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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"The suggestion that a teacher deliberately designs tests hoping to give grades bellow 50% is facetious; however a math teacher that doesn't understand that a properly designed test assigns grades between 50% and 100%--the meaningful universe of grades--is showing shaky number sense. 50% is failing, 58% is failing, there are no deeper levels of failing, there's no additional information gleaned from a grade bellow 50%. How do you (as you suggest) put an upper limit on the impact of an individual test? You give more grading opportunities. But given that this will be some finite number, and there's a limit on how *high* a score can be, this still gives scores bellow 50% more oomf than scores over 50%. The median is 75%, 20% is not a meaningful grade, for the same reason that 130% (on the other side of the median) is not a meaningful grade.

The 50% rule (with the elimination of extra credit) is a way of forcing teachers to work within the bell curve of the grading system, even if they don't realize it. It doesn't reward failing students. It simply prevents a failing student from being doubly penalized by a teacher who's too busy looking at numbers to understand what grades mean.

As far as what happens in college. Curves, curves happen in college."

What would happen if instead of thinking that the "50% rule" is artificial and that writing tests where you have to make a large part of the test easy enough to produce "failing 58%s" tests/quizes were graded like classes, you know, 4, 3, 2, 1, AND ZERO?

This would give the administration what it wants and allow teachers to give no credit where no credit is earned.  Of course, coming back from a 0 on a 4 to 0 scale is much easier than coming back from a 20 on a 100 to 0 scale.[/quote]

I'd guess it wouldn't agree with the current MCPS grading standard, but there's nothing wrong with the system.  Still assigning and averaging grades on a scale of 0 to 4 is exactly equivalent to assigning grades on a scale of 50 to 100.  Simple change of variables.  [b]What's wrong with coming to terms with the fact the 50 points isn't a give away, it is in fact no credit earned[/b]--a failing grade?  The advantage of using the traditional system, is familiarity.[/quote]

Because 50 points isn't "no credit earned".  A 0 is "no credit earned".[/quote]

50% is "no credit earned," it's "see you next year," it's failing, that's the *zero* of the course grading scale.  If a student earns 50% on every assessment, they will fail the class.  So where's this freebie?  Whether talking about a course grade or an individual assignment grade, a value bellow 50% is out of range, just like a value over 100% is.

Now the grading system may be set up to allow grades under 50%, but if there are no opportunities for extra credit to counterbalance, this does make it possible that badly failing a single test can do more harm to a grade than a perfect score can do good. [/quote]

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