Reply to APS and Grading for Equity

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have two Maryland high school women graduates working for me. Both are functionally illiterate.

Both women are smart but they went to poor school districts in one of the poorest counties in Maryland.

I asked the one who is a supervisor to write a recommendation letter for another employee.  The letter was embarrassing.

Both women will never move beyond low end jobs due to being illiterate. It is sad because both women are smart.  They were poorly served by the school district.

A high school degree should mean that you can write a proper sentence and be able to do basic math.[/quote]

Wow, that is damning (I believe you).  I do think there is one other part that will determine the outcome:  attitude.  You can work hard to bring yourself up to scratch or even excel at any age, but I’m worried that the new policy really emphasizes no consequences for bad attitudes, with no rewards for good attitudes and work ethics. And also promotes that everyone should feel entitled to unlimited re-do’s and no accountability… believing that their subpar performances are great.[/quote]

More manufactured “concern”.  :roll:

It encourages learning the material. It encourages more kid to try and improve. 
[/quote]

I do see that argument but I don’t think the opportunity for *unlimited* retakes encourages them to learn and improve. Even if the student plans on learning what they missed, being able to constantly put something off means it’s going to be harder to muster the motivation to do it (and in the meantime more material is being taught and the work is piling up).  That coupled with not allowing summarize assessments or homework to be graded means that you are relying on the student having a lot of internal motivation to learn the material.

DD’s teacher for math allows kids to re-do the test problems they missed for quarter credit. DD always takes advantage of that. That setup makes it so she learns the material motivates her to practice time management and organization skills. And this is a teacher who doesn’t grade homework because she thinks doing so is inequitable so she certainly is not incognizant of equity issues.  [/quote]

“Unlimited” isn’t happening. Kids don’t have the time or interest in that.

Retakes/test corrections are motivating for many kids, including yours. [/quote]

One of my main points was basically of what you’re saying: offering unlimited retakes with no penalty removes much-needed external motivation to study. I see kids who had good intentions to study but who put it off again and again because the only hard deadline is the end of the quarter, and on top of that they get behind in learning because formative assessments are basically optional. Furthermore, they lose motivation because they know that they will get some credit no matter what. And I think it’s important to note that the retake proposals Wakefield teachers were talking about are not for partial credit.

I spoke about this earlier but one of the reasons a high school diploma is more valuable than a GRE is because despite the fact that they cover the same material, graduating from high school means you had to learn important soft skills like organization and time management. I think those skills should be more explicitly taught, but they shouldn’t change things so that content knowledge is all that’s required.  [/quote]

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