No, our children are all gifted and geniuses. That's why so many have straight As and the majority are on the honor roll. |
Why should grades follow a normal distribution? |
Why should they follow a sharply rightwardly skewed distribution with such a large sample size? What would Gaus have to say about the validity and reliability of such skewedness? |
Source, please? |
You're assuming that grades are a random variable. They're not. Gauss is irrelevant. I am not a teacher. But if I were teaching a class, and everybody did work that deserved an A, I would give everybody an A. And I would be happy, because everybody had learned what they were supposed to be learning. |
Thanks for the question.
Here's the 4th grade education level version: What if 30% of all students scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT exam and another 80% scored 2200 and/or above? What would you think about the SAT exam? What would you think about the students taking the SAT exam? Would you think the SAT is a useful exam? |
What do you think is the purpose of grades? Separating the sheep from the goats, or measuring what you have learned? |
What have they learned if after all the stellar high school grades they flunk the end of year math exams and professors at the next level in university say they can't write?
You raise an excellent question? |
If MCPS graduates are getting good grades but not learning what they're supposed to be learning, that's a real issue. Provide some evidence that MCPS graduates with "stellar high school grades" are systematically flunking college math and writing courses at "top flight colleges", and then we'll talk about it. But this normal distribution stuff? Nope. |
Here's the 4th grade education level version: What if 30% of all students scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT exam and another 80% scored 2200 and/or above?
What would you think about the SAT exam? What would you think about the students taking the SAT exam? Would you think the SAT is a useful exam? |
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?page=showrelease&id=3349
You don't have to leave the County for the evidence. |
Our principal had a solution to this (back in the day when she was allowed to advance kids at all, and when advancement was predicated on multiple data-based indicators) -- parents had to sign a recommendation sheet which showed the different indicators, and gave the "suggested" placement. If parents disagreed with the placement (whether they saw it as too "high" or too "low") they were allowed to choose the child's placement but they had to check the placement they preferred and sign and return the placement sheet. In this way, if they child was placed too "high" and failed, the parents understood that they were responsible for their choice. And so it should be, IMO. I think hard school gate-keeping is problematic for a number of reasons. |
College math exams, please. Not MCPS math exams. |
What if they flunk their end of year exams and then pass the AP exams at one of the highest rates of in the country? Hmmm.... |