, in my class it gets handed in when it is due or we have met beforehand so that an extended deadline has been negotiated.

IME there are a couple of issues that lead to the "hand anything in whenever you want to" approach:

1) Parents - many are happy to have standards and consequences until they are applied to their child; then the work is too hard, the teacher is mean/bad/unqualified, expectations are too high, etc.
2) Education department/School boards - elected officials with good intentions but little educational experience outside of going to school and former teachers who may be decades removed from classroom and while often well versed on theory, may no longer have a solid grasp on how to put it into practice; as well, when contacted by parents, they hate to say no that the student deserved their 0% for not handing work in by the deadline.
3) Admin - most are looking to move up; whether from VP to principal, principal of a larger/better school or to a board/department level job and therefore toe the party line; so when the board/department calls with a parent complaint, they look to "fix" things
4) Teachers - many are too nice for their own good and feel they are helping students by constantly extending deadlines and once they been told to and/or had marks changed a few times, just stop fighting the good fight

I believe that this whole thing started with the best intentions however the end result has been the consistent lowering of standards. Instead of raising standards and demanding students live up to them, we lower them until everyone is "successful."

The good news is that there are great teachers out there who will demand more and push students to do their best but getting one of those teachers is often luck of the draw. The other upside is that good students will still learn (albeit maybe not as much as you would like) despite being in a system that doesn't consistently demand they put their best foot forward.

Shane



That's it. I'm sending a commando team into Canada to pluck you away. You will be treated well for several years, but you will love teaching my kids.
The teacher in England and So. Cal., you're being rounded up too!

Don't worry, this isn't creepy or odd...I've been planning on nabbing the This Old House guys on PBS too to fix up my house where it needs it! So you'll all have plenty of good company.


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