Reply to WaPo article on new grading system

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]10:26 the change in distribution is what is key here. The target for P is 70%-80%. ES is meaningless and basically arbitrary. I and N show that a child is struggling significantly. Since the range for P is so wide, its quite useless to use to understand where your child may have strengths or weakness. Its basically pass/fail with the overwhelming majority of kids passing.

This system is terrible for kids with special needs. My DC has consistent Ps in everything. In terms of using the assessment, I basically all need to wait until he starts getting so far behind his peers that he gets an I or N. If the assessment system was more granular, I could see where he is dropping earlier and get him help in terms of studying or other techniques to learn how to overcome these issues. Special needs kids are often very smart and can compensate for their learning disorder up to a point. The key is to be able to identify that point and give them techniques to overcome it. If you wait until they start failing, its harder for them to catch them up and it creates a negative attitude toward school work.

The system is bad for academically motivated kids too. The teachers are only allowed to teach to proficiency. A child needs to do or show something random. If a child in one of our teacher's classes asked what is between 4 and 5, the teacher's response would be we are not learning that and they would be instructed to go back to what they are doing. Its unethical to have a grade that is arbitrary and that the students/parents are not informed on what they need to do to achieve it.

MCPS is just awful. I can't believe that we moved here for the schools. We really regret this choice even though we like the area in general. We're seriously considering moving.[/quote]

This is grade suppression at its finest. I sincerely hope that they ditch this asap. [/quote]

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