APS Most Likely Moving to Standards-Based Grading/Grading for Equity Next School Year
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Anonymous
This is an absolute disaster for college- or work-preparedness. There are consequences for late work. There aren't re-dos for everything. You don't always get opportunities to make up for lost or incomplete work or missed deadlines. It's also bad for academic learning, particularly in subjects that you need to know certain material before learning the next level of material, like math. If you aren't doing your homework during the unit, you're missing out on reinforcement of the learning and the opportunity for your teacher to know you're not getting the concepts before the exam. It's such a waste of time to allow late homework and retaking the tests. that's just student self-paced learning with unnecessary premature test-taking and re-taking tests later when you're finally ready to do well. Also, students - especially younger ones - need specifics, not vague abstract grading criteria. Right now, they know 90 is an A and 65 is a D. With SBG, they don't know what to expect and it will take a good bit of time to figure it out and adjust. They'll also likely need to figure it out and adjust with just about every new teacher they have each year. |
Anonymous
Wholeheartedly agree. What's the incentive to work hard and do your best if you end up with the same "reward" as those who didn't bother for a while and decided to catch-up? Or what's to distinguish you from the student who needed more help to get to the same point? Employers need to know a potential employee's work habits and work productivity abilities. |
Anonymous
| WHAT IS WRONG WITH APS?! If I could do it all over again I would never have moved to this school district. I don't care about the all the fake controversies about CRT, trans issues, but this is ridiculous. Who is calling them out on this? |
Anonymous
+1. This is ridiculous. |
Anonymous
Totally expected, though. The goal here is equal outcomes, no matter what. |
Anonymous
FCPS has been doing this for years. |
Anonymous
+2. This is really concerning and I don’t understand at all how this helps kids (1) actually learn and challenge themselves, or (2) prepare to succeed in workplaces, where there aren’t do-overs and there are penalties for blowing through deadlines. Other than the book, which I haven’t read, is there respected research that supports this? Or does the book talk about research? I’m persuadable that this could be not terrible, but on first glance, it really worries me. And I honestly don’t understand how it helps kids who are struggling. It seems to me it would just further set them up to fail in the real world - where you have consequences for lateness, etc. |
Anonymous
| All these kids will be living in your basement at 22. |
Anonymous
| Some of the slides illustrate the inconsistencies in grading policies. An example showed the differences across just one subject in one school--I would be supportive of making those policies more consistent. |
Anonymous
Consistency is important, agree 100%. Race to the bottom with almost no accountability for students isn't equity, it's abdicating the responsibility to teach them, hold them accountable and prepare them for life. I don't have the time right now to watch the work session, but anyone who has can you say who is on top of this and who seems to be opposing? Need to know what message to send to what staff and SB member. |
Anonymous
There's a massive thread on the APE facebook group about this right now. |
Anonymous
| That doesn't help those who aren't there. |
Anonymous
| As a teacher in FCPS with kids in APS, I was surprised when my 9th grader started this year and none of his teachers allowed retakes or remediation. This has been standard in my FCPS HS for probably 10 years now. I am not saying it is ideal, but for my child who struggles with test taking and gets anxiety, I would welcome the opportunity for him to remediate his assessments. I also think it's interesting to think about grades in different counties and how they compare. Do colleges know about this differing policy between counties? |
Anonymous
|
Wasn't this proposed years ago?
Was it put on hold because of the pandemic? |
Anonymous
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I have mixed feelings about this. I struggled with the idea last year that my kid worked his butt off and turned all his assignments in but then teacher were told they weren't allowed to mark kids down for not turning in assignments because of the unique situation. I did not tell my kid this and he still continued to work. I don't know how grades went for everything (he got As and I know some kids got "not enough information to grade") so I guess it eventually impacted them but they didn't get a failing grade.
I don't necessarily see a problem with retakes, there are rarely times in life where you make a mistake you can't fix. I think that teaching kids to talk with someone and attempt to correct a mistake is fine. As for late penalties. I think there needs to be some cut off. A grace period is fine IMO (that is how real life works anyway). I will also note that my husband just told me a story from growing up in the 80s/90s about turning in late work and not getting penalized for it, so this isn't a new concept. |