No Work, Half Pay?

[josier]

By this logic, if I quit coming to work I could still get half of my pay? Unbelievable, I'm glad the parent's in the story actually are being the voice of reason.

New School Rule: Skip Homework Still Get Grade - Des Moines News Story - KCCI Des Moines

 

[Cyclonepride]

But if kids fail, they don't feel good about themselves. We need to make them feel good about themselves. Even when they grow up into deadbeats because we do not hold them accountable for their actions, we should still try to make those lazy ******** feel good about being lazy ********.

 

[CyclonesRule]

This is all fine and well, to think you are giving the kid confidence, but is also sends the kids the message that it's ok to not do thier work cuase the still get credit for it. For the habitual offender, and doesn't turn in any of their homework I don't like it, but for the good kid that may forget one or two assignments I can see where a 50 instead of a 0 can help the kid. However you can't have it both ways.

 

[Kyle]

That is stupid. If you want to give a kid the chance to recover from a mistake then at least have them make up the assignment.

Our education system is failing in comparison to the rest of the world due to a lack of standards and accountability, not too much of it.

 

[C.John]

We need to make them feel good about themselves.

My daughter is in second grade and her school has installed a graduated curriculum that is based upon each child's ability to learn because basically every kid should feel good about themselves. They use a different term, but that's the basis of it.

For example, in my daughter's class, some kids are only given 5 spelling words per week, the majority of them are given 10 words and a select few such as my daughter are given 10 words plus 5 challenge words.

Now to me, I view it as my daughter is a smart little cookie who needs the extra work to keep her from becoming bored, but to a 7 year, she sees her best bud only doing 5 words while she has 15, so that means she is being punished. I explained it to her, but it was hard for a child not to view it the way that she did. And that bothered me.

I'm sure an educator will tell me the virtues of this sort of teaching, but I feel that all kids in a certain grade should be taught and judged by the same work.

 

[balken]

I'm sure an educator will tell me the virtues of this sort of teaching, but I feel that all kids in a certain grade should be taught and judged by the same work.

Agreed. Worse yet, your daughter probably won't be rewarded because schools today suffer from rampant grade inflation. It seems like everyone gets As and Bs. In our district, well over half of the students made the honor roll. Ridiculous.

 

[cstrunk]

These ideas are dumb. ACCOUNTABILITY. If you only occasionally miss a few homework assignments, in most cases it won't kill your grade anyways. You may get an A- instead of that almighty A. Whoopedy-do. Ask anyony in the real world if they care. The only thing this half credit for not handing in homework is going to accomplish is allow lazy, poorly-parented kids to get credit for slacking off. Now, I'm not saying don't give the lazy kids any extra help, but if they choose not to do homework they deserve a big fat zero.

 

[balken]

if they choose not to do homework they deserve a big fat zero.

If anything, I think we should bring back the F-.

 

[CloneFan65]

I teach college mathematics, and this type of thing makes me angry. :realmad: Why not allow the students to make up the homework for half credit? About 4 years ago I had a student in a freshman level math class call up to complain about her grade in my class. She couldn't understand how she failed the course. I calmly explained that she failed every single exam including the final. Her reply was, "Yeah, but I showed up for every class." I see a lot of college freshman that believe if they just pay their money and show up they'll be given a passing grade.

And it's frustrating how underprepared students are coming out of high schools here in Arizona. And I don't really blame the students. It's the schools (and the parents). How many teenagers are self-motivated enough to take all the necessary college prep courses if they're allowed to graduate by taking a single Algebra class that they earn a C for by just showing up? Students aren't any dumber now than they were 30 years ago. We've just lowered our educational expectations as a society, and students are meeting those low expections. :no:

(I do have to give our governor Janet Napolitano credit. She is raising the standards for mathematics in the high schools. There will be 4 years of math required with a minimum of Algebra II to graduate. But that won't kick in until the class of 2016)

 

[jdoggivjc]

I teach college mathematics, and this type of thing makes me angry. :realmad: Why not allow the students to make up the homework for half credit? About 4 years ago I had a student in a freshman level math class call up to complain about her grade in my class. She couldn't understand how she failed the course. I calmly explained that she failed every single exam including the final. Her reply was, "Yeah, but I showed up for every class." I see a lot of college freshman that believe if they just pay their money and show up they'll be given a passing grade.

And it's frustrating how underprepared students are coming out of high schools here in Arizona. And I don't really blame the students. It's the schools (and the parents). How many teenagers are self-motivated enough to take all the necessary college prep courses if they're allowed to graduate by taking a single Algebra class that they earn a C for by just showing up? Students aren't any dumber now than they were 30 years ago. We've just lowered our educational expectations as a society, and students are meeting those low expections. :no:

(I do have to give our governor Janet Napolitano credit. She is raising the standards for mathematics in the high schools. There will be 4 years of math required with a minimum of Algebra II to graduate. But that won't kick in until the class of 2016)

This whole underpreparedness for college is not new phenomena. Back in 1997, my first year at ISU (and when my high school still wasn't all that bad), I ended the semester with a 1.57 (and I did all my homework, studied, showed up for class, etc). At that point I KNEW the previous 13 years of my life had not prepared me for what I would face in college. And then I hear all these horror stories about how much our education system has degraded over just the last 10 years. It really concerns me for my children when they get ready to go to college 20+ years from now. I wish we'd get away from this mentality that school is to make our children feel good about themselves and get back to school preparing children for their future.