Honor roll with anything less than all A's? I didn't know that was possible!

WOW!

When I saw this title, I thought it was gonna be anothe parent complaining about their precious wittle snowflake didn't make the honor roll or some other "self esteem" inititive in place by schools. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that this parent actually had standards.

Way to go mom!

I recall once coming home with an 85 on some math test in HS, and my dad asking what a failing grade would be. When I told him it was anything under a 70, his reply was, "So, you're halfway to failing."

I was always on "real" honor role.

In my school, anything less than 100% and you werent on the honor roll

When I was in high school, there was Honor Roll for As and Bs, and Dean's List for straight As. To make either list, a student also had to have a passing citizenship grade in each class. I missed honor roll one semester because I was late for Government - my first class after a 25-minute lunch break - three times, and got a poor citizenship grade for the class. I didn't care, but my parents were pissed. Not at the school, but at me.

Kiddo will be entering middle school soon, and is learning what it takes to make an A. It's been handed to her, up till now, basically. But this year, she's actually having to plan ahead and study outside of class, and it's an adjustment. It's a hard lesson, and she biffed it the first report card (and had consequences), and she knows it'll be 10 times worse if she doesn't pick up the load w/ the next report card. She is doing much better, and I think she'll do fine.

Her school has two different honor rolls: the real honor roll, and an a/b honor roll. The a/b honor roll gets little perks like free time at PE, and I think it helps kids make that step up to the real honor roll. But, hello, of course if you get even one C, that's the end of the a/b, and even one B and that's the end of the real one.

I totally stand by that Mom. It's hard to show them what's required. I often point out how what she does is exactly like what I do at work, and that doing it well is what makes me successful. If I said that, and then a D put her on the honor roll, what kind of credibility would I have with her?

But rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?

The article cites her son's 3.16 GPA which implies that a B average, or perhaps less, gets you on the honor roll. That's setting the bar really low.

I remember my first C on my report card. My dad asked what was going on and I replied that a C is average. He then asked if I just wanted to be average. Tried real hard to never get anything lower than a high B after that.

When I first started attending school and getting letter grades, the scale went something like this:

94 - 100 A
86 - 93 B
78 - 85 C
70 - 77 D
Under 70 F

When I got to high school, some of the teachers started adjusting the grading scale so that 90 - 100 was an A, 80 - 89 was a B and so on, so that failing was under 60. This was not official school policy, but something many decided to do on their own. Other teachers stuck to the original percentages. My senior year, the school district made the 10 points per letter grade scale official, but a student with something like an 89.9 percent grade could not be rounded up to become an A.

In a manner of speaking, I felt like this was more fair because I hated taking 10-question pop quizzes in class. If I missed just one question on the old scale, I got a B just because I wasn't perfect. Enough single-question misses on the quizzes could mess up my overall grade, which was generally averaged with every test and piece of homework getting equal standing (regardless of the number of questions on quizzes and tests or the difficulty of the homework and classroom assignments). At least on the new scale, I would still get an A for just missing one question on a quiz. (By the way, I didn't miss very often, but often enough that getting a B was very upsetting.)

Students who scored in the 60% range on the old scale would fail and be left back. However, with the new scale, they would be passing and would go on to the next grade or graduate.

When I got to college, all the professors used the 10-point grading scale.

But I don't know which was best. The narrower scale forced you to work harder, but the wide scale allowed for a little imperfection, enough to get on the honor roll.

The way I saw it, anything less than an A was nothing to be proud of.

Posted by: Amy Alkon Author Profile Page at November 15, 2013 7:44 AM
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Well, not outside of one's FAMILY, maybe. As in: "You are only special to your parents, not to outsiders - unless you work hard and MAKE yourself special."

However, that doesn't change the fact that you don't have to be mentally handicapped to have a lot more trouble with some subjects than others, so at least some mild parental praise is in order when a child who's truly working hard finally manages to get a B instead of a D-plus. Sometimes, anyway.

BTW, I knew a baby-boomer woman who once declared that anyone who gets less than 1300 on the S.A.T.s doesn't DESERVE to go to college. I wonder how many would agree with that?

When I first started attending school and getting letter grades, the scale went something like this:

94 - 100 A
86 - 93 B
78 - 85 C
70 - 77 D
Under 70 F

That's what I remember, but there was a one-point overlap at each level and a teacher had the discretion of awarding a, say, A- or B+ based on his or her view of how hard the pupil had worked.

@Lenona: "BTW, I knew a baby-boomer woman who once declared that anyone who gets less than 1300 on the S.A.T.s doesn't DESERVE to go to college. I wonder how many would agree with that?"

Current scale or old scale?

"I wonder how many would agree with that?"

Should have thought of this before posting my last comment. What I think you'd mostly hear is, "Yes, by and large I agree, but in my child's case, it shouldn't apply because..."

Current scale or old scale?

Posted by: Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at November 15, 2013 11:17 AM
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I don't really know, but she said it in 1983 or so.

I got all As and my parents didn't care. I didn't care for the honors either.

Looking back I liked the fact that I liked to study because it was fun. I think if I had a kid who wasn't naturally inclined to those things I'd focus him more on a trade.

One of my parents started his trade at 14, been making a great living since. Shit its extremely rare finding anyone in the US with his skills.

If you are not challenged then I do not see the prestige in a grade.

It's probably because of the Common Core standards.

Way to go mom!!

What makes it really tough to judge your child's progress is that a 90 may not mean 90%.
We are not allowed to let too many of our students fail and we have to do lots of paperwork when they do fail. Our principal told us that we do t have to grade at scale. Questions can be worth whatever we decide. If there are 10 questions, we may choose to deduct just three or five points per question missed. We have to also document that we provided at least two opportunities to correct work that was done improperly or that was not turned in.
I know many teachers that waive missing assignments or give a 70 to the student when the student has done Nothing. Of course, this makes my job harder. I teach remedial Math and Reading to students with disabities. I baby my students. I cheer them. I push them. Most say my classes are their hardest classes because I actually make them do the work. I'll come early. I'll stay late, but I never let them get away without doing the work.
I may let my students hand in a paper 10 times, until they finally do it correctly (remember, they are special education students), but unlike some teachers, I don't just give a passing score and move on.
One more frightening thought- some teachers don't like to deal with pushy parents and will manipulate grades so the little lovelies will get all A's or B's so parents don't come knocking on their door.

According to a website called Power Score, before 2005 a perfect SAT score was a 1600, with the average score being around a 1050.