Dallas (DISD) Policy Makes APS Gradegate Seem Trivial
I just finished reading a Dallas ISD Blog regarding their new grade policy. It is appalling, on so many levels, that a school district would subject teachers, students, parents, administrators, and a community to such a grade policy. It allows for work to be turned in after deadlines (Why bother having one?), tests to be re-taken for higher scores (Why not just take tests over and over and over and over until someone finally hits the mark? [Insert sarcasm]), no grade lower than a 50 to be given (Oh, heck, just give half the class a score of 150 and the other half a 50; that way, they’ll all average to 100, right? Or did I once fail math? No worries; I can still make change…) and teachers will be spending 90% of their time dealing with the lower 10% students (“I got a zero and then they called my parents and I was allowed to get a 50.”).
Here are the links:
Letter from Chief Academic Officer, Teaching and Learning, to Parents (Word file)
PK-12 Guidelines for Grading (PDF file)
It is widely known, within the world of management, that truly poor managers will spend 90% of their time trying to “performance manage” the 10% lower performers usually resulting in a poor result. It is also widely known that a (Good to…) Great manager will reverse that number and spend 90% of their time with their top 90% performers and achieve top results. The other 10% usually performance manages themselves out of a job, as long as the (Good to…) Great manager uses fair management practices and always, always creates and uses a paper trail.
I can totally see where one might think that giving a “failing” kid another chance might get or keep them engaged and might improve parent involvement. The DISD process certainly forces parents into the loop and holds them somewhat accountable for what is going on with their “failing” kids.
But what happens to the regular performers? What happens to the over-achieving, stellar performers? Where is their incentive? I don’t see one listed in any of those stories/policies.
It makes me wonder what the “drop-out” profile will look like in a few years under such a grading system. I can hear it now, “So what if I try? Nobody else does and look at their grades. They are still passing…”
I don’t really think that engaged kids will think that way because they aren’t thinking that way in the first place. But I do believe that this autocratic grading process will penalize all of us in a way that creates a certain 10% nation solution. I’m already working with high school grads that struggle to read. I don’t see how this grade policy will actually work to reinforce a love of learning. I see it as exactly the opposite with a side benefit of rewarding procrastination, apathy, and mediocrity. I also see teachers revolting under the weight of the creation of a police state within their profession. It’s bad enough they must deal with NCLB, AYP, and testing, testing, testing.
Kind of makes our lil’ ol’ GradeGate (subscription required) look trivial, eh? My take on GradeGate.
Hat tip to NewMexiKen. Thanks for the great link!
Yikes! I’ve been thinking all week that NCLB might be improved by either weighting the performance of some subgroups more or less or by allowing schools that have met AYP 3 (or some other number) years in a row to essentially ‘have a pass’ on the 90%. I was thinking that if the entire school met AYP for three years that maybe NOT setting the bar higher for the highest achieving students for a year or two (let’s say 90% of your students are meeting 90% of the standards and we say that for the next two or three years we aren’t going to ratchet that ever skyward) would allow schools to help the problem subgroups a little more.
Based on your argument, I need to rethink that. Of course, in the job market you can underperform yourself out of a job. We don’t want that to happen to kids in school (at least I think we don’t) which is why so much effort is expended on that bottom 10%.
Maybe there’s a middle ground. If you’ve got kids and parents who are trying and failing, they should be given more assistance than those who aren’t trying. If one or the other (kid or parent) is trying, they should be assisted as well…but it should be understood all around that there is a cost for not trying.
As far as the general gist of your post. I absolutely, violently agree. Lowering the bar to turn failure into mere mediocrity is not the answer.
Amber in Albuquerque
August 22, 2008
I’m now a Dallas ISD Computer Applications teacher working in the 4th year of a dropout prevention and student motivation project that costs only $2/student and has secured a 25% reduction in dropout rates for our 8th graders at Quintanilla Middle School.
The beauty of the program is that students set their own standard for performance, record it, and then eventually grade themselves.
It is a 10-year time-capsule and class reunion program that helps students focus onto their own futures. They write letters to themselves in the last weeks of 8th grade in Language Arts classes. They are sealed by the students into self-addressed envelopes which the students hold as they pose with their Language Arts class standing in front of the 350-pound vault bolted to the floor in our middle school lobby. After the photo they each place their letter onto the shelf for their class, one of 10 shelves inside the vault.
They know it will stay there until their 10-year class reunion when they return to celebrate and reclaim the letter. They know they will also be asked to speak with the then current 8th grade class about their recommendations for success. They are warned to prepare for questions such as ‘Would you do anything differently if you were 13 again?’
With such a focus on the future our students are staying in school in much greater numbers. They are motivated by their own personal goals, not by a project needing hundreds of thousands of tax dollars annually! This is real life!
We must no longer mis-lead ourselves as to the severity of the crisis our Dallas ISD students face. See http://www.studentmotivation.org for more details as to the School Archive Project as one solution. If donors can be located for the 350-pound vaults that are bolted to the floors in the school lobbys to function as the time-capsules, and for the $2/student expenses for running the project, it will help these School Archive Projects get started.
If we allow our students to set their own standards they will be beyond what we ourselves are setting. This is not related to any “grading policy.”
School Archive Projects are a low-budget solution to a monumental crisis Dallas ISD has been facing for years.
Bill Betzen
August 24, 2008