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Baltimore to ban grades lower than 50%?

psionl0 said:
Are you kidding? That was the entire concept behind "Outcomes Based Education". Teachers were expected to assess students on various "outcomes" (not knowledge or skills) on an individual basis without letting the student know so that they would not be placed under any sort of pressure.
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That doesn't seem to equate to all forms of testing and assessment being banned though.
 
Minoosh said:
We could do that with 60, but I don't think anyone is proposing that just yet.
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80 will inspire students!!!!!


Tbh - students are being set up for more failure. The real world won't extend them a 50% head start. These students won't compete.
 
Emily's Cat said:
The real world doesn't give grades, so the entire premise isn't comparable.
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I deal with a lot of kids whose aspirational goals come down to owning their own blue-collar business, or learning a trade (health care is a popular choice). I tell them they will need some math, even if it's only because many kinds of certificate require college algebra.

A heck of a lot of the boys seem to think a low D is the sweet spot - a passing grade, a minimal amount of work. In general these are not students looking to get into a good college. They want to be cooks, dieticians, recyclers, cosmetologists, barbers, truckers, join the military etc. But for many of those choices, including owning a small business, basic algebra and geometry actually will be useful at some point. For instance, loading cars onto a trailer for transport is quite a complicated job (judging from an ex-trucker boyfriend). But, if the vehicles become self-driving even the old-standby job of truck driver may evaporate.

The truth is I don't know what these students will need, exactly. Video production will thrive, I believe, and who knew a tattoo explosion would make this such a lucrative business? Students will need to communicate and reason; mathematics is a specialized kind of reasoning. A class on critical thinking might be more useful than Algebra 2 for some. Algebra 2 was created in my state partly because students were arriving at college having done no algebra in 3-4 years. It's pretty easy to forget this stuff if you don't practice.
 
Minoosh said:
<snip>

A heck of a lot of the boys seem to think a low D is the sweet spot - a passing grade, a minimal amount of work. In general these are not students looking to get into a good college. They want to be cooks, dieticians, recyclers, cosmetologists, barbers, truckers, join the military etc. But for many of those choices, including owning a small business, basic algebra and geometry actually will be useful at some point. For instance, loading cars onto a trailer for transport is quite a complicated job (judging from an ex-trucker boyfriend). But, if the vehicles become self-driving even the old-standby job of truck driver may evaporate.

<snip>
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Can you get into the Army with a low D these days? I thought they had gotten choosier than that.

I'm pretty sure the Navy or Air Force wouldn't be an option.
 
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bytewizard said:
The students who would get grades less than 50 wouldn't understand the difference between 35 and 70, or 40 and 60.
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The stupid part is that they do know the difference and let things slide anyway. If they have a choice of goofing off this week and staying after school next week, many choose that option.
 
quadraginta said:
Can you get into the Army with a low D these days? I thought they had gotten choosier than that.

I'm pretty sure the Navy or Air Force wouldn't be an option.
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The Army recruits on campus and it seems to me like the Marines do too but I have no idea what grades they'll accept.
 
Minoosh said:
The Army recruits on campus and it seems to me like the Marines do too but I have no idea what grades they'll accept.
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Quick check on the web suggests that a high school diploma is a minimum for the Marines and a GED usually isn't good enough. And then they have their own aptitude and other tests.

I don't think someone with a low D average is going to make the cut. Certainly not very often.
 
quadraginta said:
Quick check on the web suggests that a high school diploma is a minimum for the Marines and a GED usually isn't good enough. And then they have their own aptitude and other tests.

I don't think someone with a low D average is going to make the cut. Certainly not very often.
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I concur... a low D is unlikely to pass the ASVAB. Especially since we really don't do "cannon fodder" anymore. Even ground troops nowadays need to be relatively savvy, they work with a lot of technology.
 
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