Too dumb to fail: passing failing kids

[SandEagle]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/they_re_too_dumb_to_fail_gn9EItV0MWIDzK0lZCkpqJ

A low-performing Manhattan high school that was granted up to $6 million in extra funds to undergo a “transformation” has found the secret formula for success: Dumb down the requirements for students to pass.

At Washington Irving HS, near Union Square, administrators have approved new grading policies that give failing kids credits toward graduation.

The policies -- which one expert blasted as “approved cheating” -- are spelled out in documents obtained by The Post, including the 2011-12 staff handbook and minutes of a meeting last October between Principal Bernardo Ascona and assistant principals who make up the school’s Panel for Academic Success.

Under the rules:
* Students who get failing scores of 50 to 55 in class will “automatically” get 15 points for a passing 65 to 70 grade if they pass a Regents exam. Kids who score a minimum 65 on the Regents “should receive a passing grade” in the class. The same practice forced a Bronx principal to resign.

* A final grade of 60 to 64 “will be changed automatically” to a passing 65.

* Students who fail a class “will be assigned ... a work product not to exceed five pages” or “alternative project.” Livid teachers say pupils who cut class or blew off studying get a “packet” of work or take an online multiple-choice “credit recovery” program.

we are producing a nation of morons with no real capabilities to think on their own. they will accept government handouts happily, accept whatever the history books tell them, and will fight endless wars while playing Call of Duty 9.

 

[chucky2]

Welcome to Political Correctness having run its course. This is what you get when you liberalize generations...

 

[Doppel]

I can't remember the term but a co-worker was telling me about it. His wife is a teacher and if a kid fails too many times they simply bring them back up so that they are not socially stinted hanging out with younger kids. These kids should be sent elsewhere, but unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees I guess.

 

[Ronstang]

This has roots in decades ago when they started dumbing down our schools because minorities simply could not compete with the white kids. It's racist if the white kids do better so they had to make it "appear" that minorities were scoring higher. As a result we have schools full of normal people who think they are geniuses yet are actually dumbasses.

 

[gevorg]

This is why in the future, countries like China will not only have cheaper labor, but also cheaper and smarter labor. Can't compete with that.

 

[Paul98]

All this does is compound the problem since the students just fall further and further behind. It doesn't get sorted out till after they "graduate" or drop out if ever.

We need to educate so that people learn at their own pace. Ff someone is struggling with one subject and excelling in another they need to be put in different classes depending on the subject.

 

[Zebo]

That's okay we can just sell shit back and forth to each other. Image is everything in sales and 70% of us economy is consumerism what could possibly go wrong?

 

[Ronstang]

Kind of funny that we are talking about our public school system that some want to throw more money at all the while complacently sitting blind to the poorer results we reap year after year. I guess these teachers would magically transform these students if they only had more money? The entire system is woefully broken.

 

[Matthiasa]

No one wants to admit their kid might not be smart enough to even finish high school.

 

[Jaskalas]

It takes parents to raise children. No school is going to make up for the loss of the parents when both of them are working jobs and leaving their kids to be raised by others.

The American ideal of two parents saying f' my kids I got a career! just doesn't cut it for most families. Worse yet is when the parents split leaving even less parental time.

Kids don't raise themselves. This failure is a systemic societal disease.

Now throw modern media / entertainment / video games, etc, on top of having no parents. What's a kid to do but completely ignore the old fashioned school system designed for their grandparents?

 

[woolfe9999]

Typical ATP&N garbage. A story about a single high school and this is "our public school system."

 

[Pia]

Typical ATP&N garbage. A story about a single high school and this is "our public school system."

If that is a normal practice in parts of your public school system, is that not enough reason to be up in arms?

My experience of one of those "world's best" Scandinavian socialist-democratic public school systems is that it needs to be taken behind the shed ASAP. They also stopped failing students long ago (because realism), although the official fantasy remains that every student is willing and capable of learning the full curriculum.

Pretty much any learning I ever did was either on my own, outside school hours, or in a private school. The ailing parts of US public school system sound like a much worse failure than what I experienced; at least the Scandinavian system kind of works for the average student.

 

[Rangoric]

I can't remember the term but a co-worker was telling me about it. His wife is a teacher and if a kid fails too many times they simply bring them back up so that they are not socially stinted hanging out with younger kids. These kids should be sent elsewhere, but unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees I guess.

And any money that does become available goes to the children with special needs.

 

[Ausm]

Welcome to Political Correctness having run its course. This is what you get when you liberalize generations...

Your a fucking moron this has been happening for YEARS especially if the child was an athlete.

 

[Double Trouble]

Welcome to Political Correctness having run its course. This is what you get when you liberalize generations...

Yep, that's it.

Hey, we could fix the problem by just throwing some more money at it!

 

[Genx87]

Your a fucking moron this has been happening for YEARS especially if the child was an athlete.

/facepalm

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

/facepalm

Give him a break...it appears that he's talking from first hand experience.

 

[sunzt]

Is this because of NCLB or unrelated?

 

[DrPizza]

What the OP fails to realize is that the Regents exam is sort of like a state final exam for each subject. i.e. no matter where in NY you are, what you learn in Algebra should be the same as you learn in any other school in the state (at least the bare minimum anyway.) If you look at schools in other states; let's use Physics as an example - some places will only cover mechanics (and unfortunately, not really in that much depth.) Some places, the teacher/school might cover mechanics and waves.

But, in NY, there is a minimum core curriculum which must be covered in class and which is tested on the state Regents exam. Students have to know mechanics, waves, electricity, standard model, and some other modern physics. The state exam covers all this material. I can remember that 15 or 20 years ago, many schools would override a students final average with the Regents exam score - if the Regents exam score was higher. Teachers hated that, because it led to crappy students doing no work, being disruptive in class, but getting a tutor for 1 week, cramming, and passing the course. (And realistically, most of the time when people cram like that, not much sinks in long term.)

If this were 15 years ago or so, then I really don't have a huge problem with the story in the OP - 15 points toward their average if they pass the state exam?
Here, look at this physics exam - does it seem like a reasonable final exam for a high school physics course? I think so...
http://www.nysedregents.org/Physics/20100622exam.pdf

But, within that article, it points out that teachers aren't happy with these changes - why? Because students don't learn a lot of those other important things in life - accountability, how to meet deadlines, etc. I agree with those teachers.

Also, what the article has failed to mention is what happened to the state exams that are required to be passed in order to graduate from high school. As a result of NCLB, they keep making those particular tests harder and harder to fail because of "cut scores" - you no longer get a percentage grade on many of the Regents exams - it's now a "scaled score." And, the scales are ridiculous - low enough that an increasing number of students, per NCLB requirements, pass each year.

 

[xBiffx]

Please libs, don't try and make this another NCLB bashing. No one defends that legislation so you aren't going to gain any ground by doing the normal Bush bashing here. The problem is, the liberal way to handle it is with teacher's unions. You know, the ones in which you get tenure and can't be fired for doing anything. Just like the case in Atlanta, where the school district is still trying to decide what to do with the teachers involved, since they can't simply fire them. Teacher's unions fail us by not weeding out the bad teachers, and also not rewarding the good ones. Its mediocre mentality at its best in that system.

Parents are the problem, not the teachers. Crap in = crap out. You can't send your dipshit, run amok, non disciplined children to school and expect them to come out scholars. School is not a day care, and teachers are not your children's keepers. Parents are to blame for this mess, no one else.

 

[Double Trouble]

Parents are the problem, not the teachers. Crap in = crap out. You can't send your dipshit, run amok, non disciplined children to school and expect them to come out scholars. School is not a day care, and teachers are not your children's keepers. Parents are to blame for this mess, no one else.

I agree with the crap in = crap out, and that parents are the primary cause of issues, but that doesn't absolve school districts from being held responsible for stupidity and bad policies. The teachers union is a major impediment to good education, but there's no way in heck that's going to get fixed because of their political clout.

 

[Rangoric]

I agree with the crap in = crap out, and that parents are the primary cause of issues, but that doesn't absolve school districts from being held responsible for stupidity and bad policies. The teachers union is a major impediment to good education, but there's no way in heck that's going to get fixed because of their political clout.

From what I've seen, the Teacher's union has very little to do with bad policies or stupidity. That tends to be the non-union members, or administrators.

 

[QuantumPion]

It takes parents to raise children. No school is going to make up for the loss of the parents when both of them are working jobs and leaving their kids to be raised by others.

The American ideal of two parents saying f' my kids I got a career! just doesn't cut it for most families. Worse yet is when the parents split leaving even less parental time.

Kids don't raise themselves. This failure is a systemic societal disease.

Now throw modern media / entertainment / video games, etc, on top of having no parents. What's a kid to do but completely ignore the old fashioned school system designed for their grandparents?

Ok I mostly agree with you, which is scarey. I disagree with your notion that two-parent working households are a detriment to their education. Kids are at school while parents are at work. But the rest of your comment is accurate.

Single parent households, welfare parents, and parents that don't care about their kids education or think its the schools responsibility to raise and feed their kids for them are probably 2/3 of the problem. What you fail to realize is that it is precisely the government and union stranglehold of the education system, as well as lifetime welfare benefits, which produce this situation to begin with.

 

[Ausm]

/facepalm

Ok you got me there sorry posting before I had my first cup of coffee thx grammar police

 

[alkemyst]

This has roots in decades ago when they started dumbing down our schools because minorities simply could not compete with the white kids. It's racist if the white kids do better so they had to make it "appear" that minorities were scoring higher. As a result we have schools full of normal people who think they are geniuses yet are actually dumbasses.

It more has to do with poor kids...unfortunately many are non-whites.

For the most part when a poor kid is not in school there is not any challenges given to them at home to stimulate their minds nor to practice what they learned. Every vacation/summer they fall further behind those with normal homes with proper parents in place.

By something like 5th grade even this difference is dramatic.

Sadly people vote 'bleeding heart' rather than what's right for the nation. What's worse is many of these kids end up with paid college scholarships and in magnet schools.