this is not a journal title

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.

theferret asked his readers for causes to get outraged about. My response is below.

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Cause: Education (primarily K-12, but sometimes higher ed as well)

Who to target: Your Senator and Representative

Who started the protest: The National Education Association, the highest-level union for K-12 and higher ed teachers and professors.

General: Issues are ever-revolving and to be entirely honest despite being a teacher I sometimes disagree with the official union stance. But when I check out that page every month or so, and when I feel strongly I use their tool to write to my legislators. They always include information about why they have the stance they do too, which is quite informative. Many of the issues are based upon No Child Left Behind, which unfairly punishes K-12 teachers for aspects of student performance which are out of the teacher's control, without providing the means to teachers and schools to improve student performance.

The NEA webpage can generate an email to your legislators that you can customize to your heart's content, or you can insert their suggested text. You can also write letters separately if you like, but I've gotten responses from my legislators to my emails sent via the NEA's email tool that were no less personalized than responses to my physical letters.

Details: The issue currently on the legislative action page is regarding No Child Left Behind, and under what conditions it would declare teachers "unqualified". Every year the current proposal would automatically declare that the bottom 25% of teachers were not qualified to teach - even if everyone were super excellent, this would mean that the bottom 25% who were merely excellent would be set up for being fired. And if everyone were crappy, only the bottom 25% who were super crappy would face punishment while the 75% merely crappy would get away scott-free.

It would make this decision based primarily on students' scores on standardized tests, which is not a judgment of the teacher's ability, but a judgment of (1) the socio-economic status of the district that the school is located in, and (2) how much the teacher teaches to the test. Schools in poor neighborhoods would end up continually firing teachers, and wouldn't be able to find anyone to fill those holes as the applicants would all know that they had no hope of being in the top 75%. And it would target reading, math, and science teachers, when we already have problems filling all the math and science teachers' desks.