Anonymous wrote:For those saying that their kids are receiving zeroes in FCPS.....is that class/school using a 4.0 scale? If so, they absolutely can receive a zero. The 50% rule only applies to those schools using a 100 point grading scale. It is very difficult to recover from a zero when using 100 point scale. That is a lot to overcome and will destroy any motivation to try.
Not saying this is a perfect solution but as others have said, the A students are not getting hurt by this policy and it gives the lower students a fighting chance and a reason to keep trying.
-FCPS teacher
I honestly think it helps the A student. A smart kid can do the math and decide to skip homework that will have little impact on their grade and spend the time on essays or projects that will. That's how I dealt with a packed schedules in high school and I still managed to graduate third in my class. I think there is value to teaching kids to prioritize strategically- it's a skill that they will need to learn at some point. The guaranteed 50% makes it even easier to take that approach.
Previous college professor...this is exactly what I am saying. But in spite of all the bellyaching, a lot of people like grading everything because 1. they don't find value in doing work unless it "counts and 2. Grading those assignments inflates grades. A student who bombs a test or essay can do better if every assignment counts for something. But that doesn't mean they have learned anything,
High school students are not college students. They NEED the incentive of the homework “counting”
so they will actually do it and learn. This is pretty basic behavioral psychology. Making the entire grade contingent on one high-stakes test or essay also seems sort of the opposite of good pedagogy, and rewards a certain type of learner.
Homework "counting" is an example of extrinsic motivation. We need to move toward intrinsic motivation for students.
do we? lol. how about your job move towards intrinsic motivation and stop paying you?
what we actually need to do is figure out how kids gain mastery, and do that.
Personally, I do not think that school equates to a student's "job." I think school should be about learning and trying to instill a desire to learn. But with all that said, ultimately, inflating grades with highly weighted homework and classwork assignments is not good educational practice.
You’re missing the entire point. Homework is supposed to teach. It’s not supposed to be “inflating” meaningless paperwork. And the high-stakes test at the end of the semester that counts for 80% of the grade under your system is the opposite of behaviorally shaping intrinsic learning.
Homework is supposed to teach... yes. Homework is supposed to help students gain mastery... yes. Homework is assigned... yes. But we should not expect homework to count much in the final course grade. The majority of the final grade should be summative projects, papers, assessments, etc.
DP. Well, yes, but the problem is that you're expecting high school kids to have the maturity to recognize that they need to do the homework and the discipline to sit down and do it. When it counts for almost nothing, a lot of kids just won't do it. Then, they fail to learn the material and fail the assessments. College kids are perfectly capable of handling classes where homework is simply recommended and everything rests on test performance. High schoolers need a lot more handholding and coddling. If having homework count as enough of the grade encourages kids to actually do it, and thus actually learn the material, it's better to handle things that way than it is to set a lot of kids up for failure.
Homework does count. It counts for 10% of the overall grade. If you do not think that is enough "encouragement," then how much do you think homework should be worth?
If kids are given 50% even when they don't turn the homework in, then it actually counts for 5% of the grade. 5% of the grade is not enough encouragement, and a 50% free points policy is likely to cause some kids who otherwise would have done the homework to skip it, thus learning less.
Then those students do poorly on the test and have to relearn and retake it. Natural consequence, no? And perhaps parents should discuss and take away privileges at home for poor acaademic behavior. Coddling and handholding should be in elementary and middle school, not so much in high school.
Right there is the crux of the disagreement. Many teens are unwise and have poor decision making skills. They're not ready for that much freedom.
The best resolution to this would be to ask the teachers whether the students generally learned more and did better in the old system, where they were held accountable for homework, or whether they're ultimately learning more in the new system, with minimal accountability for homework and lots of retakes.
If teens make poor decisions, then why don't the parents do something about it? If teens have missing assignments, then parents should help their children craft a plan for making up the work in addition to meting out punishments (taking away time for phone surfing or video games) until the work is sudmitted.
Or, here’s a crazy idea, how about the school be the entity to
impose consequences for not doing homework? Like say, a bad grade? Crazy I know!!!
Schools do impose a bad grade. They give students an F for missing work.
Are you following the conversation? “Equitable grading” involves giving 50% even if you don’t turn it in (or never having homework count at all).
Are you aware that 50% is an F?
No, it's not an F. Under equitable grading, the point is that even turning in no homework, the kid can get 50% on the homework portion of the grade. Thereby enabling them to minimally pass the exam (with multiple retakes) with the goal of gettin them above F, even if they never ever do any homework.
So the kid ends up getting a HS diploma with low Cs and Ds and goes on to be a contributing member of society. How does this harm you and your family? How does this harm others in society? Would you rather the kid drop out of high school?
You're only focusing on the kids who would have flunked out but instead are being given a fake HS diploma. You aren't at all considering the kids who might have been B students, but instead aren't doing their homework, aren't learning the materials, and are instead getting Cs and Ds. They could have been much more productive members of society if they had been held more accountable in high school.
Also, passing a kid with a D rather than an F is a huge problem for sequential classes. If the kid didn't learn the material in the first class, they're already being set up to fail in the second.
But he did learn the material. He passed his assessments... enough so to make up for the Fs on homework. If he had done the homework, he would've gotten Bs and Cs. Instead, he earned Cs and Ds. Whatever. Again, how does this hurt you and your family?
Because I don't want my kid to have to be in classes with slackers like that, where their deficits just grow over time, yet the school refuses to separate them out because "tracking bad - equity good."
So instead your kid is in classes with kids who just copy homework off of one another or use photomath or google. Is cheating on homework really that much better than not doing it at all?
Wow, I hope not all parents are as cynical as you
As a teacher for almost 20 years, I can say that nearly all kids cheat on HW. It’s why many don’t bother. I’d rather grade classwork so I can tell who is contributing.
An "F" is an "F" is an "F"
50% is an "F"
Do you have to insist on some kind of "Super F"?
You do not need to worry - no one is getting a decent final grade when they have 50% recorded for their work
Anonymous wrote:For those saying that their kids are receiving zeroes in FCPS.....is that class/school using a 4.0 scale? If so, they absolutely can receive a zero. The 50% rule only applies to those schools using a 100 point grading scale. It is very difficult to recover from a zero when using 100 point scale. That is a lot to overcome and will destroy any motivation to try.
Not saying this is a perfect solution but as others have said, the A students are not getting hurt by this policy and it gives the lower students a fighting chance and a reason to keep trying.
-FCPS teacher
I honestly think it helps the A student. A smart kid can do the math and decide to skip homework that will have little impact on their grade and spend the time on essays or projects that will. That's how I dealt with a packed schedules in high school and I still managed to graduate third in my class. I think there is value to teaching kids to prioritize strategically- it's a skill that they will need to learn at some point. The guaranteed 50% makes it even easier to take that approach.
Previous college professor...this is exactly what I am saying. But in spite of all the bellyaching, a lot of people like grading everything because 1. they don't find value in doing work unless it "counts and 2. Grading those assignments inflates grades. A student who bombs a test or essay can do better if every assignment counts for something. But that doesn't mean they have learned anything,
High school students are not college students. They NEED the incentive of the homework “counting”
so they will actually do it and learn. This is pretty basic behavioral psychology. Making the entire grade contingent on one high-stakes test or essay also seems sort of the opposite of good pedagogy, and rewards a certain type of learner.
Homework "counting" is an example of extrinsic motivation. We need to move toward intrinsic motivation for students.
do we? lol. how about your job move towards intrinsic motivation and stop paying you?
what we actually need to do is figure out how kids gain mastery, and do that.
Personally, I do not think that school equates to a student's "job." I think school should be about learning and trying to instill a desire to learn. But with all that said, ultimately, inflating grades with highly weighted homework and classwork assignments is not good educational practice.
You’re missing the entire point. Homework is supposed to teach. It’s not supposed to be “inflating” meaningless paperwork. And the high-stakes test at the end of the semester that counts for 80% of the grade under your system is the opposite of behaviorally shaping intrinsic learning.
Homework is supposed to teach... yes. Homework is supposed to help students gain mastery... yes. Homework is assigned... yes. But we should not expect homework to count much in the final course grade. The majority of the final grade should be summative projects, papers, assessments, etc.
DP. Well, yes, but the problem is that you're expecting high school kids to have the maturity to recognize that they need to do the homework and the discipline to sit down and do it. When it counts for almost nothing, a lot of kids just won't do it. Then, they fail to learn the material and fail the assessments. College kids are perfectly capable of handling classes where homework is simply recommended and everything rests on test performance. High schoolers need a lot more handholding and coddling. If having homework count as enough of the grade encourages kids to actually do it, and thus actually learn the material, it's better to handle things that way than it is to set a lot of kids up for failure.
Homework does count. It counts for 10% of the overall grade. If you do not think that is enough "encouragement," then how much do you think homework should be worth?
If kids are given 50% even when they don't turn the homework in, then it actually counts for 5% of the grade. 5% of the grade is not enough encouragement, and a 50% free points policy is likely to cause some kids who otherwise would have done the homework to skip it, thus learning less.
Then those students do poorly on the test and have to relearn and retake it. Natural consequence, no? And perhaps parents should discuss and take away privileges at home for poor acaademic behavior. Coddling and handholding should be in elementary and middle school, not so much in high school.
Right there is the crux of the disagreement. Many teens are unwise and have poor decision making skills. They're not ready for that much freedom.
The best resolution to this would be to ask the teachers whether the students generally learned more and did better in the old system, where they were held accountable for homework, or whether they're ultimately learning more in the new system, with minimal accountability for homework and lots of retakes.
If teens make poor decisions, then why don't the parents do something about it? If teens have missing assignments, then parents should help their children craft a plan for making up the work in addition to meting out punishments (taking away time for phone surfing or video games) until the work is sudmitted.
Or, here’s a crazy idea, how about the school be the entity to
impose consequences for not doing homework? Like say, a bad grade? Crazy I know!!!
Schools do impose a bad grade. They give students an F for missing work.
Are you following the conversation? “Equitable grading” involves giving 50% even if you don’t turn it in (or never having homework count at all).
Are you aware that 50% is an F?
No, it's not an F. Under equitable grading, the point is that even turning in no homework, the kid can get 50% on the homework portion of the grade. Thereby enabling them to minimally pass the exam (with multiple retakes) with the goal of gettin them above F, even if they never ever do any homework.
So the kid ends up getting a HS diploma with low Cs and Ds and goes on to be a contributing member of society. How does this harm you and your family? How does this harm others in society? Would you rather the kid drop out of high school?
You're only focusing on the kids who would have flunked out but instead are being given a fake HS diploma. You aren't at all considering the kids who might have been B students, but instead aren't doing their homework, aren't learning the materials, and are instead getting Cs and Ds. They could have been much more productive members of society if they had been held more accountable in high school.
Also, passing a kid with a D rather than an F is a huge problem for sequential classes. If the kid didn't learn the material in the first class, they're already being set up to fail in the second.
But he did learn the material. He passed his assessments... enough so to make up for the Fs on homework. If he had done the homework, he would've gotten Bs and Cs. Instead, he earned Cs and Ds. Whatever. Again, how does this hurt you and your family?
You're assuming that the administration is not pressuring the teacher to do whatever it takes to pass the kid, and that the assessment that was passed is not a watered down version given to the kid on his 3rd retake, where he really only learned the material specifically on the test.
If a kid is capable of actually learning the material to a C level without doing homework and by cramming at the end of the year, wouldn't the student have done much better if he felt incentivized to do the homework and thus learn the material throughout the year? I mean, a kid who can get a C on a non watered down final with no retakes after doing no homework should have been able to earn an A with modest effort.
Anonymous wrote:For those saying that their kids are receiving zeroes in FCPS.....is that class/school using a 4.0 scale? If so, they absolutely can receive a zero. The 50% rule only applies to those schools using a 100 point grading scale. It is very difficult to recover from a zero when using 100 point scale. That is a lot to overcome and will destroy any motivation to try.
Not saying this is a perfect solution but as others have said, the A students are not getting hurt by this policy and it gives the lower students a fighting chance and a reason to keep trying.
-FCPS teacher
I honestly think it helps the A student. A smart kid can do the math and decide to skip homework that will have little impact on their grade and spend the time on essays or projects that will. That's how I dealt with a packed schedules in high school and I still managed to graduate third in my class. I think there is value to teaching kids to prioritize strategically- it's a skill that they will need to learn at some point. The guaranteed 50% makes it even easier to take that approach.
Previous college professor...this is exactly what I am saying. But in spite of all the bellyaching, a lot of people like grading everything because 1. they don't find value in doing work unless it "counts and 2. Grading those assignments inflates grades. A student who bombs a test or essay can do better if every assignment counts for something. But that doesn't mean they have learned anything,
High school students are not college students. They NEED the incentive of the homework “counting”
so they will actually do it and learn. This is pretty basic behavioral psychology. Making the entire grade contingent on one high-stakes test or essay also seems sort of the opposite of good pedagogy, and rewards a certain type of learner.
Homework "counting" is an example of extrinsic motivation. We need to move toward intrinsic motivation for students.
do we? lol. how about your job move towards intrinsic motivation and stop paying you?
what we actually need to do is figure out how kids gain mastery, and do that.
Personally, I do not think that school equates to a student's "job." I think school should be about learning and trying to instill a desire to learn. But with all that said, ultimately, inflating grades with highly weighted homework and classwork assignments is not good educational practice.
You’re missing the entire point. Homework is supposed to teach. It’s not supposed to be “inflating” meaningless paperwork. And the high-stakes test at the end of the semester that counts for 80% of the grade under your system is the opposite of behaviorally shaping intrinsic learning.
Homework is supposed to teach... yes. Homework is supposed to help students gain mastery... yes. Homework is assigned... yes. But we should not expect homework to count much in the final course grade. The majority of the final grade should be summative projects, papers, assessments, etc.
DP. Well, yes, but the problem is that you're expecting high school kids to have the maturity to recognize that they need to do the homework and the discipline to sit down and do it. When it counts for almost nothing, a lot of kids just won't do it. Then, they fail to learn the material and fail the assessments. College kids are perfectly capable of handling classes where homework is simply recommended and everything rests on test performance. High schoolers need a lot more handholding and coddling. If having homework count as enough of the grade encourages kids to actually do it, and thus actually learn the material, it's better to handle things that way than it is to set a lot of kids up for failure.
Homework does count. It counts for 10% of the overall grade. If you do not think that is enough "encouragement," then how much do you think homework should be worth?
If kids are given 50% even when they don't turn the homework in, then it actually counts for 5% of the grade. 5% of the grade is not enough encouragement, and a 50% free points policy is likely to cause some kids who otherwise would have done the homework to skip it, thus learning less.
Then those students do poorly on the test and have to relearn and retake it. Natural consequence, no? And perhaps parents should discuss and take away privileges at home for poor acaademic behavior. Coddling and handholding should be in elementary and middle school, not so much in high school.
Right there is the crux of the disagreement. Many teens are unwise and have poor decision making skills. They're not ready for that much freedom.
The best resolution to this would be to ask the teachers whether the students generally learned more and did better in the old system, where they were held accountable for homework, or whether they're ultimately learning more in the new system, with minimal accountability for homework and lots of retakes.
If teens make poor decisions, then why don't the parents do something about it? If teens have missing assignments, then parents should help their children craft a plan for making up the work in addition to meting out punishments (taking away time for phone surfing or video games) until the work is sudmitted.
Or, here’s a crazy idea, how about the school be the entity to
impose consequences for not doing homework? Like say, a bad grade? Crazy I know!!!
Schools do impose a bad grade. They give students an F for missing work.
Are you following the conversation? “Equitable grading” involves giving 50% even if you don’t turn it in (or never having homework count at all).
Are you aware that 50% is an F?
No, it's not an F. Under equitable grading, the point is that even turning in no homework, the kid can get 50% on the homework portion of the grade. Thereby enabling them to minimally pass the exam (with multiple retakes) with the goal of gettin them above F, even if they never ever do any homework.
So the kid ends up getting a HS diploma with low Cs and Ds and goes on to be a contributing member of society. How does this harm you and your family? How does this harm others in society? Would you rather the kid drop out of high school?
You're only focusing on the kids who would have flunked out but instead are being given a fake HS diploma. You aren't at all considering the kids who might have been B students, but instead aren't doing their homework, aren't learning the materials, and are instead getting Cs and Ds. They could have been much more productive members of society if they had been held more accountable in high school.
Also, passing a kid with a D rather than an F is a huge problem for sequential classes. If the kid didn't learn the material in the first class, they're already being set up to fail in the second.
But he did learn the material. He passed his assessments... enough so to make up for the Fs on homework. If he had done the homework, he would've gotten Bs and Cs. Instead, he earned Cs and Ds. Whatever. Again, how does this hurt you and your family?
You're assuming that the administration is not pressuring the teacher to do whatever it takes to pass the kid, and that the assessment that was passed is not a watered down version given to the kid on his 3rd retake, where he really only learned the material specifically on the test.
If a kid is capable of actually learning the material to a C level without doing homework and by cramming at the end of the year, wouldn't the student have done much better if he felt incentivized to do the homework and thus learn the material throughout the year? I mean, a kid who can get a C on a non watered down final with no retakes after doing no homework should have been able to earn an A with modest effort.
Have any of actually had a child who was trying and failing? Let me assure you, there is no one at a school level pressuring anyone to pass my kid. You think there are three retakes of the same material in HS?
Anonymous wrote:For those saying that their kids are receiving zeroes in FCPS.....is that class/school using a 4.0 scale? If so, they absolutely can receive a zero. The 50% rule only applies to those schools using a 100 point grading scale. It is very difficult to recover from a zero when using 100 point scale. That is a lot to overcome and will destroy any motivation to try.
Not saying this is a perfect solution but as others have said, the A students are not getting hurt by this policy and it gives the lower students a fighting chance and a reason to keep trying.
-FCPS teacher
I honestly think it helps the A student. A smart kid can do the math and decide to skip homework that will have little impact on their grade and spend the time on essays or projects that will. That's how I dealt with a packed schedules in high school and I still managed to graduate third in my class. I think there is value to teaching kids to prioritize strategically- it's a skill that they will need to learn at some point. The guaranteed 50% makes it even easier to take that approach.
Previous college professor...this is exactly what I am saying. But in spite of all the bellyaching, a lot of people like grading everything because 1. they don't find value in doing work unless it "counts and 2. Grading those assignments inflates grades. A student who bombs a test or essay can do better if every assignment counts for something. But that doesn't mean they have learned anything,
High school students are not college students. They NEED the incentive of the homework “counting”
so they will actually do it and learn. This is pretty basic behavioral psychology. Making the entire grade contingent on one high-stakes test or essay also seems sort of the opposite of good pedagogy, and rewards a certain type of learner.
Homework "counting" is an example of extrinsic motivation. We need to move toward intrinsic motivation for students.
do we? lol. how about your job move towards intrinsic motivation and stop paying you?
what we actually need to do is figure out how kids gain mastery, and do that.
Personally, I do not think that school equates to a student's "job." I think school should be about learning and trying to instill a desire to learn. But with all that said, ultimately, inflating grades with highly weighted homework and classwork assignments is not good educational practice.
You’re missing the entire point. Homework is supposed to teach. It’s not supposed to be “inflating” meaningless paperwork. And the high-stakes test at the end of the semester that counts for 80% of the grade under your system is the opposite of behaviorally shaping intrinsic learning.
Homework is supposed to teach... yes. Homework is supposed to help students gain mastery... yes. Homework is assigned... yes. But we should not expect homework to count much in the final course grade. The majority of the final grade should be summative projects, papers, assessments, etc.
DP. Well, yes, but the problem is that you're expecting high school kids to have the maturity to recognize that they need to do the homework and the discipline to sit down and do it. When it counts for almost nothing, a lot of kids just won't do it. Then, they fail to learn the material and fail the assessments. College kids are perfectly capable of handling classes where homework is simply recommended and everything rests on test performance. High schoolers need a lot more handholding and coddling. If having homework count as enough of the grade encourages kids to actually do it, and thus actually learn the material, it's better to handle things that way than it is to set a lot of kids up for failure.
Homework does count. It counts for 10% of the overall grade. If you do not think that is enough "encouragement," then how much do you think homework should be worth?
If kids are given 50% even when they don't turn the homework in, then it actually counts for 5% of the grade. 5% of the grade is not enough encouragement, and a 50% free points policy is likely to cause some kids who otherwise would have done the homework to skip it, thus learning less.
Then those students do poorly on the test and have to relearn and retake it. Natural consequence, no? And perhaps parents should discuss and take away privileges at home for poor acaademic behavior. Coddling and handholding should be in elementary and middle school, not so much in high school.
Right there is the crux of the disagreement. Many teens are unwise and have poor decision making skills. They're not ready for that much freedom.
The best resolution to this would be to ask the teachers whether the students generally learned more and did better in the old system, where they were held accountable for homework, or whether they're ultimately learning more in the new system, with minimal accountability for homework and lots of retakes.
If teens make poor decisions, then why don't the parents do something about it? If teens have missing assignments, then parents should help their children craft a plan for making up the work in addition to meting out punishments (taking away time for phone surfing or video games) until the work is sudmitted.
Or, here’s a crazy idea, how about the school be the entity to
impose consequences for not doing homework? Like say, a bad grade? Crazy I know!!!
Schools do impose a bad grade. They give students an F for missing work.
Are you following the conversation? “Equitable grading” involves giving 50% even if you don’t turn it in (or never having homework count at all).
Are you aware that 50% is an F?
No, it's not an F. Under equitable grading, the point is that even turning in no homework, the kid can get 50% on the homework portion of the grade. Thereby enabling them to minimally pass the exam (with multiple retakes) with the goal of gettin them above F, even if they never ever do any homework.
So the kid ends up getting a HS diploma with low Cs and Ds and goes on to be a contributing member of society. How does this harm you and your family? How does this harm others in society? Would you rather the kid drop out of high school?
You're only focusing on the kids who would have flunked out but instead are being given a fake HS diploma. You aren't at all considering the kids who might have been B students, but instead aren't doing their homework, aren't learning the materials, and are instead getting Cs and Ds. They could have been much more productive members of society if they had been held more accountable in high school.
Also, passing a kid with a D rather than an F is a huge problem for sequential classes. If the kid didn't learn the material in the first class, they're already being set up to fail in the second.
But he did learn the material. He passed his assessments... enough so to make up for the Fs on homework. If he had done the homework, he would've gotten Bs and Cs. Instead, he earned Cs and Ds. Whatever. Again, how does this hurt you and your family?
Because I don't want my kid to have to be in classes with slackers like that, where their deficits just grow over time, yet the school refuses to separate them out because "tracking bad - equity good."
So instead your kid is in classes with kids who just copy homework off of one another or use photomath or google. Is cheating on homework really that much better than not doing it at all?
Anonymous wrote:In MCPS, the rule was (though I am dated) you had to attempt an assignment to get the 50%. If the work was not done, it was still a zero.
Now the rule is that there has to be two way communication about the missing assignment before a zero may be given. I can leave countless voicemails mails and send endless emails, but if the parent doesn’t respond to say they understand the work is missing, I have to do 50%. Rather than waste hours trying to contact parents, I send one email, record 50%, and move on. Parents almost never respond. I think three parents have replied in the last two months.
It’s absurd to me that the parents are involved at all in this determination. Communication should be with the students as homework is their responsibility.
Anonymous wrote:For those saying that their kids are receiving zeroes in FCPS.....is that class/school using a 4.0 scale? If so, they absolutely can receive a zero. The 50% rule only applies to those schools using a 100 point grading scale. It is very difficult to recover from a zero when using 100 point scale. That is a lot to overcome and will destroy any motivation to try.
Not saying this is a perfect solution but as others have said, the A students are not getting hurt by this policy and it gives the lower students a fighting chance and a reason to keep trying.
-FCPS teacher
I honestly think it helps the A student. A smart kid can do the math and decide to skip homework that will have little impact on their grade and spend the time on essays or projects that will. That's how I dealt with a packed schedules in high school and I still managed to graduate third in my class. I think there is value to teaching kids to prioritize strategically- it's a skill that they will need to learn at some point. The guaranteed 50% makes it even easier to take that approach.
Previous college professor...this is exactly what I am saying. But in spite of all the bellyaching, a lot of people like grading everything because 1. they don't find value in doing work unless it "counts and 2. Grading those assignments inflates grades. A student who bombs a test or essay can do better if every assignment counts for something. But that doesn't mean they have learned anything,
High school students are not college students. They NEED the incentive of the homework “counting”
so they will actually do it and learn. This is pretty basic behavioral psychology. Making the entire grade contingent on one high-stakes test or essay also seems sort of the opposite of good pedagogy, and rewards a certain type of learner.
Homework "counting" is an example of extrinsic motivation. We need to move toward intrinsic motivation for students.
do we? lol. how about your job move towards intrinsic motivation and stop paying you?
what we actually need to do is figure out how kids gain mastery, and do that.
Personally, I do not think that school equates to a student's "job." I think school should be about learning and trying to instill a desire to learn. But with all that said, ultimately, inflating grades with highly weighted homework and classwork assignments is not good educational practice.
You’re missing the entire point. Homework is supposed to teach. It’s not supposed to be “inflating” meaningless paperwork. And the high-stakes test at the end of the semester that counts for 80% of the grade under your system is the opposite of behaviorally shaping intrinsic learning.
Homework is supposed to teach... yes. Homework is supposed to help students gain mastery... yes. Homework is assigned... yes. But we should not expect homework to count much in the final course grade. The majority of the final grade should be summative projects, papers, assessments, etc.
DP. Well, yes, but the problem is that you're expecting high school kids to have the maturity to recognize that they need to do the homework and the discipline to sit down and do it. When it counts for almost nothing, a lot of kids just won't do it. Then, they fail to learn the material and fail the assessments. College kids are perfectly capable of handling classes where homework is simply recommended and everything rests on test performance. High schoolers need a lot more handholding and coddling. If having homework count as enough of the grade encourages kids to actually do it, and thus actually learn the material, it's better to handle things that way than it is to set a lot of kids up for failure.
Homework does count. It counts for 10% of the overall grade. If you do not think that is enough "encouragement," then how much do you think homework should be worth?
If kids are given 50% even when they don't turn the homework in, then it actually counts for 5% of the grade. 5% of the grade is not enough encouragement, and a 50% free points policy is likely to cause some kids who otherwise would have done the homework to skip it, thus learning less.
Then those students do poorly on the test and have to relearn and retake it. Natural consequence, no? And perhaps parents should discuss and take away privileges at home for poor acaademic behavior. Coddling and handholding should be in elementary and middle school, not so much in high school.
Right there is the crux of the disagreement. Many teens are unwise and have poor decision making skills. They're not ready for that much freedom.
The best resolution to this would be to ask the teachers whether the students generally learned more and did better in the old system, where they were held accountable for homework, or whether they're ultimately learning more in the new system, with minimal accountability for homework and lots of retakes.
If teens make poor decisions, then why don't the parents do something about it? If teens have missing assignments, then parents should help their children craft a plan for making up the work in addition to meting out punishments (taking away time for phone surfing or video games) until the work is sudmitted.
Or, here’s a crazy idea, how about the school be the entity to
impose consequences for not doing homework? Like say, a bad grade? Crazy I know!!!
Schools do impose a bad grade. They give students an F for missing work.
Are you following the conversation? “Equitable grading” involves giving 50% even if you don’t turn it in (or never having homework count at all).
Are you aware that 50% is an F?
No, it's not an F. Under equitable grading, the point is that even turning in no homework, the kid can get 50% on the homework portion of the grade. Thereby enabling them to minimally pass the exam (with multiple retakes) with the goal of gettin them above F, even if they never ever do any homework.
So the kid ends up getting a HS diploma with low Cs and Ds and goes on to be a contributing member of society. How does this harm you and your family? How does this harm others in society? Would you rather the kid drop out of high school?
You're only focusing on the kids who would have flunked out but instead are being given a fake HS diploma. You aren't at all considering the kids who might have been B students, but instead aren't doing their homework, aren't learning the materials, and are instead getting Cs and Ds. They could have been much more productive members of society if they had been held more accountable in high school.
Also, passing a kid with a D rather than an F is a huge problem for sequential classes. If the kid didn't learn the material in the first class, they're already being set up to fail in the second.
But he did learn the material. He passed his assessments... enough so to make up for the Fs on homework. If he had done the homework, he would've gotten Bs and Cs. Instead, he earned Cs and Ds. Whatever. Again, how does this hurt you and your family?
Because I don't want my kid to have to be in classes with slackers like that, where their deficits just grow over time, yet the school refuses to separate them out because "tracking bad - equity good."
So instead your kid is in classes with kids who just copy homework off of one another or use photomath or google. Is cheating on homework really that much better than not doing it at all?
Wow, I hope not all parents are as cynical as you
Straight A honor student here, and I always cheated on homework in HS. We’d split up assignments and then copy over answers. Didn’t have time to actually do it - we had extracurriculars and jobs. Graduated in 09 for reference.
Schools should just stop giving homework, period. That addresses the equity issue without anyone getting “free points.” Grade based on class participation, class work, and exams. Voila.
Anonymous wrote:Schools should just stop giving homework, period. That addresses the equity issue without anyone getting “free points.” Grade based on class participation, class work, and exams. Voila.
Homework provides kids with extra practice on skills that they are learning. That practice helps them to master the material.
Anonymous wrote:Schools should just stop giving homework, period. That addresses the equity issue without anyone getting “free points.” Grade based on class participation, class work, and exams. Voila.
Homework provides kids with extra practice on skills that they are learning. That practice helps them to master the material.
Exactly. I'm so disheartened about how actually learning content seems to be so difficult a concept for people to understand. The more I enter into this conversation (as my child begins MS) the more I think that tracking is really the only solution. Let those kids/parents/teachers who actually want to teach and learn the content be together. Let everyone else who is fixated on "equity grading" and "stop giving homework" be together in a different class.
Anonymous wrote:Schools should just stop giving homework, period. That addresses the equity issue without anyone getting “free points.” Grade based on class participation, class work, and exams. Voila.
Homework provides kids with extra practice on skills that they are learning. That practice helps them to master the material.
I think you are forgetting that homework is assigned in FCPS classes. It just doesn't count as much as it used to so it doesn't inflate the grade that much. Students should complete this extra practice to master the material... and then, hopefully, demonstrate their mastery on more heavily weighted assignments, projects, assessments, etc.
Anonymous wrote:Schools should just stop giving homework, period. That addresses the equity issue without anyone getting “free points.” Grade based on class participation, class work, and exams. Voila.
Homework provides kids with extra practice on skills that they are learning. That practice helps them to master the material.
Exactly. I'm so disheartened about how actually learning content seems to be so difficult a concept for people to understand. The more I enter into this conversation (as my child begins MS) the more I think that tracking is really the only solution. Let those kids/parents/teachers who actually want to teach and learn the content be together. Let everyone else who is fixated on "equity grading" and "stop giving homework" be together in a different class.
Teacher here and I agree. For some sick reason our society is devolving. We no longer value hard work, mastering content, and excellence. We are forced to dumb down everything. That why I now favor school choice.
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}