Going From Low Standards To No Standards -- Like It's An Improvement
My immediate thought in reading stories like this is, "Welcome, Chinese overlords!"
The New York Post's editorial board writes about a "cheating scandal" at Maspeth High School:
The scariest part about the devastating report into cheating at Maspeth High School is how the Department of Education has responded to such scandals.The biggest issue, to them, is not that Maspeth's principal graduated students who didn't pass classes. Or that students were fed answers to tests. It's that grades and tests even exist.
Consider one Maspeth administrator's response when asked why he fed answers to a student during a test. According to texts acquired by investigators, the administrator writes: "What's worse, her thinking she can't do it or that's she's smart?"
A teacher responds: "that she's smart when she's not. that's setting her up for failure."
"You don't get it man," the administrator replies. "You came from a very black and white background in private schools. But it's different here. It's different because I'm not going to not even give these kids a shot at the real world because they didn't pass HS. That's ridiculous. She shows up everyday and tries. Maybe not in algebra because she's GIVEN UP. That's why its a bulls-t system."
This attitude is not isolated. You see it in every move the DOE makes.
The DOE wants schools to do away with honor rolls and valedictorians because "Recognizing student excellence via honor rolls and class rank can be detrimental to learners who find it more difficult to reach academic success, often for reasons beyond their control."
They want to make grades "holistic," whether or not students know the answers. They want to make getting into Bronx Science and Stuyvesant based on demographics and not achievement.
Let's end any pursuit of academic excellence -- and while we're at it, who needs literacy?
This is crying out for a satire or comedy to elucidate the effects of such beliefs! Perhaps all school results should be determined simply by lotteries? Why not matches, and all sporting events? Why not have the Olympics decided by team averages? We may call it satire now, but how soon before it is the new norm?
Nicholas (Unlicensed Joker) Gray at September 19, 2021 2:12 AM
Look if you're against classical grades and tests and want a different model, then unschool or do the Sudbury Valley model or Waldorf or any number of models that teach differently and get decent results.
Feeding kids the answer to a test isn't one of them.
NicoleK' at September 19, 2021 4:27 AM
Look if you're against classical grades and tests and want a different model, then unschool or do the Sudbury Valley model or Waldorf or any number of models that teach differently and get decent results.
Feeding kids the answer to a test isn't one of them.
NicoleK at September 19, 2021 4:28 AM
Feeding kids the answer to a test isn't one of them.
Feeding the kids answers was the right thing to do, given their goals. Their goal was not education, their goal was to generate proper paperwork and make it easy to manage the school. This worked fine so long as outsiders only saw the paperwork.
Ken McE at September 19, 2021 7:31 AM
"What's worse, her thinking she can't do it or that's she's smart?"
The later, as it may lead her into thinking I can do this and that having catastrophic consequences for her and possibly other people around her.
As Dirty Harry once noted, a man's gotta know his limitations.
I R A Darth Aggie at September 19, 2021 7:57 AM
I am so grateful that my 4 kids are no longer of an age to be in the public school system. Even when they were, we did a mix of private and public schools, depending on the quality of the teachers in the specific schools they were going to, and the responsiveness of those teachers to us as reasonably well-educated parents (both with graduate degrees from pretty good universities in difficult STEM areas). Our make-or-break subject was math. If we thought the math instruction was mediocre or poor, or even just being done by some teacher copying out of some workbook instead of understanding what they were teaching, that was it; we were out of there. And if the teacher couldn't control their classroom, we were gone even faster.
I would definitely home-school my kids nowadays, if there wasn't a decent private school alternative nearby. Your kids only get one shot at their education. You can't afford to give second chances to schools or teachers that don't have their act together.
ruralcounsel at September 19, 2021 9:02 AM
The decline in standards has been ongoing for a very log time. Compare well written prose from the early 19th c. (Jane Austen for example) to writing from the early 1900s, to that of the mid 1950's to most current output designed for the mass market. The rot started setting in about the late 60's. By the 2000's Ebonics began to replaced standard English usage in the US.
Clyde Montrose at September 19, 2021 9:07 AM
The viewpoint in holistic grading seems to be that a high school diploma is not a reward for effort or a signifier of specific accomplishment, but an age-related ticket into society and that any attempt to deny someone that ticket is de facto discrimination.
Conan the Grammarian at September 19, 2021 9:56 AM
@Nicholas: Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" is already made. And we are living in it.
jdgalt1 at September 19, 2021 10:04 AM
I am so grateful that my 4 kids are no longer of an age to be in the public school system. Even when they were, we did a mix of private and public schools, depending on the quality of the teachers in the specific schools they were going to, and the responsiveness of those teachers to us as reasonably well-educated parents (both with graduate degrees from pretty good universities in difficult STEM areas). Our make-or-break subject was math. If we thought the math instruction was mediocre or poor, or even just being done by some teacher copying out of some workbook instead of understanding what they were teaching, that was it; we were out of there. And if the teacher couldn't control their classroom, we were gone even faster.
I would definitely home-school my kids nowadays, if there wasn't a decent private school alternative nearby. Your kids only get one shot at their education. You can't afford to give second chances to schools or teachers that don't have their act together.
ruralcounsel at September 19, 2021 9:02 AM
I could have written this. Only have two kids though. Wish I had more. The two I have are gems.
In my view public school has gone the way of government. The whole objective is to avoid any accountability for the product you put out while continuing to be paid more than the private sector which is accountable, at least to the market, if nothing else.
Isab at September 19, 2021 10:06 AM
The motto of the education lobby should be, "Using your tax dollars to set kids up for a series of minimum wage jobs and a life time of poverty."
Jay at September 19, 2021 12:20 PM
Depends on where. The motto is now.
"Using your tax dollars to create socialist activists, and Democrat voting block"
Joe J at September 19, 2021 2:11 PM
Sadly this everybody is a winner attitude will further the divide the rich and poor. It will make that work hard to succeed so much harder.
Imagine finally leaving public high school and already middle class and rich kids have multitude of better skills and clarity of education. That you don't stand a chance of getting into a Uni or even into a job beyond min wage.
John Paulson at September 19, 2021 5:34 PM
She doesn't think she's smart, though, she knows the answers were fed to her. She thinks she is totally incompetent and unable to do the most basic things. She probably thinks she is even more stupid than she actually is.
NicoleK at September 19, 2021 10:56 PM
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