Okay-- several people have asked about the percentages.
The exam that was savaged (as some kind of object lesson in 'striving to do your best') earned a 67%. Probably a less subjective grading of that exam would have earned more like an 80%, even with a pretty harsh set of standards.
That single exam is 22% of an exam composite which is 40% of the course grade.
Ergo, that exam is 8% of the grade in the class. Earning 67% on it basically drops the course percentage by about 6%.
Anything less than 93% in a class is not an A. Ergo, my child's new "perfect" score in the class just became 94% as a result of this one exam, leaving her in the position of needing to earn 99-100% in order to earn an A in the course. There is no question in my mind that this is now her primary goal, which is a shame, because she HAD actually been engaged and learning, against considerable odds.
It is not comforting, by the way, when the student's teacher doesn't seem able to "follow" the math there, when my 13yo worked it out in about two minutes.
And also on the subject of unfair grading practices, here's a lovely wrinkle. In the case of STRUGGLING students, they are encouraged to "retake" poor assessments for better grades. High-achievers are frequently ineligible to repeat anything. Yes, that's right. Same course, same material, same assessments, and standard policy is to use assessments FORMATIVELY for some students, and exclusively summatively for others. This is the single biggest gripe that my DH has about our school. It really burns his britches that DD can't "re-do" a lab report that she earns a B on, but a student who earns an F on the same lab report is walked through doing it over-- for an improved grade.
