Some of you may have heard or read somewhere that schools are using innovative policies to reduce the number of D’s and F’s that students are earning, all the while increasing the graduation rates that go along with the numeric manipulations. Though there are different types of policies that school boards are passing in order to decrease the number of failing students, as opposed to having students earn their way to a passing grade through what are already watered-down curricula, the one that seems to be the favorite of administrations across many school districts is that of the minimum 50% policy, though the quintile policy (40% – 60% = C) is not too far behind; just wait until they realize they can put the two together and no one will ever again fail a class.
Administration would like you to believe that this has everything to do with “students first.” They will pretend that their concern is to make sure that students will never be more than 10% behind passing, so as not to discourage them from getting those credits needed to graduate. Let me preempt this by saying that I know plenty of teachers who rarely, if ever, have students who do their homework, ask questions, and don’t bury themselves in their phone during class time, who are more than 10% from a passing grade at any given time.
For starters, the board and administration for my district already do enough bragging about the high school’s 98% graduation rate without the use of the policy. So the excuse that students might not earn their credits to graduate is nothing more than a means to justify the passing of their policies. They want to be able to gloat that the high school is the first in the area to achieve that elusive 100% graduation rate, without any real explanation as to how that rate is achieved (hint: online-credit recovery classes for seniors with a couple weeks left in the school year does help).
The best argument that was given in regards to the policy from administration was that of, “An F is an F”. This is a typical, tautological response from both administrators and teachers alike; none of which could cite one study or come up with a cogent thought of their own as to why they support this type of policy. It’s as if those who got together—meaning administration and those handpicked, sycophantic teachers who will agree with any and all policies that they suggest—agreed on what response should be given to those who question the policy.
At some point, after asking the assistant superintendent in charge of curriculum—via email—as to what the ramifications would be for those of us who would not be utilizing the “suggested” grading policy, I received a personal visit from said person to discuss it. The answer she gave me was pretty much the same: since and F is an F, any student who does nothing all semester would never be more than 10% behind; this policy would deter those students from just giving up. When I asked how students who earn 50% would react when their neighbor who did nothing received the same percentage on the handed-back assignment, I was told that I can write a different letter grade on the assignment, but that I should record the 50% for both students in the grade book… seriously!
Games of numeric manipulation have nothing to do with actually putting students first. Instead of addressing the deeper problems, they offer parlor tricks in order to decrease the number of D’s and F’s, increase the graduation rate, and send more unprepared students off to college. These “increases in numbers” are put into graphical form, bragged about, and used to impress the board at a monthly board meeting… and, of course added to their administrative portfolio to make themselves look good at their next job interview.
Yes, manipulation like this does help to boost the graduation rate, but what administration fails to see is that many parents can see right through what the high-paid administration is trying to do. With a near 100% graduation rate, enrollment is the lowest it’s ever been in my near 20 years of service at my site, as well as many other school districts in the area that are also having a steady decline in enrollment. When many of the students included in these graduating classes can barely do 6th-grade arithmetic or read at the 7th-grade level, parents—with very few exceptions—are more than willing to send their kids to another school that may have a lower graduation rate, but will actually do more for them in terms of getting an actual education. They realize that administration is doing nothing more than using the their kids as a data point to boast about the number of students who are graduating; those being sent off to college who will end up having to take “remedial” courses (at their own cost) to make up for what their diploma traditionally has represented they know in the first place.
Much like those students that go out of their way to do as little work as possible, all the while trying to find the fast solution to a problem, school districts, more specifically those that employ your typical, revolving-door administrator, use ruses such as these in order to get a quick uptick in some data point in as short amount of time as possible. Their main concern—admittedly or not—is to increase the enrollment, or to pad their résumé so as to ascend the administrative ladder once their one-to-three year stay at their current site comes to an end.