7 Math teachers are leaving Richard Montgomerry HS
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Anonymous
|
"Could anyone expain the 50% rule?"
I'll do you one better, I'll show you the actual language that is in the MCPS Grading and Reporting document: "Assigning a grade lower than 50 percent to a task/assessment [is prohibited]. However, if a student does no work on the task/assessment, the teacher will assign a zero. If a teacher determines the student did not attempt to meet the basic requirements of the task/assessment or the student engaged in academic dishonesty, the teacher may assign a zero" Source: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/ikara.pdf "If my child took a math test with 10 problems to solve and finished all but only got 5 correct answers, shoul$ he receive 50% for this rest?" He should, and would. |
Anonymous
No, my argument doesn't hinge on a rubric being only 5 points, my argument has to do with how points are *distributed* on the individual tasks and how that impacts the test total. This is regardless of how many points a given item is worth--I used a 5 point rubric to keep things simple, but make it 50, same issue. Sure, a C is awarded for someone who receives 70-79 percent of the total points, but this means some attention needs to be paid to what it takes to earn 70-79 points. Does that correlate with C-level work? (Yes, a student who demonstrates complete mastery on 7 of 10 equally weighted questions will receive 70 points. But is this the only way developing understanding manifests? Is this even a likely way for it to manifest?) You seem worried about grade inflation, and, yes, sometimes it's too *easy* to score 70 points. Sometimes it's too hard. It's one thing to design a test that will give someone with mastery 100 points, or close to. And, it's certainly trivial to create a test that gives someone with no knowledge 0 points. But just because those two facts are true, does not mean C level work will receive 70-79 points, because so far all you've done is set the *range* of possible test scores. It's just as possible to design a test that gives C level work 50% of the points, and in fact this is a common flaw in test design. This has everything to do with how the rubric is designed. If each question is graded such that C-level mastery is assigned half points, then the expectation would be that C-students would tend to get about 50% when the test is totaled, i.e. fail the test. If the goal is that C level work receive 70-79 points, it might be necessary to grade question such that C-level work gets 3/4 of the points at the question level. Anyway, for whatever reason math teachers seem to be more prone to this error than humanities teachers. My theory is it's a Pierian Spring issue--math teachers are comfortable with numbers, and then somehow, are less skeptical when their numbers don't pass the smell test. Also, being a math teacher says very little about knowledge of statistics, since at all levels there are deep divisions between the fields, and grading is statistics, not arithmetic. And, back to the the thread, if there's a math teacher changing positions because of proliferation of under-fifties in the grade book, I think there's a lot more to the story. Even without a fifty percent rule, grades under 50% should be rare, given 50-59% is in fact failure. Anytime the student fails the test by the teacher's standard, that's cause for full attention. There's nothing more a score lower than fifty can say. It's time for everyone to sit down and look at the actual test. |
Anonymous
Aaaaand mic drop. |
Anonymous
My issue with the 50% rule is the zeros for work that is less than 50% attempted. I’m going to use an actual example for this past school year without identifying the student. Student never completed a homework assignment. It was either not attempted at all or about 20-30% attempted. The parent was aware of this all year and took the position that homework was the student’s problem. MP 1-3 final grades were Bs and Cs. MP 4, Student blew the final project. Then the parent wanted to protest all the zeroes for quarter 4 homework. Parent wanted them all bumped up to 50% trying to eke out a C from a D. Under the old system, I could have entered the actual grades of 20, 25, 30 percent and we wouldn’t have even wasted time discussing this on the last day of school. In the end, my admin supported the D because I could document ten months of homework-related emails to the parent. |
Anonymous
So you are saying this kid was harmed because his 20% became a 0 because s/he did not attempt every problem? |
Anonymous
Well, that explanation is almost impossible to parse. I really wouldn't want to spend a year with that teacher. I think the scenario is the homework scores were 0s and 50s (including many incomplete assignments which were only bumped up to 50, because of the 50%-rule). The parent then wanted to argue that all the homework scores should be at least 50%, but admin let the 0s stand. If the missing homework had been bumped to 50s, the final homework score wouldn't have been low enough to drag the course grade down from a C to a D for the forth quarter. So top PP, did this student make progress on learning the objectives of the class? Sounds like your goal is to make homework completion as punitive as possible. I mean fine, if that's your bag, but aren't you the same PP that said the problem with the 50%-rule is it discounts what "the student is actually learning." How did this student manage to get test scores higher than their homework score, if they didn't learn something? Are you sure your homework assignments are actually valuable? Or, perhaps in the end, the student did complete the homework just to study for the test, even though it was then too late to get homework credit. What's your beef exactly? Yay, a student with B/C level understanding gets a D for the quarter, 'cause they didn't get there your way. I'll go out on a limb and say this is a student who will find college much more rewarding than HS. |
Anonymous
| if kids just do their school work, all these would be pointless. |
Anonymous
Sorry, the parents and students are the ultimate consumers of this system. MCPS is being run from our tax dollars. RMIB Diploma rate has fallen after the departure of Hoover and now other teachers. Parents, students and teachers don't need to leave the system. The administrators need to leave the system. The irony is that there will be no court case against the substandard Principal who is a bully and just wants to be there riding on the glory of the RMIB program but does not want to nurture it. He is not the only psychopath. MCPS Central office and the guardianship of the current BOE allowed such people to thrive in MCPS. |
Anonymous
How so? In the situation above, the slacker's grade was not improved by the 50%-rule. Meanwhile, there are plenty of students who turn in all homework, and yet may score bellow 50 on a test. Why should a grade be derailed by one assessment? |
Anonymous
Did you read the case brought on by Hoover against MCPS? You make it sound like it was entirely the Principal's fault that she left. It wasn't. A school district is not the same as a business. It cannot be driven by the wants of a small group of parents. It doesn't work that way, just as we as taxpayers can't always decide where our tax dollars go. The only thing we can do is vote, either with our feet or at the polls. -signed a parent in the RM cluster, one in IB, |
Anonymous
No. Education isn't a consumer good, and public school systems aren't businesses. |
Anonymous
Where can one read the case Hoover brought against MCPS? |
Anonymous
It is linked somewhere in this thread. I recommend reading. It is the summary of her appeal. |
Anonymous