This will be a surprise to anyone around my age: grade floors.
When I was a kid, that was 0% but not any more. In some places, the worst you can get is a “D” for doing nothing.
The supposed purpose is to give hope. Yet it’s shortsighted, giving an unearned grade for failing work.
It also gives parents an unrealistic expectation about their kids’ knowledge.
And parents wonder why their “B” students are having to take remedial English and Math in college.
Failing grades deprive students of hope,” argues Marlena Little, a Memphis teacher. Her fifth graders are two or more years below grade level, she writes. “Without a grading floor, all of my current students would have grades below a 65 percent.”
Grade floors are a“short-sighted solution to a larger issue,” writes Natalie McKinney, who runs a Memphis nonprofit, Whole Child Strategies, Inc. “Obtaining an unearned grade only provides a misleading indication of a child’s growth.”
This matters because our students depend on us to ensure they will be prepared for opportunities after high school. To do this, our students must possess, at the very least, a foundation in reading, writing and arithmetic. If we mask real academic issues with grade floors year after year, we risk missing a chance to hold everyone — community, parents, the school board, district administration, school leaders, teachers, and students — accountable for rectifying the issue.
. . . An accurate grade helps the teacher, parents, and district appropriately respond to the needs of the student. And true compassion lies in how we respond to a student’s F. It should act as an alarm, triggering access to additional work, other intervention from the teacher or school, or the use of agrade recovery program.
Little also wants parents to know the truth about their children’s achievement level by coupling a grade floor “with information that accurately highlights where a student is, both within the district and nationally.”
Via Joanne Jacobs