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New School Rule: Skip Homework Still Get Grade

moshquerade

moshquerade

No Lifer
Yet another way to encourage non-accountability. 😕

New School Rule: Skip Homework Still Get Grade

POSTED: 8:47 am CST January 15, 2008
UPDATED: 10:27 am CST January 15, 2008

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- Students who don't hand in homework won't receive a zero anymore under new rules for a new semester that started on Monday at Council Bluffs Community Schools.

Students and teachers are encouraged to use the new grading techniques. School officials said that under the old regime, a student who received a zero had a tough time recovering a grade in the course. Administrators said that by making the failing gap smaller, students still have a chance to bounce back and pass at the end of the semester, even after a mistake.

Superintendent Dr. Marth Bruckner said she has seen many students start a new year rebelling.

"We don't want to send the message to kids, as we have done in some classes, that after you have failed in this class for four weeks, you have no chance of passing at the semester," Bruckner said.

In Council Bluffs, each grade range has constituted 10 points, so an A is a grade from 90 to 100, a B is from 80 to 90 etc. An F has ranged from zero to 60.

Last week, Bruckner said she visited with high school staff and recommended using similar intervals, so that on the 100-point scale, an F would range from 50 to 60 instead of zero to 60.

"Some teachers are really wrestling with, 'I don't want to give them 50 out of 100 points,' and to those teachers I say, 'Fine, you don't have to. Go to a different grading scale, like 5-4-3-2-1-0,'" Bruckner said. "We're not saying give them half credit. We're saying, give them the F. Just don't kill them with the F."

Parents are getting used to the new recommendations.

"I have an 8- and a 10-year-old," said parent Jodi Brown. "And as they excel through school, I would rather have them be held accountable for their actions. If they don't turn in an assignment, I would think they deserve a zero for not completing it."

"I think it's great to give them a second chance to make up for it," said Julie Michalski. "I don't want to see anyone fail, but they need to be held accountable for their work."

Right now, the new grading idea is only recommended for the high schools -- Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. Use is left to teachers, but Bruckner said the hope is that departments will work together so that everyone agrees on the same scale.

Gretna uses something Superintendent Dr. Kevin Riley called the "do your work" policy. Students who don't hand in something, or don't pass with a grade of 70 percent or greater, must come in before and after school to complete and pass that assignment. Riley said the policy has been used for 25 years, and in that time, the failure rate has decreased from 10 percent to just a handful of failing grades at the high school. He said the policy has also cut down on behavior issues.
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http://www.kcci.com/news/15052147/detail.html
 
that is stupid
but homework sucks anyway

school should be like a job
do your work at school and work 50 weeks a year, 10 holidays where school is out and 2 weeks vacation you can take when you want, with 4 sick days
 
Gretna uses something Superintendent Dr. Kevin Riley called the "do your work" policy. Students who don't hand in something, or don't pass with a grade of 70 percent or greater, must come in before and after school to complete and pass that assignment. Riley said the policy has been used for 25 years, and in that time, the failure rate has decreased from 10 percent to just a handful of failing grades at the high school. He said the policy has also cut down on behavior issues.
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A few of my HS teachers used something like this. If we didn't hand in the assignment, we stayed for detention and had to do the work during detention. If it was an exam that you did poorly on, you'd have to research the answers to all the questions you got wrong and explain why the answer was wrong and what the correct answer was. Doing either of this would allow you got to get a number of points on the assignment determined by the teacher.
 
:laugh:
I live just a few miles from there (in Nebraska) and at my kids' school, anything under a 70 is failing.
This won't do much to help Council Bluffs' image as "Counciltucky"
 
Read this a couple hours ago, what utter crap.

OTOH, grade inflation and grading inconsistency are such a problem that this could actually help in some ways.
 
I considered homework to be anything I could do during homeroom and during class. I still ended up with a 3.45 and 4.0 was as high as you could go then. 3 AP courses my senior year as well.

This is retarded though, guess they are going to require nannies to feed them in the cafe and wipe their bums when they take a crap...
 
At my school you couldn't get ANY grade for a class unless you had completed all course work. You'd get an incomplete. If you missed an assignment you still had to complete it, get a 0 on it, and then you were allowed to pass or fail the class.
 
what stupidity.... this will continue to lower the ability of the american population and you wonder why we have to out source work.
 
IT makes no sense, if you don't want them to fail then you don't HAVE to make it an auto 0 if they turn it in late. At my school alot of classes had it where you lost 10 points each day it was late, that way even if you forget you still end up doign the homework and not getting completely screwed,
 
lame. Someone who does the homework and gets every problem wrong gets a 50. Someone who doesnt even do the homework should get a 0.

They way to "save" the student is not to give them automatic 50, its to allow them to turn in the homework late for a full credit minus a late-penalty.



 
Riley said the policy has been used for 25 years, and in that time, the failure rate has decreased from 10 percent to just a handful of failing grades at the high school. He said the policy has also cut down on behavior issues.
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I guess so. If I had a policy that any person who failed a test automatically got a D on it, I bet my failure rate would be 0%.

Homework is part of the class and is part of passing a class.
 
Seriously, who comes up with this new age "self-esteem is precious" crap? That person (or people) should be taken out back and shot.
 
hahaha wow ... this is pathetic.

i mean usually homework counted for like 30% of the total grade anyways in highschool. there were tests and other projects that made up the rest, so even if you failed a few homeworks you could still get a decent grade in the class.

and that one parent is lame saying "she doesn't want to see someone fail." screw that, if someone isn't even trying, why should they not deserve to fail?
 
always hated most homework.

I never understood why I should be screwed for not doing busywork when I was able to show clear knowledge and understanding of facts/concepts on tests and papers.
 
Originally posted by: loki8481
always hated most homework.

I never understood why I should be screwed for not doing busywork when I was able to show clear knowledge and understanding of facts/concepts on tests and papers.
Click to expand...

There's a difference between memorization/cramming and actually understanding a subject. Homework makes sure the latter occurs instead of the former.
 
Originally posted by: loki8481
always hated most homework.

I never understood why I should be screwed for not doing busywork when I was able to show clear knowledge and understanding of facts/concepts on tests and papers.
Click to expand...

thats the only point where i take exception to what i stated earlier in this thread. If you ace all exams/quizzes you should automatically get an A. If you ace the final, you should automatically get an A. Otherwise, effort (homework) can be counted towards boosting your average up to A-.

But I say this with college level engineering exams in mind. If you dont know your stuff, you dont do well on the final no matter how much cramming you do.
 
Schools are being ass backwards.

We have Zero Tolerance policies for hugging, but Second-Chance policies for not doing your homework.
 
I've always been against home work.

If they can't teach you everything they need to at school then they need to change how they do so IMO.

Home work is the lazy way out for a teacher IMO.
 
Originally posted by: loki8481
always hated most homework.

I never understood why I should be screwed for not doing busywork when I was able to show clear knowledge and understanding of facts/concepts on tests and papers.
Click to expand...

My AP calc teacher in high school gave us homework every night, but he also gave us a weekly homework assignment. The weekly homework assignment was the only one that was required to be completed. I liked that policy, because I was able to understand everything without doing the nightly homework.

I had math classes in college that had a similar policy, but I quickly found out with advanced stats and discrete math that I'd have to pay attention in class and do the homework to get an A. :Q
 
In college, most professors will at least give you partial credit for late work.
A lot of mine would just knock 10% off per week late.

Giving a zero for a forgetful student is too strict.
 
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