I don’t like No Child Left Behind, never have and never will. When you put too much emphasis on test scores, you end up with teachers who teach to the test, focusing only on the information to be tested. It’s more about memorizing facts than actually learning to read, write, and think. In addition, I believe it encourages states and schools to set lower standards for their students, in order to make themselves look good. Take, for example, the Dallas Independent School District.
. . .new rules require teachers to accept late work and prevent them from penalizing students for missed deadlines. Homework grades that would drag down a student’s overall average will be thrown out.
Last school year, Dallas’ board of trustees reaffirmed a policy that prevented teachers from giving students a grade lower than a 50 in any one grading period. The reason given was that students who fall below 50 have no hope or motivation to bring up their grades and just give up.
Teachers must accept all late work, and may not dock points for being late unless the principal says it’s ok, on a case-by-case basis. Teachers may not give zeros for missing assignments, instead they are required to hound the parents, and to spend time themselves in “assisting to student to complete the work.” If a student fails an exam, the teacher must allow them to re-take the test, and give them the higher grade. And again, although this is mentioned above, I have to repeat it, just because it is so incredibly stupid- homework grades can NOT be recorded unless they will raise the student’s grade, and not lower it.
Why would Dallas think this is a good idea? The superintendent, Michael Hinojosa, says it’s to keep kids in school by helping them pass.
Dr. Hinojosa said the new rules are aimed, in part, at helping curb the district’s alarming ninth-grade failure rate. Each year, roughly 20 percent of the district’s high school freshmen fail to advance to the 10th grade. Many eventually drop out.
Dr. Hinojosa cited new research that determined ninth-graders who are flunking two or more classes in their first six weeks of high school are almost doomed to become dropouts.
But why are these students really failing two or more classes in the first six weeks of school? There must be a reason besides mean teachers who actually expect them to work? Turns out, there is a reason.
…most DISD freshmen struggling to read. In 2007, 80 percent of them scored below the 40th percentile in reading on the Iowa Test of Educational Development. Yet the promotion rate out of eighth grade for that class was 98 percent.
The school district is passing students from grade to grade, despite their inability to read. That’s the real problem- the kids can’t READ for pete’s sake! Do we teach them to read? Do we make them repeat assignments, classes, grades until they get it? No, we require the teachers to make their failure look good!
The only problem with this solution? In the end, those illiterate students with a good looking report card still have to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills in order to graduate. So essentially, they are being saved from dropping out as freshmen only to be shamed when they can’t graduate. I’m sure wasting those four years for them will help in the long run. . .somehow.
Hat tip: Henry Cate of Why Homeschool
