It has the school boards approval. The school had failed the APY 2 years in row for math. So, it's on list of "schools that need improvement." This is how we improve our schools? By lowering the bar.
I feel that this is not a good move. What happens to the kids once they get out into the real world and college. I wonder how the kids feel about this.
I think that watering down curricula and ideas like "no one gets less than 50%" all result from what I call Lockstep Theory. Basically, the philosophy doesn't really accept the idea that lots of kids learn faster or slower than the ones who cluster around the average.
We all know what this idea does to our kids. The material is superficial and the pace is too slow. And Lockstep Theory also has terrible effects on slower learners, because these kids are expected to keep a pace that they just can't keep. Yet there's a fantasy that they can, and no one seems willing to let it go. So our schools are forced to water down and water down and fail and fail in a quest for an age-grade level that everyone can attain. And of course, it's cruel to the kids who are told by authority figures that they can do something, when they know they can't.
The response of people I call
edumacators is to pretend: Johnny gets 50 points just for putting his name on the test. Or the Board of Education requires everyone to take algebra in 8th grade, yet pulls all meaningful algebra questions out of the high school exit exam, and ensures that most of the math questions are below an 8th grade level. Teachers focus on algorithms for solving the problems on the standardized test, and everyone ignore the fact that some kids are performing via rote and wouldn't be able to solve the same problems if they were worded differently. To their credit, some teachers complain about this, but on the other hand, I don't see a movement for change coming out of this group.
And then everyone blames the problem on class size or funding or the length of the school year.
Everyone just pretends!
When the kids get into the real world and they get hit hard. The schools told them how well they were doing, but they can't find a decent job. Or they go to college and have to spend a year or more doing remedial courses. Or worse, they discover that they never should be there in the first place...because again, we have a crazy fantasy that everyone should go to college. What's wrong with being an electrician, anyway, if it makes you happy and you're good at it?
Val
