50% rule question - do different schools interpret it different?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are the far-right astroturfers so obsessed with the 50% rule? They seem to bring it up every couple of months. I'm okay with it.

You are really dense.

The whole reason the rule exists is because progressives saw too many brown kids failing out and not being able to pass. Rather than do the common sense thing of holding them to a high standard and offering them more help to reach the bar, they went with bigotry of low expectations and lowered the bar for them. Yay! Our numbers show more minority kids passing now! Yet the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If kids know they can get automatic 50% grades for doing zero work except fir basically putting their name on an assignment and turning it in weeks late, it incentivizes them to jerkoff during school hours and roam the hallways doing whatever they want. They can skip school and have many days of truancy with basically no consequences. Parents know that if they take even less active interest in their kids’ education that teachers cannot give zeros if the parents don’t respond. You can fane the entire system so that you can do virtually zero work during the semester and still pass due to the rule. In the end you just keep pushing through a bunch of loser kids who can only read, write, and do math at the second grade level by the time they’re in high school. The rule also contributes to the extreme problem with discipline rampant in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are our (MS) grading rules moving forward:

A student’s final marking period grade will continue to be based on graded assessments (90% of a student’s final grade) and practice and/or homework assignments (10% of a student’s final grade.)

All teachers will aim for roughly one graded assignment per week for a total of 9-12 graded assignments each marking period.

Teachers using the Practice/Preparation grading category will assign a total of 4-9 practice assignments per marking period.

A score of “Z” in gradebook indicates an assignment which is missing but can still be made up. A score of 0 (zero) indicates a student did not attempt the assignment and can no longer submit that assignment.

A deadline will be set for 7 days after an assignment due date. If the assignment has not been turned in by that deadline, the teacher may assign a 0 (zero) as the grade.

Teachers will mark assignments that may be reassessed with an R in gradebook. Students will be given an opportunity to reassess no more than 3 assignments in any class over the course of a marking period.

If an assignment is missing, how can it be made up? Not in on time? Zero.

Fail them all.

Where in the real world would a boss ever tolerate handing in your required work 3 weeks late?

These kids and parents need a friggin dose of reality. Their kids are losers, they will grow up to be losers, and their parents are scum.

School isn't work. The end goal is mastery of the material, not punishing the failures.

Fail.

Part of being educated means learning to meet deadlines. It means performing with accuracy and with consistency. 50% automatic grades for doing nothing except writing your name on something and handing it in whenever is pathetic dumbing brown of America.


Please do not ever think about having a kid or being a parent.

Nice try. That part's on parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I send out grade reports about a week before the term ends. I find that works well in getting work turned in. I leave missing assessments as 0 to make sure they are noticed. Later I change the 0’s to 50’s.

I don’t want a flood of late work a week before the marking period ends. My coursework is mainly papers and projects. It’s a lot to wade through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are the far-right astroturfers so obsessed with the 50% rule? They seem to bring it up every couple of months. I'm okay with it.

It does seem to really be a thing with them. Not sure what their angle is here. I mean dumbing down the country is kind of their jam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a high school teacher at Wheaton. We are not allowed to give anything below a 50% in the All Task Category (90% of the grade). If the student “tries” (basically puts their name on it), we have to give at least a 55%.

For the Practice Prep Category (10% of the grade), we are allowed to give 0% for assignments not turned in by the due date. Some teachers still give 50%. IMO, PP is worth so little of the grade, a 0% does nothing. I don’t give 50% for PP because I feel like it’s the only piece of accountability the teacher still has left. I also refuse to grade tons of late PP at the end of the quarter. It literally stands for “Practice.” If the kids are not practicing on time, what good does it do to turn it in last minute?

Someone at Wheaton HS told me that you get 55% rather than 50% for missing work. Is that true

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 50% rule officially reads: The following grading practices are prohibited: Assigning a grade lower than 50 percent to a task/assessment. 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.

I have taught at schools where we could never give below a 50%. Others that say that we can give a zero if we had two way communication with the parents about a missing assignment.


https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/ikara.pdf

What is written above is the official BOE policy. A few years back, Central Office staff decided that parents should be contacted if a student is to receive a zero. That is when the rule of two way communication was started. However, this was not an official MCPS policy as dictated by the BOE. It was a "rule" decided upon by the Central Office staff who cannot actually make policy without the BOE's consent. As a result, different schools and even departments within a school have different procedures in place.


I do wonder -- is there a difference in passing rates, student engagement, student achievement, etc between schools giving zeros and schools with the mandatory 50%?

Can I ask a very basic question? I don’t recall any teachers contacting my parents about any assignments ever. Yes this was 30 years ago and in my case I am sure I turned in all assignments on time. But why do teachers need to involve parents in two-way communication? Can’t they just speak directly to the students? It’s much more efficient to stay on top of grading, and post in the portal if parents are interested in knowing. If the students are chronically absent, then obviously the school should be in touch to determine root causes/barriers. But why on earth would a teacher need to notify parents about every missing assignment? That’s so much extra paperwork.

Yup. You are correct. My school administrators want us to spend all our time on kids who are failing + EML kids. They don’t care about bright kids who are doing well. We have very little planning or grading time because they want us to call parents of kids who are chronically absent and other kids with major issues

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the far-right astroturfers so obsessed with the 50% rule? They seem to bring it up every couple of months. I'm okay with it.

You are really dense.

The whole reason the rule exists is because progressives saw too many brown kids failing out and not being able to pass. Rather than do the common sense thing of holding them to a high standard and offering them more help to reach the bar, they went with bigotry of low expectations and lowered the bar for them. Yay! Our numbers show more minority kids passing now! Yet the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If kids know they can get automatic 50% grades for doing zero work except fir basically putting their name on an assignment and turning it in weeks late, it incentivizes them to jerkoff during school hours and roam the hallways doing whatever they want. They can skip school and have many days of truancy with basically no consequences. Parents know that if they take even less active interest in their kids’ education that teachers cannot give zeros if the parents don’t respond. You can fane the entire system so that you can do virtually zero work during the semester and still pass due to the rule. In the end you just keep pushing through a bunch of loser kids who can only read, write, and do math at the second grade level by the time they’re in high school. The rule also contributes to the extreme problem with discipline rampant in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our teachers do give lower than 50% so if you get an assignment wrong you are better off not doing it but we have not seen 50%, just 0 or low scores. They are not allowed to make up tests or quizzes, just a limited number of some assignments. Its not consistent.

This is literally against mcps policy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our teachers do give lower than 50% so if you get an assignment wrong you are better off not doing it but we have not seen 50%, just 0 or low scores. They are not allowed to make up tests or quizzes, just a limited number of some assignments. Its not consistent.

This is literally against mcps policy

Given that MCPS policy is dumb and stupid, it should be actively ignored

[Anonymous]

Maybe the question should be WHY do different schools interpret it differently?

Could it be one of the following, or maybe something else?

* New principal's might be afraid to differ from community superintendent view of policy, while older principal's may be setting standard for their school?

* Some schools may have more students failing and therefore something needs to be done to raise the graduation rate, and this is what they are doing?

* Some principal's and / or community superintendents are looking for promotions, so they need to raise their metrics right away, and this is what they see as the answer?

* Some teachers, faced with tens of phone calls in a week, thought it was more important to get ready for tomorrow's class than to make all those calls.

* Some teachers, faced with the fact that some parents are not answering calls or emails (therefore no two way communication and no zero) feel this is unfair to students who do answer the phone (and therefore have two way communication and can get a zero). Keep in mind, some parents are working incredibly long hours and may not have access to the phone.

* Some people may not believe that the student is able to learn the material, so out of pity or empathy, feel this is the only way around unfair standards.


I am not saying all the above statements are accurate, I am just putting some out there. The bottom line, is this rule helping our students overall? Is it something that is better applied to some subjects but not others? What are the long term consequences for the student?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our teachers do give lower than 50% so if you get an assignment wrong you are better off not doing it but we have not seen 50%, just 0 or low scores. They are not allowed to make up tests or quizzes, just a limited number of some assignments. Its not consistent.

This is literally against mcps policy

Given that MCPS policy is dumb and stupid, it should be actively ignored

Teachers ignore policy all the time. In fact, the policy is more of a gentle guideline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 50% rule officially reads: The following grading practices are prohibited: Assigning a grade lower than 50 percent to a task/assessment. 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.

I have taught at schools where we could never give below a 50%. Others that say that we can give a zero if we had two way communication with the parents about a missing assignment.


https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/policy/pdf/ikara.pdf

What is written above is the official BOE policy. A few years back, Central Office staff decided that parents should be contacted if a student is to receive a zero. That is when the rule of two way communication was started. However, this was not an official MCPS policy as dictated by the BOE. It was a "rule" decided upon by the Central Office staff who cannot actually make policy without the BOE's consent. As a result, different schools and even departments within a school have different procedures in place.


I do wonder -- is there a difference in passing rates, student engagement, student achievement, etc between schools giving zeros and schools with the mandatory 50%?

Can I ask a very basic question? I don’t recall any teachers contacting my parents about any assignments ever. Yes this was 30 years ago and in my case I am sure I turned in all assignments on time. But why do teachers need to involve parents in two-way communication? Can’t they just speak directly to the students? It’s much more efficient to stay on top of grading, and post in the portal if parents are interested in knowing. If the students are chronically absent, then obviously the school should be in touch to determine root causes/barriers. But why on earth would a teacher need to notify parents about every missing assignment? That’s so much extra paperwork.

Yup. You are correct. My school administrators want us to spend all our time on kids who are failing + EML kids. They don’t care about bright kids who are doing well. We have very little planning or grading time because they want us to call parents of kids who are chronically absent and other kids with major issues

I'm hoping there's a point where the education community begins to realize this is a fool's errand. Some people just don't value education and you can't make them. You have to meet kids where they are and respect their values even when they differ from yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the far-right astroturfers so obsessed with the 50% rule? They seem to bring it up every couple of months. I'm okay with it.

You are really dense.

The whole reason the rule exists is because progressives saw too many brown kids failing out and not being able to pass. Rather than do the common sense thing of holding them to a high standard and offering them more help to reach the bar, they went with bigotry of low expectations and lowered the bar for them. Yay! Our numbers show more minority kids passing now! Yet the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If kids know they can get automatic 50% grades for doing zero work except fir basically putting their name on an assignment and turning it in weeks late, it incentivizes them to jerkoff during school hours and roam the hallways doing whatever they want. They can skip school and have many days of truancy with basically no consequences. Parents know that if they take even less active interest in their kids’ education that teachers cannot give zeros if the parents don’t respond. You can fane the entire system so that you can do virtually zero work during the semester and still pass due to the rule. In the end you just keep pushing through a bunch of loser kids who can only read, write, and do math at the second grade level by the time they’re in high school. The rule also contributes to the extreme problem with discipline rampant in MCPS.

If parents want their kids to do well in school, they need to stand up and actively track their kids schoolwork. Think of the 50% rule as a grace period for you to get involved and improve your kid's grades. Without it, a half year of zeros is going to be a D no matter what you do.

[Anonymous]

I assume most of the kids relying on the 50%s to graduate would have otherwise dropped out. Maybe it is better for them to still be engaged even if just a bit? One of my kids benefited once or twice for a 50% after ??? not undertanding or not reading the directions. Another probably never saw one. These threads make it seem like it is a typical path to graduation.

[Anonymous]

I don't think any serious person is concerned about the 50% rule. People need to get a life.