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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Also, I asked 1 of the top students at Madison for thoughts on SBG: student said “I think it allows kids to slack off.” I asked a student in the middle for thoughts: “I love it. It allows me to relax and slack off. Every time I see that P and realize it doesn’t count, I just relax because I’m not going to do it.”

From a teacher after some students refused to work: I can’t make them do anything[/quote]
It seems very logical to me why Madison was chosen as a good candidate for this experiment. Sports is very important to a large portion of students in the school and SBG allows them to focus more of their time there without being penalized for not turning in academic work. One might argue that those students will do badly on tests if they don't put in the effort on the assignments. However, if the curriculum is sufficiently watered down, those students will not necessarily need to do much work to get good grades. Students are happier to have time for their sports, more students who were previously failing get a chance to boost their grades, and the school system can show higher grade achievement across the board.

A significant portion of kids will now be conditioned to not do assigned work and to further believe they have learned a lot because they have gotten a good grade. They will then find in college that not all classes are created equal, and that some classes require doing the homework to attain a sufficient mastery of skills needed to well on the exams. In those classes, cramming or getting a tutor at the last minute will not allow them to attain understanding.

The problem of teaching students the value of work towards achieving a higher level of understanding, is now being passed off to colleges.[/quote]

You don’t have a clue. Jmhs is NOT watered down and SBG doesn’t make grading easier. [/quote]
On the contrary, little to no homework in many classes is strong evidence of being watered down.[/quote]

DP. I don't know about JMHS, but homework is functionally [b]never graded[/b] for accuracy. It's supposed to be an opportunity to practice. Keys are available for students to check their work and it's graded on completion (which means that many students just copy the key and don't learn anything anyway until they have to take a quiz or test.
OTOH, I think SBG allows a huge number of retakes (unlimited?) so an enormous amount of extra work for teachers.[/quote]
Not at my kid's traditional VA school. The teacher rolls a dice before every lesson that decides whether the homework is graded for completion or accuracy.
A flashcard is drawn with the name of a student and that student can set the odds for the dice from 1:5 to 5:1.  Kids started the school year mostly going 5:1 for completion, but recently many go 5:1 for accuracy since homework graded for accuracy counts 50% more than homework graded for completion (homework overall still counts for no more than 10%, but even a few points can make the difference between 89 and 91). And BoB provides only about 60% of the answers. An experienced math teacher and an effective system. Your math teacher should try it sometime.
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Strange. How is this more accurate than our previous grading system. Grading wasn't something we needed to fix. We need to help kids learn, not play games with grades.[/quote]
What's strange?  This is the previous grading system that's being abolished at Madison.
The previous grading system rewarded effort in all areas: quizzes + timed tests (which account for the majority of the grade), in-class work (a small amount) and a small amount of credit goes to homework. A balanced mix that ensures students get an incentive to participate in all activities in the class and have incentive to put in the homework practice they need to succeed on the quizzes and tests.
To get an A, you need to ace the quizzes, [b]and[/b] do the classwork and homework that prepare you for those.

That's a good system. Proven. The new stuff is made up.

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Agreed. I was commenting that it was weird to not have a system and just play games like rolling dice whether or not to grade assignments. [/quote]

To clarify, the rolling dice is whether the homework is graded for completion or for accuracy. It's graded in both cases, but the teacher doesn't have the time to grade all daily homeworks for accuracy.

Where I went to school (different universe) our chemistry teacher would throw a dart at the gradebook to pick the student who was given an oral quiz in the first five minutes of each class (graded for the "victim," review for everyone else). But everyone would prepare for every lecture because the dart could hit them. (Exception near the end of the school year where he would balance out those who didn't get hit earlier.)

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