[Vision2020] Schools say whut?

[Shawn Clabough]

How different are these two students?

Student 1 scores: 100 100 100 50

Student 2 scores: 100 100 100 0




When you do the math, they come out much different that one might think at first glance.
Student 1 percentage = 87.5 (mid-high B)
Student 2 percentage = 75 (mid C)

This kind of shows that with F's getting 60% of the weight from 0-100, it is hard to recover from getting a low score every now and then - no matter how good your other scores are.  Add another 100 to each student's scores and student 1 gets an A and student 2 gets a B (using Moscow's system of no +/-).

Possible solutions:
1 - Score on a 0-5 scale - giving each grade equal weight (note: this is very similar to the Pittsburgh method and probably would have created less of a stir)
2 - Allows students a fair amount of time to turn in late work - with a fair late penalty (e.g. one grade for each week maybe).
3 - Give students optional work that could be used to replace low scores
4 - Variant of option 1, but limit the number of 0's a student can receive before significant penalty (e.g. must retake)
5 - others I can't think of. 


Shawn




From: Glenn Schwaller 
Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 5:16 PM
To: vision2020 
Subject: [Vision2020] Schools say whut?


“PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pittsburgh Public Schools students get an "A" for 90 percent or above, a "B" for 80 percent to 89 percent, and so on. They get a failing grade of "E" for work from 59 percent to 50 percent.

The administrators say giving a failing grade for scores from zero to 59 percent gives the failing grade too much weight. As such, students who make an honest effort but fail — even if they get everything wrong — will still receive the 50 percent minimum score.

School officials are now retracting the grading policy saying that students will now receive zero percent on assignments they don't do instead of the former minimum failing score of 50 percent.

School officials are making the change because critics say some students skipped assignments content that they'd still receive a 50 percent score”

Hmmmmmmm . . .  so what exactly does “doing an assignment” mean?  At what point will students not get a zero yet still put forth a minimal amount of effort?

Sad, sad, sad.

GS

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