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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/69e8a356-393a-11ee-be2e-0cc7309dc5b8?shareToken=3a5551270297afd4971127896429e48f

Colleges in the UK are experiencing record drop-out rates ending up in students saddled with debt and no degree due to lax grading policies.

We have the same thing here in districts that adhere to open enrollment policies and 50% minimum grades.

Open enrollment is purportedly designed to prevent teacher bias from shutting out students from courses, but in fact ensures that students who aren't ready for the course will sign up for it anyway, resulting in pressure on teachers to lower standards and/or inflate grades while the student learns little or nothing. If you're worried about teacher bias , give all students automatically graded competency exams that they have to score specific grades on to enroll in specific classes.

It doesn't help disadvantaged students in the long run to just give them a pass. Everyone has to show competency at some point down the line. It's also deeply prejudicial to cast a shadow on the achievement of bright, hardworking students from disadvantaged backgrounds who absolutely belong in those courses and legitimately earned their grade to lump them in with privileged but not too bright nor studious kids who also milk these policies.

50% minima  also outrageously inflate averages and mask lack of mastery.

These policies are bad for the country on so many levels.[/quote]
Not to bring people off their talking points, but what exactly is "open enrollment?"  I'm assuming it refers to practices that allows students to enroll in advanced courses in MS/HS without meeting the prerequisites for them, or perhaps by not even having formal prerequisites?

To what degree is this being practiced?  (From personal experience up to MS in VA I have to say I haven't seen it: access to advanced Math and English, for instance, is strictly gatekept, much to the detriment of many DCUM posters who believe their child was misplaced. Is this something that starts in HS?  Which courses are open enrollment in that they don't require prerequisites?  Do they allows kid who haven't taken Algebra I to take Calculus? Or can someone take French AP without having taken French I through IV?)

Please explain what the actual problem is for those not familiar with it.[/quote]

My experience is FCPS middle school math. [b]Anyone who passes math 7 seems to skip prealgebra and enroll in algebra, whether they passed with an A and a 570 or a C and a 401. I have classes full of 8th grade algebra students who can’t solve a 2 step equation every year.[/b]

Meanwhile admin says, “Isn’t open enrollment great? It allows kids to challenge themselves!”[/quote]

Exactly. In LCPS we have this problem even in 7th grade Algebra 1, which is more common here. Parents just want their kid in the "highest math" regardless of whether or not their kid can handle it. I'm also shocked how many of them don't think down the path that now their child will need to take a math class beyond Calc1 in 12th grade. I hope you teach and grade to the curriculum PP and don't slow down/water down the class for the kids who shouldn't be there. [/quote]

This is what happens when top colleges care more about what class you’re registered for as a senior than your SAT math score. [/quote]

Your SAT math score has always just tested up to geometry--it's just not that meaningful anymore for selective colleges.  [/quote]

Yes, but now with test optional you don’t even need to learn SAT math. You just need the correct course names on your transcript. Which is why DCUMs support “equity” policies like open enrollment and 50% minimums. We all need to get our kids into a course called “Algebra I” in 8th, and we need the kids to pass. Elite colleges demand that. But so long as the kids don’t try to major in STEM, no one at the elite college will ever check if the kids actually learned any math. [/quote]

Elite colleges demand that you take AP or IB calculus and get As in it. [/quote]

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