Education: No Zero Grading Policy Opinions

[Soundwave]

Grew up in the US. Have lived in Tennessee, Iowa and Maryland. Tennessee and Maryland were pretty crappy in comparison to the education I was getting in Iowa. Supposedly the county in Maryland (which I spent the most time in) was one of "the best in the nation", but I fathom how that could be true.

The problem with the Educational System in America, is really complex. Firstly, and probably most obviously, is that our curricula are chosen by politicians. As opposed to educators, or even people who would know "something" about education.

Another substantial problem, and one that is almost never openly talked about, is the idea that Certain Subcultures Within Our Population Have No Interest In Academics. It's not a simple question of "are they smart enough?" it's "how can I convince them to even care?".

They call this the Achievement Gap, and huge quantities of capital are being spent on closing it. Meaning, a very specific demographic is getting all of the attention while the vast majority goes ignored.

Now, regarding the issue of "politicians selecting curriculum", it should mentioned that the US has two educational systems. Private institutions, for the wealthy, and the Public Educational system. The children of the politicians invariably go to Private Institutions. It should come as no surprise to anyone, then, that funding for public schools has been gradually worn away, until you have situations like those in Philadelphia, right now, where you have 40 children to a classroom, and not enough chairs and desks to go around.

Edit: Regarding the OP, I don't think a "zero" or "no zero policy" would have any bearing on our situation because of the problems I've previously stated being to pronounced. It'd be like asking if I should drain the bathtub when my house is six feet underwater. Also changed the word "fact" to "idea", as the existence of the achievement gap is in dispute

 

[madwarper]

1) Philly. Depending on the teacher, you either got a zero or partial credit proportional to the amount of time after the deadline the assignment is handed in.

2/3/4) It's tricky. On one hand, zero grade is something that can easily sink a final grade, which is bad. On the other hand, you don't want to instil the notion that deadlines are meaningless into a student that can can take with them after they leave the academic setting.

In the real world, your client won't care why you couldn't produce your product by the agreed time, they'll drop you. Your landlord won't care why you don't pay your rent on time, they'll evict you. The bank won't care why you're late on your car note, they'll repossess it.

 

[Soundwave]

But why would we want to educate our children? Then they'll want more money and won't just learn to live with part time minimum wage the way our employers want us to be...

to

Another substantial problem, and one that is almost never openly talked about, is the fact that Certain Subcultures Within Our Population Have No Interest In Academics. It's not a simple question of "are they smart enough?" it's "how can I convince them to even care?".

This is a lie spread by the very politicians who're the cause of these problems to try to destroy any urge to change things. It's simply not true. The reason children don't seem to care is because they recognize bullshit when they see it. When you adopt a system which works, which my highschool did in the form of a half-school-day commune-class that was extremely liberal in its approach to education, focusing more on student achievement and self-teaching than it ever did on lectures or assignments, those kids who people claim are incapable of caring because of their demographics-- or, let's cut it with the bullshit and say what people really mean, can't care cause they're

Spoiler

LAZY FILTHY UNEDUCATED NIGGERS,

will care, and will care deeply and fight tooth and nail to protect the sub-system that works and enables them to lead a better life and will then sit down with the rest of the students whose lives were touched by the HIP program and give a tearful goodbye when it's cut because a local college wanted us to have an eigth honors math class despite the fact that there were no students to fill it and no jobs for them to take once they graduate because our economy doesn't have any use for more college-educated students

Well, you really seized on that little point and ran with it. To which I must respond:

1) It's not that we don't need more college-educated students so much as nobody actually needs frivolous degrees like art history majors. I'm all for vocational education.

2) My mention of the achievement gap is that it exists, at least in the sense that the school systems are actively spending a lot of time and money on it.

If my initial post was too dense or convoluted, essentially what I'm saying is that the wrong people are in charge of education. If the wrong people are in charge, chances are, they are going to make the wrong decisions. Currently the Public School System in Maryland is a college-track for everyone. Every student. Now, as you've mentioned, not every student IS college material, and it certainly is a shame that the individuals in charge have decided otherwise.

If I may be so bold, where are you from Deshara? What is your experience that you are able to confirm that the achievement gap doesn't exist? If I may be further bold, it sounds to me that your ideals are coloring your perceptions or at least causing you to overlook some real cultural factors.

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

Public education isn't meant to teach behaviour, it's supposed to teach skills.

I think this is perhaps the biggest flaw in your premise. What makes you think that? More importantly, what makes you think the two are mutually exclusive?

School is preparing you for the real world, the reason they have assignments and stuff isn't for the fun of it, it's a simulation of real world tasks where you have goals and milestones and deadlines, they just also generally use it to teach you more on a specific subject, for instance... geography, or math.

You are given an assignment, you go out and research for yourself, find answers, present your findings/present the product of your work, and have to do so according to specifications given to you by your 'boss' (teacher) within a given time frame. In the real world they don't mollycoddle you nor do they even give you an F, they just fire you.
I infact, the most important thing you learn in school is not content at all, it's process - good work ethic, dealing with people, and learning how to learn.

Once you are equip with those skills, you are set to succeed in life, you won't need someone(eg. your boss) to tell you how to do X, you go out there, find out for yourself, and get the job done that you're being paid to do.

 

[Soundwave]

1) It's not that we don't need more college-educated students so much as nobody actually needs frivolous degrees like art history majors. I'm all for vocational education.

Who are you to decide what degrees we need or don't need? Have you consumed the spice, looked down the God Emperor's Golden Path and mapped every possible future in the space-time continuum? How dare you presume to know which disciplines are necessary and which ones aren't? Literally speaking, no education of any kind is necessary- our species could just as easily have never become anymore than hunter-gatherers who die in their 30s from infections of the gums. But frankly, I appreciate an existence that's a little bit more ambitious.

Soundwave superior, navigator's guild inferior.

Also, I have a joke. "How do you get rid of an art major?"

"Tell them that the 'free wifi' is for PAYING CUSTOMERS ONLY"

Attempts at humor aside,

I was responding to the rather long-winded suggestion that money was being taken from vocational programs because

local college wanted us to have an eighth honors math class despite the fact that there were no students to fill it and no jobs for them to take once they graduate because our economy doesn't have any use for more college-educated students

The idea that our economy doesn't need any more college-educated students is what I took exception to. So maybe my example was a bit on the flippant side, but I stand by it.

While I don't disagree that there are plenty of degrees that are valuable to society while not being especially lucrative, the suggestion that higher education should be diminished in some way because of "limited funding", and "to accommodate people who don't tend to be academic" is at least a flawed argument.

As I've stated previously I am all for vocational schooling.

 

[ellers07]

As someone who teaches in the United States, I will say that you're comparing two systems and countries that are not comparable. I allow students to make up work across the entire grading period, as well as retakes on quizzes and tests, and I *still* have a high rate of failure at my school because students simply can't be arsed to make up the work.

This is part of the problem with folks pointing to other countries and saying "it's their policies that make them learn". No, it's not. It's the culture.

As a fellow teacher in the US, I think you nailed it. It is absolutely a cultural issue and I find myself struggling with the same things you've described. My brother teaches English in South Korea and it's fascinating to compare our experiences. We simply don't have the same emphasis here.

As far as my views on grading, I'll accept late work or partially completed work and give some credit for it, but if a student refuses to turn in an assignment then of course they've earned a zero. That said, our district requires us to give failing students at least a grade of 45% on their report cards for the first three quarters. The idea is to give the students a shot at passing if they suddenly turn over a new leaf halfway through the year. The reasoning is sound, but I do cringe every now and then when I have to give a student a 45% average when he literally completed no assignments.

 

[Dimitriov]

Public education isn't meant to teach behaviour, it's supposed to teach skills.

Uh... I think you've got that backwards, chief. No, we actually don't care if the majority of people, after having gone through the public education system, can do algebra, trigonometry, recite Shakespeare, or even understand high school level physics (although it would be great if they could, and would mean they were better-educated more well-rounded people).

But the fact is, I think for the majority of people we really are just trying to drill discipline into them and make sure they can follow orders.


Anyway I definitely think that's a terrible system because it in no way prepares a student for life after grade school. Your university professor isn't going to give a shit that you didn't get around to finishing something yet and you will fail the course. Your boss isn't going to give a shit that you just didn't manage to complete a report on time and your ass is going to get fired.

 

[shootthebandit]

snip

9 times out of 10 an A grade student is going to make a better doctor than F grade student. Mainly because the A grade student knows they need straight As to become a doctor and they work their butt off to get them. Someone who constantly achieves a D is not a neccesarily a stupid kid but they obviously dont work as hard as the kid who studies hard and gets As. If you dont make the cut then you havent worked hard enough. Tough shit if thats the case you have only yourself to blame

If we are going to say that schools need to specialise in medicine to get the best doctors then we might as well say that schools specialise in every career path which just isnt feasible. The A-F system is a good overall picture which may not be accurate on a student to student basis but it sure as hell gives you an idea of who is academically bright and who isnt

I think 13/14 is a perfect age considering you can leave school at 16 which is probably going to be the case for those who do poorly academically. The chances are the kids who arent as interested will by this point have fallen into the "vocational" catagory anyway. Academics is not very interesting for anyone, im sure we'd all much rather be in a practical environment but im sure the kids who want to be a doctor or a lawyer or any career which requires academics will have the foresight to tolerate lectures and assignments. If they dont then im sorry but they obviously dont want it that badly.

You said that children are pushed into a career decades before they have a chance. You are saying they will start work aged 23/24. I started my job when i was 17 and was lucky enough to be part of a large company which can afford to run its own vocational program and i was taken on as an apprentice (however there are very few companies capable of this). It will be more likely a case of, year 1: sample a few trades, year 2-4: pick one you enjoy and feel natural doing and pratice it for a few years. Meaning kids leave school at 17-18 with some sort of real world skill as opposed to leaving school at 16 and end up another unemployment statistic having been a failure of an academical system

I wouldnt say its a cast system. Its more of a "you are academically bright so we are going to give you the best opportunity to go to university OR you are more suited for a vocational role so weare going to give you a trade so you finish school with a skill-set". I consider myself to be on the border of academical and vocational and i couldve easily ended up being a failure of the academic system and im lucky i got an apprenticeship however giving kids the chance to gain these skills at a young age as opposed to being dragged through an academical system which is inevitably going to fail them is obviously a good thing. Plus how does a garage know who to hire as a mechanic when the school system doesnt teach practical skills. This way a kid can leave school and walk into a builder, garage or contractor and say "im already skilled at x trade" companies then dont have to spend time training them which most dont have the resources to

 

[Alorxico]

.
So I have a few questions for you:
1. What did you grow up with? (And where?)
2. What do you think of the no zero policy?
3. What do you think is wrong with the policy?
and 4. What do you think is right with the policy?

(1) I grew up in the United States, specifically a city called Raleigh in the state of North Carolina. My mother has just recently retired from her third run as a teacher (she taught before she had kids, while her kids were in middle school and again when we went to college) because she was disgusted with how things were being handled in American schools.

(2) If implemented correctly, I have no problem with "no zero policy", but here in America it ISN'T being implemented correctly. "No Zero Policy" in the US is paired with a policy that states a teacher cannot FAIL a child, which would require them to repeat that grade in the coming school year, because he or she does not understand the material that was taught to him or her. "Experts" have said that holding a child back damages their self-esteem and creates behavioral problems, so a child MUST be moved on to the higher levels of education, where the rest of his or her peers are, regardless of whether or not they understand anything that is being taught to them. THAT is stupid.

(3) In the real world, you have deadlines. "No Zero Policy" seems to promote the idea that "Hey, as long as it gets done than who cares." Again, that might not be how it is in other countries, but that is how it is taught here in America. I am seriously thinking of home-schooling my children ... or convincing my husband to move us to Canada.

(4) Some children learn at a slower pace while others need to see the big picture to understand the smaller concepts. Allowing a child to complete a homework assignment at his or her own pace allows for them to get a firm grasp of the lessons taught, as well as put it in perspective with other lessons. PROVIDED, that is, that the child is actually TRYING to go the work and not being lazy. Again, kinda jaded here in the US as most kids (even in college, where I am now) don't give a crap about school. All they want to do is sit on their butts and get paid to Tweet or Facebook.

Sorry, I'm ten years older than most of my classmates and I get really annoyed with them sometimes.

 

[Veylon]

Rather than kicking around zeros at the bottom, has anyone considered rewarding high scores. Yeah, if you can pass the next test early, you don't have to come to class for a week because you already know it! That would give those who don't want to be there an incentive they can properly appreciate.

On the zero subject, it ought to be a sliding scale. Whether that's half-off for being late or one grade a day or whatever, a flat yes/no is a little unnecessarily harsh. We're on the website dedicated to an industry where failures, budget overruns, and delays happen all the time without the guilty parties being fired and layoffs happen en masse to studios who produce blockbusters. Maybe grades assigned by dice rolls would be the most realistic?

 

[shootthebandit]

frivolous degrees like art history majors. I'm all for vocational education..

I agree with this guy. The problem (at least in the UK) is that schools are geared so much towards academia that the option for kids is basically university or unskilled labour. Other than finding an employer (who would rather take someone with experience) who is willing to show you the ropes (usually without pay) there isnt really another option to becoming a skilled labourer.

The problem is then that more and more people are going to university who would otherwise go into our (literally non existant) vocational training. So universities then have to make more "frivolous" courses and this takes resources away from the valuable parts of the university such as the science, engineering and medical fields which could are usually at the forefront of R&D.

If you refer to my previous post where vocational training is introduced at a young age so kids leave school at 18 with a vocation so they dont need to find an employer (who would rather have an experience contractor) to train them

 

[dystopiaINC]

I Had a certain strain of this bullcrap in high school but it was only in the maths and sciences and they started it in my 3rd year by the 4th they wanted to expand it to English and I think history.

the basic Idea was you could get in all your work at any time but if you were missing to many assignments you got this f**king 'I' for Incomplete instead of your actual grade, and if you didn't get enough assignments turned it your grade wasn't counted at the end of the year. didn't matter if you just skipped out on the home work but passed all the tests with flying colors. I almost failed my 4 classes for late homework on subjects I went on to get A's on the tests.

 

[shootthebandit]

Rather than kicking around zeros at the bottom, has anyone considered rewarding high scores. Yeah, if you can pass the next test early, you don't have to come to class for a week because you already know it! That would give those who don't want to be there an incentive they can properly appreciate.

I agree. As a child i was always really good at maths (not good at anything else though). You basically had to explain how the function worked and give me one or two examples and i understood. I never done my homework which was always just a load of problems and my idea was "if you can do one you can do them all". It was getting to the point that i was getting disruptive in lessons because i understood after 1 example and maths is just using the same process for every single example, so after the 20th example i was getting really bored. They even told my parents on parents evening that i was misbehaving in class because "i wasnt being challenged" my dad told them about me not doing my homework saying "why does he have to do 20 or 30 questions when he understands it after 1 question". I used to be cheeky with my teacher and "only do the hard ones". Fortunately i went to school in scotland where our entire grades where based upon an exam at the end of the course so i wasnt docked any marks for not handing homework in.

You say "giving those who arent interested an incentive". Theres a difference between not being interested and being bored because your arent being challenged

 

[shootthebandit]

I Had a certain strain of this bullcrap in high school but it was only in the maths and sciences and they started it in my 3rd year by the 4th they wanted to expand it to English and I think history.

the basic Idea was you could get in all your work at any time but if you were missing to many assignments you got this f**king 'I' for Incomplete instead of your actual grade, and if you didn't get enough assignments turned it your grade wasn't counted at the end of the year. didn't matter if you just skipped out on the home work but passed all the tests with flying colors. I almost failed my 4 classes for late homework on subjects I went on to get A's on the tests.

The fact that homework is even part of your grade baffles me. Surely anyone can do your homework for you where as a test is under controlled conditions?

When i was at school (scotland) all of our grades where based on an exam at the end of the course which was under controlled conditions. Homework for us was just a way for the teacher to know that you have an understanding of what you were taught and where your weak points are

 

[FPLOON]

Hmmm... Let's see...

1. America, born and raise... on the Cali-playground, where I spent most of my days...

2. It's an interesting policy that I'm sure my best friend would LOVE, considering according to our school system, he's was considered not only smarter than me when comparing grade-point averages, but also he was too lazy to do work that he deemed "too easy for him" in retrospect... He would have dominated this policy more than me, thus proving to the school district that he was more than capable of getting that High School diploma... instead of a GED (which is WAY EASIER than getting a High School diploma, according to him...)

3. Well, if it was ever was adapted in America, it would soon turn into a numbers game one way or another... meaning there will be those that remember more things than another, thus they will get the better opportunity than someone who is "playing by the rules", per se... It weird saying that this policy can be manipulated in some way, but I'm not ruling that thought out... given how America works in general...

4. No zeros or F's... Sounds like my kind of conformance... It also brings out more of a open-ended way of thinking in terms of learning in general... More creative possibilities... It's not the grades that makes the person... It's something else... and this "No Zero Grading" policy is just the thing to reveal it... (Too bad I'm neck-deep in worrying about getting the right grades in order to be successful to society to find what really makes the person...)

 

[TWRule]

So I have a few questions for you:
1. What did you grow up with? (And where?)
2. What do you think of the no zero policy?
3. What do you think is wrong with the policy?
and 4. What do you think is right with the policy?

1. I grew up in the U.S. It wasn't until 7th grade and we were becoming teenagers that we had zeros - before that we had a qualitative system: "Excellent, satisfactory, unsatisfactory" (basically the equivalent of A, C, or F).
2. I think it makes no real difference. I can't imagine why it was motivated other than some attempt to put less psychological stress on young students, but an F is just as demoralizing as a zero - maybe moreso because if you are getting a zero, it's probably because you deliberately put no effort into the assignment at all, so you are less likely to care about your score, whereas a non-zero F could mean you tried (at least minimally) and weren't good enough.
3. Nothing particularly wrong with the policy, it's just equally arbitrary as any basic grading scale.
4. If it had any advantage, it would be in situations where the student has legitimate reasons for say, not submitting an assignment on time - something important kept them from doing so, or maybe they just are resistant to being in school - this gives them a little more chance to recover down the line if they so choose (if it works like I'm thinking). Of course, that doesn't solve the underlying problems that make those situations problems in the first place...

Now, I'm all for it, based on the fact that the no zero policy grades based on ability rather than behaviour. Public education isn't meant to teach behaviour, it's supposed to teach skills.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. How should one grading scale be taken to grade something different than another? Literally the only difference between this and another grading scale, if I'm understanding properly, is that the minimum grade is a non-zero F? There doesn't seem to be any inherent difference to what is being assessed there (and on top of that, I'd question the strong distinction you want to draw between 'behavior' and 'skills' in this context, but that's a separate issue).

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Advantages of a 0-Grade policy:

Teaches students that not doing your work counts for exactly 0.
Teaches the importance of at least giving any assignment given, no matter the difficulty, an effort.
Lets the school system know (potentially) which students are making an effort and which ones don't give a fuck.

Disadvantages:

Teachers who don't adhere to the system in a way that allows kids to grow and learn from their mistakes, e.g. teacher giving a student a 0 because he/she didn't complete the assignment "correctly" in which "correctly" is arbitrarily defined.

Basically thats the only bad thing I can think of in a 0-Grade policy, a bad or indifferent teacher who is unaware or uncaring that everyone has a different perspective and learning ability.


I don't feel its the grading system that is the problem, its that the system of education in the U.S. is too rigid and seems to want kids to fit into a specific mold and when they don't conform to a certain standard those kids get labeled as "problem children" or "learning disabled" despite some of them having above average IQ's and social adjustment issues. Also teachers don't get paid enough to care and I feel strongly that the other side of that issue is the whole "tenure" thing where a teacher can work x-amount of years and basically become un-fireable because of "tenure" allowing the teacher to fuck-off and collect a paycheck. I still think teachers should be paid by both experience and merit, not just simply years in the trenches.
There's a lot more wrong with the education system, but a way to start off is by allowing teachers to explore different methods of getting students interested in their education rather than forcing them to work by "standards" that hold some students back thereby bringing the education system down.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Count me among those who say it's mostly a cultural divide. Here in America, the right wing routinely denigrates the "academics" and "intelligentsia". They try to pry critical thinking from the curriculum because people keep arriving at the "wrong" conclusions whenever they think critically. It's a backwards approach leading us down the path of ignorance and ineptitude, and I'm not sure there's any way to pull us out of it. I mean you'd have to think and act critically and intelligently in order to solve the problem itself, so...

 

[dystopiaINC]

I Had a certain strain of this bullcrap in high school but it was only in the maths and sciences and they started it in my 3rd year by the 4th they wanted to expand it to English and I think history.

the basic Idea was you could get in all your work at any time but if you were missing to many assignments you got this f**king 'I' for Incomplete instead of your actual grade, and if you didn't get enough assignments turned it your grade wasn't counted at the end of the year. didn't matter if you just skipped out on the home work but passed all the tests with flying colors. I almost failed my 4 classes for late homework on subjects I went on to get A's on the tests.

The fact that homework is even part of your grade baffles me. Surely anyone can do your homework for you where as a test is under controlled conditions?

When i was at school (scotland) all of our grades where based on an exam at the end of the course which was under controlled conditions. Homework for us was just a way for the teacher to know that you have an understanding of what you were taught and where your weak points are

Well yes, we had work all year round, and got graded on all of it like this:

Mid terms/Finals = 10%
Homework/Classwork = 10%
Quizzes = 20%
Tests = 60%

for most teachers that's how they did grades. some had differing values but that was the most common. what the "I" system did was not factor that zero in the missing assignment so if you had 5 assignments and missed 4 but got a hundred on the one you turned in your grade was a hundred* but you got a big old 'I' and if you didn't get rid of it you were pretty well f**ked. Now for me that was bad because even if you gave me a flat zero on ALL of the homework I would still walk out of that class with a solid 90% more often than not because I just don't have the patience to do 100 math problems every night on something I'm not struggling with, and if I AM struggling with it getting through a hundred problems at home on my own would be an all night marathon that would kill me.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Well the thing is there has to be a consequence for not doing your work. In the real world if you don't do your job you get fired (unless you go into politics). Mollycoddling students with this policy is not going to adequately prepare them for the real world.