I came across this article in the Post Gazette entitled, "
Eyebrows raised over city school policy that sets 50% as minimum score
- 1+1=3? In city schools, it's half right."
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 district and teachers union last week issued a joint memo to ensure staff members' compliance with the policy, which was already on the books but enforced only at some schools. Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers President John Tarka said the policy is several years old.
While some districts use "F" as a failing grade, the city uses an "E." [...]
they said, the 50 percent minimum gives children a chance to catch up and a reason to keep trying. If a student gets a 20 percent in a class for the first marking period, Ms. Pugh said, he or she would need a 100 percent during the second marking period just to squeak through the semester.
"We want to create situations where students can recover and not give up," she said, adding a sense of helplessness can lead to behavior and attendance problems.
"It's not grade inflation. We're not saying, 'Give people passing grades,' " Ms. Pugh said.
But the policy strikes some teachers and parents as rewarding bad work and at odds with the district's "Excellence for All" improvement campaign.
"Clearly, some people will not be pleased with this policy," Mr. Tarka said. But he added, "We stand by that decision."
Judy Leonardi, a Stanton Heights resident and retired district home economics teacher, said she objected to the notion that a student could "walk in the door, breathe the air and get 50 percent for that."
"I don't think it sets kids up properly for college, for competition in life," she said.
To Ms. Leonardi, a 20 percent score means a student isn't trying or needs more help with the material. Automatically putting 50 percent in the grade book, she said, doesn't help the student in either case. [...]
Superintendent James Lombardo said he's in favor of implementing the idea, partly as a fairness issue. He noted that a failing grade carries far more mathematical weight than any other grade if the "E" or "F" has a range of zero to 59 percent.
"I guess I laud the Pittsburgh district for recognizing some of the foibles of our numerical system," he said, adding low percentage scores sometimes are given to students because of their attitude or work ethic, rather than their level of accomplishment.
I for one am appalled by this kind of grading. I don't understand why teachers would want to making school artificially easier, and why they're in the business of inflating the grades of students who are failing. I think it's also a disincentive for students to try harder because they'll realize that they're guaranteed a certain mark even if they don't try.
This argument that a failing grade is somehow unfair because it carries more mathematical weight than any other grade is a bit ludicrous. We can make "F" more mathematically fair if we introduce additional failing grades, lets say, G-Z. So, if a student gets a "Z", we know that they have received the ultimate failing grade, the worst of the worst. I think an F should remain as an F, because a D represents the bare minimum one needs to pass a course. That is, the student has the most minimum competency of the subject.
On top of that, I think curriculum over time has been getting easier in an effort to maximize the number of students passing or getting high grades. Bumping the minimum grade to 50% only exasperates the problem. In addition, I believe it devalues the degree/diploma that one is pursuing if it's getting easier and easier to get them. The Wikipedia has an article about the steady rise in
grade inflation over time.
I can offer a bit of anecdotal evidence. In my first year at the University of Victoria, I encountered the most fearful math course of all:
Math 122 Logic & Foundations: Basic set theory; counting; solution to recurrence relations; logic and quantifiers; properties of integers; mathematical induction; asymptotic notation; introduction to graphs and trees.
Going through high school, I easily managed get A's in math. Mathematics came very easy to me, and they were never a problem, and I could even confess that I loved math. All this changed when I encountered Math 122. I quickly discovered that everything that I had taken in mathematics had left me utterly unprepared for this course. I came across things that I had never seen in my life. The first midterm I got back was quite shocking as I received a "D". This was a very foreign grade for me, and I couldn't believe what was happening. By the end of the semester, I was barely passing the class. After the final exams were over, the instructor informed us that half the class had failed, that's correct, this class had a 50% kill rate. I barely passed, but I made it through.
A couple years later, I had to take the next level of mathematics, Math 222 which was the dreaded continuation of Logic & Foundations. When the course started, I noticed that they were teaching a lot of concepts that were already taught in Math 122. After a few weeks, it was getting odd because it was like I was doing Math 122 again. I asked the professor why we were going over this type of material, and he explained that Math 122 was deemed too difficult, so they split the curriculum up and moved a lot of material from Math 122 to Math 222. Long story short, they made that first year math course easier.
The dumbing down of courses is a scary trend because as we face more global competition, we're going to have to worry about smarter students from other countries out innovating us. In the long run, that has many consequences including us losing the edge economically and competitively.
If anyone can come to the defense of this 50% minimum grade, please chime in, I'd like to hear the reasons because apparently it's a good idea. Unfortunately, I think it's scary social engineering to make everyone feel good.
