Failing grades

[asterroc]

In case you haven't heard,

Pittsburgh Public Schools officials say they want to give struggling children a chance, but the district is raising eyebrows with a policy that sets 50 percent as the minimum score a student can receive for assignments, tests and other work.
...
"The 'E' [failing grade] is to be recorded no lower than a 50 percent, regardless of the actual percent earned. For example, if the student earns a 20 percent on a class assignment, the grade is recorded as a 50 percent," said the memo from Jerri Lippert, the district's executive director of curriculum, instruction and professional development, and Mary VanHorn, a PFT vice president.

--Joe Smydo, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It is my understanding from this, that they should not be recording percentages at all, and instead should be transitioning entirely to letter grades or a GPA system. The two systems are not really compatible (despite what all US colleges and universities try to convince us) since they use different scales and ways of averaging.

So in the end I do not see this change as administrators requiring grade inflation. I see it as administrators who do not understanding math/statistics trying (and failing) to come up with a grading system that allows for student improvement.

Comments

[best-ken-ever.livejournal.com]

My dad teaches biology at a high school in central NJ and the school has had a similar policy in effect for at least the last eight years. The idea is, students can't get less than a 50% unless there is some evidence of cheating or plagiarizing.

I've always thought it a dumb system, but I am surprised every year by students who continually fail (sometimes more than one year in a row!), despite all of the extra chances they're given by this grading system. From poring over my dad's gradebooks, I don't really see it affecting the students that much. The ones who fail still fail, and the ones who actually try a little bit end up learning and doing, at minimum, a passable job.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Well, that depends on what you mean by "passable." They can pass their high school classes. They can even pass the Math MCAS (standardized math test that all students in my state must pass to graduate from high school). And yet 90% of the students who come to my college do NOT pass their math entrance exam and have to take at least one developmental (pre-college level) math class.

It's a puzzle to me what to do about this though.