Thursday, May 13, 2010

Teacher sues school over grades : NO "F"

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2010/05/teacher_sues_school_over_grades.html

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've been teaching for twenty years too and the same thing occurred to me. Then surprisingly my principal told me I was not teaching 'higher order thinking skills' - this is after he sent me to a mandatory district training. He was going to give me lower evaluations. I asked him if I raised my standards I met be failing too many students - we were always told to stay below 30%. And he said to give them the grade they deserved. So first progress report I failed 80% of my students. I gave only open book tests, I gave the students as much time as they needed, I gave them more than one chance to take the test. I even lowered the grading scale so that more than 80% was an A. And then I waited it so 40% was participation, 40% journal writing, and 20% tests and quizzes. I still had around 75% of the students earn a D or F. I was given the worst performing students of the school - none of them could score above 25% on a standardized test. I did what my principal told me too - he wanted the power, so I gave it to him. Those students are now somebody else's problem and I have fewer students to teach. And our school lost a few teachers in the process, not to mention ADA.

The only solution is provide better curriculum.