Reply to Any hope Youngkin will bring back 0s?

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Reply to "Any hope Youngkin will bring back 0s?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not to push the blame onto parents and students, but many of these policies are a result of the urbanization of Fairfax County which brings families who are more likely to struggle academically. If FCPS was more harsh by giving 0s and actually failing students, we would have problems with too many students staying behind and likely dropping out eventually.

It is a very difficult balance to help non-academic students move through the school system while teaching them a useful foundation but without destroying their sense of learning.

This is a new era, and the days of 30 years ago where students came mostly from well-educated, white, federal government workers and everyone's finances were booming. The divide has grown immensely.[/quote]

I think these policies come from standards being set that require certain percentages of kids graduating from high school or passing standardized exams. A lower graduation rate is seen as failure so we have put in policies to get the graduation rate up. It is less expensive to set the minimum grade as a 50% then it is to offer remedial classes and accept that it is going to take time to bring some kids up to the necessary grade level. Or to offer more vo-tech programs that are better suited for a lot of kids who are not interested in college.

MS are starting to offer all classes as honors classes. Why? Because it looks better for the school to say that 90% of the population takes honors classes in MS. Never mind that there are more kids who need the regular class and not the honors class and that many of the honors classes are going to be watered down to the regular class standards because that is where most of the kids in that class are at.

Kids in FCPS are all over the place with their abilities when they start school here. A large percentage do not speak English as a first language but the ELL programs don't really meet their needs. And then we move them to the next grade even when they have not learned the material for a given year.

We don't hold kids back who are not at grade level because that is bad for their self confidence while ignoring the fact that a kid who has not learned Grade X material is not going to be ready for the next grade level material.

We are afraid of admitting that there are kids who are failing or struggling because it makes the stats look bad. We are afraid to admit it because we know it will cost money to run the classes that we need in order to fix the issue. Why not have 7 week long summer school, complete with bus pick up, for kids who are struggling. Half the day academics and half the day camp like stuff. It would provide child care for parents who are working, save them some money, and can help the kids maintain and develop new skills. We know why, it would be expensive. So lets just move the kids who are struggling to the next grade and then set the floor at a 50% for high school so that failing themis that much harder.

Policies like these are meant to paper over the larger problem. They fail the kids and society as a whole by graduating young people who are not prepared for adult life. [/quote]

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