Reply to APS Retake Policy change announced

Forum Index » VA Public Schools other than FCPS

Reply to "APS Retake Policy change announced"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Reading through the comments

1. The person who was in the committee basically confirmed that the change was because of increased teacher workload at the secondary level.  There are ways to help teachers without ending the policy.

[b]2. Also what naive policy makers thought offering after school re-takes to struggling students who got Ds/Fs was going to be the solution. Many students who are really struggling have limited language proficiency. Are they going to have an amazing comprehension epiphany from 3-4:30 pm that they didn’t have during 8-3? Or students who couldn’t study for the test because they have many work and family obligations that prevented them from prioritizing school work. Are those commitments going to melt away on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-4:30? No. Or students who have learning issues and struggle with some concepts. Are they going to magically improve with little to no remediation? No- real improvement for these students is going to come from more intentional policies than- a cheery “try again!” [/b]

3. It was always going to be students who just wanted to get the best grade possible who were going to try to bring their b to an a because they were close to an a and just wanted to get the best grade they could. Why not- that’s what the policy allowed them. I wouldn’t call this chasing As. I would call these kids who are trying their best within a system. And there are kids who don’t try the first time, but trust me, that gets old for the kid. They will make changes to get a better grade the first time or give up on a re-take.

I think aps gave up on this policy too soon. [b]They should have made changes with in admin to help teachers and really addressed student learning for more marginalized groups,[/b] while keeping the policy for students who were using it. I think the re-takes would have evened out as the year progressed and students saw the merits and pitfalls themselves. [/quote]

All ways of saying that it's the instruction that needs to change. Rather than imposing additional policies as attempted "gap measures."[/quote]

Are you basically saying "teachers just need to teach better?" Because right now teachers have so much on their plates (thanks to policies like this one) that make it so teaching well is extremely difficult. Disciplinary issues that admin won't help with, lack of ability grouping, not making kids repeat classes they do poorly on, demands for data collection, a million meetings, parent demands, professional development demands, rising class sizes, substitute shortages, etc. have made it so teachers don't have time to plan for quality teaching and that much of their time is spent trying to get kids to be quiet and stop getting up and walking around the classroom.

Education "experts" are always coming up with brilliant ideas to "serve the whole child" and make the educational experience great for kids, without considering that every additional thing they ask teachers to do is an additional thing they ask teachers to do. They don't give a crap about the needs of teachers.

Sorry to go off on this, I wanted to become a teacher my whole life but I've looked into it a lot and sadly if I wanted to teach, a teacher isn't the career for me because they have so many other demands placed on them.[/quote]

Many teachers do, yes. And "exactly!" regarding the too many policies and things on their plates! That's why I contend the retake policy was not the right answer and I don't have an issue with the change mid-year.

That's part of it. It's the instruction that needs to change and that means the teachers who currently aren't teaching well need to teach better. Many teachers are managing to be excellent teachers despite the obstacles; but many are not and possibly may be people who wouldn't be great even without the impositions. Just because someone graduated and got a job and is in a classroom doesn't mean they're great or effective in their job. I think many teachers need to be re-taught how to teach, how to facilitate learning through the curriculum throughout the quarter/year in ways that minimize the NEED to remediate and administer re-takes.

I'm not a teacher for good reason: I'd suck at it. So I have great respect and admiration for those who are good at it, and for those just willing to do it period. But that doesn't mean they all "should" be doing it. I think we all know that there simply are some bad teachers out there. Just like students, some are "A" teachers, some "B" teachers" and some who just don't cut it no matter how many retakes they get.

"Personalized learning" is a wonderful utopian ideal. It's also absolutely impossible without a 1:5 teacher:student ratio....if then. Public education needs to get back to the basics of education. It cannot substitute for, or entirely compensate for all the social ills and obstacles every student faces. Nor should it. Other organizations and services should take up the slack and allow schools to focus more on actually providing an education.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics