Reply to borderline HS grade-talk to the teacher?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "borderline HS grade-talk to the teacher?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I feel you OP. My kid is just 1 point away in two different classes to a higher semester grade and without that he falls below the line for the college he’s hoping to go to. Both teachers have said no to redoing past assignments or additional assignments. And these are teachers he really loves. I respect the need to be stricter but all other teachers are opening assignments left and right for kids to get grades up. There also should be more nuance to grades vs. 79 is C and 80 is B. [/quote]

We should do away with letter grades altogether. Most countries just have numerical scores, some out of 20 (France), some out of 100 (East Asian nations).[/quote]

I would support that, but as an interim step MCPS should certainly add plus/minus to the current grading system.[/quote]

Then you'll have more people grade-grubbing to get above the next cutoff.

The solution is for gatekeepers to not take grades so seriously, and use relevant measures of readiness instead. [/quote]

100%.  Your kid graduating with a 3.7 GPA is not the end of the world.  It's ok to have a few Bs or, god forbid C's, on their transcript.[/quote]

I don't disagree, but when an 89 is a B and a 90 is an A, it feels inherently unfair. That's a 1 point difference. If it were B+ and A- it would be more reflective of the work. Better still would be to just list the percentage.[/quote]

Plus or minus would be useful, but no, it is not "1 point difference," it is a percentage point difference.  There has to be a cut-off, and if your child doesn't want to be near the cut-off, they need to apply extra effort throughout the semester.  If they are putting in 100% effort and still getting a B, the B is an accurate indicator.[/quote]

Tell it to my kid who got an 89.4 one quarter from a teacher who did not give the required 9 all task assignments, did not offer a single retake, and who had one grade that was from a group project where you couldn’t pick your group and my kid was stuck essentially doing most of the project and got marked down because his group mates didn’t do anything. And it was the specific marking period being looked at for magnet admission so the B kept him out of the opportunity. I would not say it was an accurate indicator of his work, mastery, or understanding, and I would say it had much bigger implications than it should have. [/quote]

This is the problem with not using percentages. Even for the most diligent students there is always the chance that they end up working with students who don't pull their own weight but pull everyone else down. You can say this is a good life lesson, but high school grades can literally make the difference between getting into a specific school that a child has worked towards all of high school. The snarky people on this board don't seem to grasp the long-term ramifications of this type of grade issue. Like it or not, where you go to college, in some fields, can literally change the trajectory of someone's career.[/quote]

As a teacher, where your kid ends up going to college is not something I even remotely care about.  I will do my job and I will teach and grade the curriculum fairly and if you fall short I don’t lose even a second of sleep over it. [/quote]

Of course you won't.  I'm talking about a kid who does 90% of the project and gets downgraded because the other kids in the group don't do their part. They can't control their group mates if they are just plain lazy or don't care. They can only control their work.[/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