Seriously, What the Fuck?
This is a USA Today article about how some schools are rounding up an F from whatever the score is to a 50% automatically. In other words, they're taking someone who signs their name to a test and hands it in blank a 50%, because if they got a 0% it could become mathematically impossible to pass the class. Well no shit. This is the kind of bullshit teaching/life-preparation that has allowed people to get to young adulthood without half a clue as to what is required to, you know, live.
Now, more than anything else, there's one part of this article that really just pisses me off.
"It's a classic mathematical dilemma: that the students have a six times greater chance of getting an F," says Douglas Reeves, founder of The Leadership and Learning Center, a Colorado-based educational think tank who has written on the topic. "The statistical tweak of saying the F is now 50 instead of zero is a tiny part of how we can have better grading practices to encourage student performance."
Seriously? Ok, so you, Mr. Douglas Reeves, obviously have no clue as to how grading is handled at an elementary school level. To get an F, you do not need to get a 0. Believe me, I know. I've gotten them. You need to get a 59%. Or a 49%, or whatever other percentile that is less than or equal to 59%. Sure there is a greater than average chance that they'll fail... ... if their teacher grades by chaos theory. Yes. That's right, if I were a teacher, labeled my steps with 0-100 in intervals of 5, then threw my kids names onto the stairs and that was their grade, sure... they'd have a better chance of failing. If, however, I work with them and they, you know, are capable of thought they have a better than average chance of passing. Why? Because people aren't governed by laws of statistics, it's not random and teachers are capable of turning the most bassackwards thinking kid into someone who can at least pass some standardized tests so s/he won't be "left behind."
I will say if my kid gets a 45% on a test, I want them to get a 45% F, not a 50% F. It was good enough for me... .... ...... yes. I am that crotchety.
-Jon