New FCPS grading policy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate this new policy. A cap of 90% would be much better. This is going to be more work for teachers as kids who gets A minuses now and call it a day will try to retest each time to get the max points. It will add stress to those kids too by trying to be perfectionist about it.

I teach at a school that already has the 100% retake policy. Some teachers have 2/3 or more of their students retaking, with the corresponding increase in grading workload. The other side effect is that between that and the 50% quarterly minimum, overall grades are much higher and mean a lot less than they used to.

How does the grade mean less if that is the grade they got? They retook a different test after remediation and with time better understood the material. That is an earned grade. Way more earned than a curve, which ALL AP classes do.

I think that's true if the retake was a one off, meaning for instance that a student who generally gets B's got a D and is retaking. One thing I've observed is that a good number of students who do systematic retakes still do worse on cumulative exams like midterms and finals. I have one recent example that stands out in my mind of a student who usually got D's and F's, then would study like crazy, do corrections, go over their last test and corrections right before the retake, and get high B's or even A-'s. Kudos for persistence and effort. The problem is that the grade on the final was an F. Final grade in the class was something like a B-. Did the student master the material at the B- level? Likely not. That matters for classes in which you expect the grade to reflect preparedness for the next level up.

I don't know in classes where retakes were allowed my kid did systematic retakes. Her teachers would try to talk her out of it but she'd point to the syllabus. In one class she could retake any grade so she always retook any grade below a 95. Her thought process was to front load grades in case something happened in Q3 or Q4 that caused her to falter. In classes where a retake was only allowed below 80 she retook an exam twice. She rarely scores below a 90, let alone below 80 (exception being AP Chem final) but she faltered in that class twice and used the policy. Had she needed to do it X times, she would have. She got a 98 on the final in that class.

And she would study her ass off because she did not want to, or like to, do retakes. She'd just do it because her grade was eh (below 95) and she could so she didn't put off studying the first time. She also scored well on her final exams so maybe she is an outlier, but I don't know. In AP Chemistry the teacher said the highest grade on the final was a C (my kid included) and instead of curving the final she gave EVERYONE a chance to retake the final if they wanted (different test) after 2 days of remediation. My daughter said only 3 kids in her class chose to. She got an A- on the retake.

This is very common. So many kid DO NOT even take advantage of retakes. The sky is not falling, people.

[Anonymous]

As long as the same grading policy exists for all FCPS HS’s, everyone can abide by the same rules.

The previous system where different departments within schools, and school by school could choose which retake method to use made no sense and was unfair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Way to prepare the kids for college or the real world.

No retakes in college. Boss might go easy have to redo something every once in a while but not often.

Of course this really sucks for the teacher as well.

Just save time and give everyone As. Kids who want to learn will, kids who don’t will wind up on the dole.

I have to agree. It will be so much work to administer the retakes.

Make the tests easier and then avoid the issue all together. Or make the tests open note and collaborative and give As to everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As long as the same grading policy exists for all FCPS HS’s, everyone can abide by the same rules.

The previous system where different departments within schools, and school by school could choose which retake method to use made no sense and was unfair.

This will still be the case. There will always be room for interpretation and teacher discretion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Way to prepare the kids for college or the real world.

No retakes in college. Boss might go easy have to redo something every once in a while but not often.

Of course this really sucks for the teacher as well.

Just save time and give everyone As. Kids who want to learn will, kids who don’t will wind up on the dole.

I have to agree. It will be so much work to administer the retakes.

Make the tests easier and then avoid the issue all together. Or make the tests open note and collaborative and give As to everyone.

This is already being done, in a way. Some classes (even AP classes) are "project based", and most of the students have A's.

[Anonymous]

I haven't read the entire thread but I am glad to see a move away from AOs of looking at weighted GPAs. It will stop unqualified kids from jumping into all the advanced classes and then demanding retakes. I am tired of the grade grubbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read the entire thread but I am glad to see a move away from AOs of looking at weighted GPAs. It will stop unqualified kids from jumping into all the advanced classes and then demanding retakes. I am tired of the grade grubbers.

No it won't, because it's now CB policy and also FCPS policy to push as many students as possible into AP classes. To do otherwise is considered "gatekeeping." It's leading to some pretty bad outcomes. The number of students taking AP classes is substantially up in a short period of time and CB appears to be moving to lower its standards.

[Anonymous]

Looks like the grading changes will only be for a year - the school board is taking charge of the grading standards. https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/Public

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the grading changes will only be for a year - the school board is taking charge of the grading standards. https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/Public

That will end well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the grading changes will only be for a year - the school board is taking charge of the grading standards. https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/Public

I don't understand why you are saying the part in bold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the grading changes will only be for a year - the school board is taking charge of the grading standards. https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/Public

They know their disastrous socioeconomic-based boundary changes will mean that thousands of currently-thriving students will be moved into schools where their education will suffer, so they need to adjust grading policies so they can hide that decline while simultaneously artificially lifting scores for bad students so they can claim that their ill-founded experiment on your kids is working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the grading changes will only be for a year - the school board is taking charge of the grading standards. https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/Public

I don’t see anything in your link that says that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid gets retakes in college. It is very professor dependent. Not a college policy.

What college? Never heard of this and I have two in college.

My daughter is at Wellesley College

That's because they need to keep their bread and butter full-pay families happy and confident in a choice that recognizes the superiority of their offspring. Brown has P/F for lots of classes. Hard to get below a B at Harvard. Etc.

No, Harvard is actually quite a challenging institution; the students are just that good: https://youtu.be/kJGupYFaCGs?si=VaLUvBSQ-ywv_U40

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the grading changes will only be for a year - the school board is taking charge of the grading standards. https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/Public

I don’t see anything in your link that says that?

It’s the third bullet.

[Anonymous]

So if attendance doesn't count, can't students just show up for tests and pass?