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.
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?
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.
I like your grading scale suggestion. However, do you really want to have the shithead helicopter parents harass you because their crotchfruit failed an exam that had to be hard enough for "average" to mean missing every other question?
No one really considers C to be average anymore, especially in high school. Rather the helicopter parents will be pleased that their brats are getting all A's now that an A is 80% or better.
Where I come from we grade from 1.0 to 10. A 6 (usually effectively a 5.5, which gets rounded to a 6) is good enough to pass. The great thing about this system is that you know how much you are failing.
This is the inevitable result of No Child Left Behind. Schools no longer have the free authority to fail students who refuse to perform, so they need a way to give them a boost. There is strong opposition in the US to replacing poorly run monopolistic public schools with private charter schools paid with public money, so the education is not going to improve. Meanwhile, government officials think you can just throw technology at the problem (the PA governor ran his re-election campaign with his education
That grading scale only works if the material is hard enough to actually challenge most of the students. A lot of high school material is so mind-numbingly easy that many students cluster around identical scores, and attempting to normalize that will distort scores negatively and still be a useless metric.
Better yet.
Make the grading percentile distribution more like:
A - 100% - 81%
B - 80% - 61%
C - 60% - 41%
D - 40% - 21%
F - 20% - 0%
Personally, if I am to have a brain surgeon working on my brain, I would like him to know more than 81% of what he is doing, even if he made all A's in high school. Extreme example, but applies to most jobs.
Okay, a lot of the comments seem to be missing a few things. First off, 50% is still failing. Second, to achieve a passing grade, a student would need to get an 80 or better in their other semester. Most students who are failing and deserve to fail will fail, with this system; that's not changed at all. The vast majority of the time, a 30-80 point swing in a student's GPA is going to bear a very, *very* good reason, and frankly, "good student who's making it a point to coast by and is certain of their
That's the sort of grading system that many college professors use, especially in science and engineering. I tend to think that it's better, but it's also rather traumatic for students who are accustomed to getting almost everything right. Suddenly they are faced with tests where a good B student who has worked reasonably hard in the class is only expected to be able to answer 60-80% of the questions, and they feel like failures. Of course, most of them get over it.
No, the idea isn't to let failing kids pass, it is to give kids an opportunity for not trying. That is why this makes sense. Under your guidelines, kids not trying at all can still pass. Anyone who just casually tries t a test will probable get above 20%. Hell, give me a multiple choice test on a subject I have no education in at all and I could pass by your grading scale.
"What they are doing is unconscionable from a statistics point of view; " Completely irrelevant to the goal. Yes, yes, it changes the actual
Won't take long for institutions to "correct" for this:
50 -> 20
60 -> 40
70 -> 60
80 -> 80
100 -> 100
All you're hurting are those 60-80% students who are actually trying, but will now be more likely to be punished (since the assumption will be that some of their mark was freebie 50s)
Disobedience: The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.
-- Ambrose Bierce
Or more reasonable policies (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Or more reasonable policies (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re: (Score:2)
No one really considers C to be average anymore, especially in high school. Rather the helicopter parents will be pleased that their brats are getting all A's now that an A is 80% or better.
Re: (Score:2)
Where I come from we grade from 1.0 to 10. A 6 (usually effectively a 5.5, which gets rounded to a 6) is good enough to pass. The great thing about this system is that you know how much you are failing.
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Re: (Score:2)
That grading scale only works if the material is hard enough to actually challenge most of the students. A lot of high school material is so mind-numbingly easy that many students cluster around identical scores, and attempting to normalize that will distort scores negatively and still be a useless metric.
Re: (Score:1)
Better yet. Make the grading percentile distribution more like: A - 100% - 81% B - 80% - 61% C - 60% - 41% D - 40% - 21% F - 20% - 0%
Personally, if I am to have a brain surgeon working on my brain, I would like him to know more than 81% of what he is doing, even if he made all A's in high school. Extreme example, but applies to most jobs.
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grading scales are meaningless b/c any test can be constructed to get whatever grade distribution you want.
Put obvious questions in the test, and see everyone pass with >90%.
Make the questions hard by requiring detailed thought and extensive mathematical calculation by hand, and watch everyone get 50%.
Take an addition test.
You can ask
10+20=
or
13439702+907803=
They test the same concepts, but vary greatly in difficulty.
It is completely arbitrary, that's why it is so frequent to have a curve. It is just a m
Re: (Score:1)
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No, the idea isn't to let failing kids pass, it is to give kids an opportunity for not trying.
That is why this makes sense.
Under your guidelines, kids not trying at all can still pass. Anyone who just casually tries t a test will probable get above 20%.
Hell, give me a multiple choice test on a subject I have no education in at all and I could pass by your grading scale.
"What they are doing is unconscionable from a statistics point of view; "
Completely irrelevant to the goal.
Yes, yes, it changes the actual
Wonderful way to screw your C students (Score:1)
Won't take long for institutions to "correct" for this:
All you're hurting are those 60-80% students who are actually trying, but will now be more likely to be punished (since the assumption will be that some of their mark was freebie 50s)