HS Teachers, I'm curious-- do this semester's grade distributions look different from prior years?
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Anonymous
Well of course (most) kids aren't going to choose to read A Separate Peace over a graphic novel on their own! That's why there are teachers to assign them books. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
explain how you came to this mathematically dubious claim |
Anonymous
That's ridiculous! If 300 words is acceptable, 300 words should be acceptable. Word count has nothing to do with quality, What trash "teaching." |
Anonymous
| A Separate Peace was one of our summer reading books before starting 9th grade. Ditto for my DS. I haven’t heard of the other book. Is it really a graphic novel? If so, that’s something kids can read on their own. That’s sad if that’s what they are reading in school as an assignment. |
Anonymous
DP, but this is absolutely true. 79.5% becomes B for first quarter. 89.5 becomes A for second quarter. B+A=A in the old MCPS grading (up til this year). This year, they still do the rounding, but now the (80+90)/2 = 85 which is solid B. The new system makes total sense. I don't think anyone will try to argue otherwise though one can quibble with some details (like maybe there should be minuses and plusses). But it's a really stressful transition for kids. They've been socialized to think the need straight As to get into a good college (even need close-to-straight-As to get into UMD from W schools) and the new system makes it harder. In the long run, if this change really does reduce the number of kids getting straight As, the bar will also go down (since kids are evaluated for college with peers in the same school). But right now, it's a big unknown so really stressful. |
Anonymous
That's the way the old grading system worked: an 89.5 was rounded up to an A, a 79.5 was rounded up to a B, and they took the higher of the two quarter grades for the semester grade. I have a kid in college now who got several such "As" during the pandemic. He's had to work very hard for his As (and some Bs) in college. But he actually developed a very strong work ethic in HS, mostly because of pressure at home. |
Anonymous
79.5 was a B and 89.5 was an A B + A = A under the old rules It was mathematically dubious, hence the new system! |
Anonymous
| From what I’ve heard, UMD and the state had to pressure MCPS to do something about their ridiculous grade inflation because UMD was admitting MCPS students with high GPAs who can barely write a paragraph and need remediation in middle school math |
Anonymous
Teacher here. I like this approach. I bumped up a few kids who were on the edge of a higher grade if they actively engaged in class (asked and answered questions consistently, etc.,) and a few who showed strong effort and a genuine interest in learning |
Anonymous
I'm curious. Can you simply assign an A even though the points don't add up? Or do you need to find some assignment with subjective grading and add points? |
Anonymous
We were fold by admin to just “make it happen” if we felt it was justified. It was easier for me to say an assessment was now an 85 instead of an 80 |
Anonymous
And private schools should be held to the same standards as public schools. Little to no handholding, 50% of the class as EML or IEP students, standardized state or local test each year, class sizes of 30. |
Anonymous
Yes, when teachers finalize grades there is a way to manually enter a grade, often referred to forcing a grade. This typically happens when students have one teacher marking period 1 and a different teacher marking period. Synergy can't automatically calculate the final grade, so teachers have to go in and manually calculate the grade to override Synergy. Teachers can use this feature to 'bump' up a student from a C to a B or B to an A. Teachers can also go in and add a point to an individual assignment, like you said and add points. Grades are about a body of evidence and determining if a student has met those standards. I always would bump a student who had an x9.1-.4 to the next grade. That comes down to missing one or two points on an assignment. This is one of the things I really hated about teaching. So many students chase points and really don't care about the learning. If a student came to me to ask me to bump their grade, I would usually ask them to tell me what they thought the most important thing they learned that marking period. If they could answer that, I would bump them up. |
Anonymous
There’s no data on whether private school kids are being held to the same standards as public school kids. They have less transparency required than public school systems and and are less likely to use standardized metrics with national testing like AP exams. |