Chicago schools GPAs improving?

[JB White]

Kind of easy to do now that they lowered the percentiles. 90% now gets you an A. 64% is a D but passing. The value of that A remains the same on the reports though. More kids are now qualified for college in spite of being dumbed down. WTF?

I had a rough time in a subject and scored a 67.98 on a final. That two 100th's of a percent forced me into summer school with a big fat F on my record. Oh my...my self esteem has suffered ever since

[S.A. Boggs]

The SAS is considering lowering standards to permit females to join.
Sam

[Vern Humphrey]

Having a couple of graduate degrees in Education, and having many years developing and conducting training in the military and industry, I ask "What is an A?"

You may say, "Well, 90% is an A."

And I say, "Ninety percent of WHAT?" Most teachers develop their own tests, so how can a 90% on a test developed in California be the same as 90% on a test developed in Florida?

And how were the tests validated? How do we know that the test accurately represents what the student is supposed to learn?

The whole grading system is bogus.

[bruce]

Suppose some have a hard time believing anything can improve in Chicago. Like anything else, there will be changes. Some improvements. It's like that at any school. In any normal school, 90% is an A, 80% is a B, 70% is a C, not sure about D's... maybe 65%. Have had some clowns who insisted on using the "curve." They wanted to pretend that their idea of normal was normal. Bull. Man makes a 90 or better ... he made an A. Doesn't matter what others scored. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

[leftyo]

must have been thought up by a democrap. just because you moved the bar lower, the stupid kids didnt suddenly get smarter!

[clintonhater]

Remember Garrison Keillor's old joke about a fictional place where the kids were "all above average"?

No longer a joke, it's reality: http://www.gradeinflation.com/

[jaie5070]

Makes me remember 6th grade back in the early 70's. My main teacher for home room and english and something else was an old school english teacher. Everything we did for other subjects and turned in, was graded for english and writing. He was a task master and a PITA for me. Looking back, I learned more from him than most of my teachers. Wish they all had been more like him.
john

[JB White]

Perhaps I should elaborate a bit further? I was at a dinner last night (Carpenters Union) and had many fellow alumni at my table.
In 1970 I entered an all-male technical school with a student body of 4000+ in any given year. Courses were tough. As a freshman I was carrying books which were equivalent to what the seniors were studying from at our local school. PE was hard. Designed to prepare us for military duty. Working as a team. Depending upon your teammates to CYA and you theirs. They inflicted pain and pushed us further. Taught us how to work together and not bitch about tiny bruises, scrapes, and soreness. Keep moving until the task is complete.

In 1972 the government forced them to go co-ed. After all, females should be entitled to the same education as males. Right? Well at first but they saw half the courses as "boy stuff" so the Board of Ed powder puffed the curriculum. Our coaches taught us defensive driving on weekends. It was extracurricular, no grades issued, but it frightened some girls and weenie mama's boys. Activity closed immediately.

95 was an A. It was 96 in some instructors classes. That was too tough I guess. Instead of manning up to make the grade they catered to whining and sniveling. Manning up, earning respect to gain self esteem is now considered discriminatory. WTF...

No longer is a diploma from that school recognized as an associate degree. I took advantage of that privilege early on at two separate occasions, and even had a job prerequisite of a degree in mechanical and structural engineering waived so I could have the position.
The school is still considered tough to get into (unless you're filling a minority quota) and has been relabeled 'college prep'. Hence the need to have more students accepted by more colleges. I noticed many of the students I have spoken to seem to be all rose colored glasses preppie and millennial types. If their air-head isn't up their bleeding heart liberal @$$ it's only because their nose is attached to a game controller.

It sucks to see a century of tradition and excellence sucked down the tubes of political correctness.

BTW, We even have a social club which disallows anyone entering after the 1971 school year. shhhh... that's another reason I haven't named it.

PS. There are still some great kids there who I think are more than worthy to wear the school colors. Boys and girls alike. Some real talent. Too bad there are so many...punks and wussies.

[S.A. Boggs]

When I was in college [pre-computer and net] I had a history professor who was fair but tough. We had 4 exams of 10 questions each + the bonus question which was given at the beginning of the course. If you answered all 10 questions correctly [essay] this was a B, to get an A you answered the bonus question. History is my favorite thing to read about so I did well.
Sam

[Mark in Ottawa]

Back in the early 60's we had 5 years of high school in Ontario. Identical final exams in grade 13 were written on the same day across the province and were marked centrally in Toronto. You did not put your name on the exam paper but placed it in a sealed envelope with a code number so that they were marked anonymously. To get into university you needed to pass 9 exams with at least 65% for arts and 70% for engineering. First class honours was 75% on 8 exams. If you got 80% on 8 exams you automatically won a provincial scholarship that was big enough to pay for your first year of an arts course, but not for an engineering course which was a lot more expensive. I went to a very good downtown Toronto high school, one in which several of my teachers had authored the text books that were used across the province and in which teaching excellence was the norm. In a typical year only four or five students won provincial scholarships. Just after I graduated we got a new provincial minister of education who decided that this system was just too onerous and he dropped the province wide exams in favour of local exams. To nobody's surprise the number of provincial scholarships tripled and the dumbing down of the education system commenced. As in Chicago, a 90% mark is now pretty routine and parents expect that sort of mark or the teachers get yelled at. My wife taught high school for 30 years and has often expressed the view that the kids in high school now are at least a year behind the kids that we went to school with, both in education and in maturity.

[RED]

Suppose some have a hard time believing anything can improve in Chicago. Like anything else, there will be changes. Some improvements. It's like that at any school. In any normal school, 90% is an A, 80% is a B, 70% is a C, not sure about D's... maybe 65%. Have had some clowns who insisted on using the "curve." They wanted to pretend that their idea of normal was normal. Bull. Man makes a 90 or better ... he made an A. Doesn't matter what others scored. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

Come on Bruce that is hog wash. What if everybody gets 100% Does that prove the entire class are geniuses? Today there are classes that everybody gets an A and nobody ever flunks. That is bogus and detrimental to those students that study and do their assignments. How would you feel if some dude went to class on the first day of school and skipped every class until the final and still got an A, while you spent a hundred hours in class and studying and you get the same grade.

My grand daughter is a teacher. When she did her student teaching assignment there was another student teacher that was habitually late, never prepared, and walked out of his class saying "I can't do this." The school they were assigned to gave him a firm F grade. The college refused and insisted he get the same grade as the oteer student teachers.

Then there are (were?) "programmed" texts where the students were given a test the first day and the same test was the final exam. All the student had to do was study the test questions with no real understanding of the subject at hand. Grades are very important and and used to mean something now they are given out like gold stars in Sunday school.

[bruce]

If everone gets 100%, they made A's. It's that simple. IF the teacher/administration is not happy, they just need to review what they consider appropriate questions/answers. Now, on stuff like history, English, literature, art, etc., opinions may sway a answer. But, that is not the case in subjects like language, math, science, etc.

Some folks will always be able to master material that leaves others struggling. I had virtually straight A's in Hebrew and Greek. That did not mean the material was to easy. It simply meant that not everyone struggles at the same rate on the same things. In one Hebrew class of 33 students, a total of 7 passed. The rest flunked. Of the seven, one got an A. I'm not sure of the other grades. The following years in a different Hebrew class, IIRC, there were 35 students of which I was one. There were IIRC 4 who failed to finish/flunked. The rest passed with at least a 78 average (lowest "C" grade). I very much doubt the men in that second class were all gifted genius level Hebrew students. We all were paying the same tuition, fees, etc. It would have been the height of lunacy to use some sort of curve to grade resulting in people getting dumbed down grades whose work was fully equal to that of those who just happened to hit a bit higher on the scale, especially when those students were all scoring well within the range for A level work. It would have been just as crazy to take the first class and using a curve give people passing grades when their work was simply not passing quality. Will say, in taking Greek, everything seemed a bit easier. This was not merely my opinion. A lot of my friends were of the same opinion. We started with Hebrew and then did Greek.

Would not contradict your statements regarding the experience of your grand daughter. I have no experience in teaching. Will say that teachers who fail to perform do not last. My daughter did well in colleges, honors, etc. Upon graduation, she was hired to teach math/science at the elementary level. She now works with Title I children. The results she has produced in her classes have been remarkable. Other teachers hired with her have not lasted. Doubtless there are colleges that will simply pass people through. In the workplace, those folks have to stand on their own two feet. Tough if they haven't yet learned how to crawl.

Have had classes where we were clearly told exactly and precisely what we would be responsible to master by the end of the course. There was never any doubt as to the consequences of failing to master material. Those who wanted to could jump on the material and proceed at their own pace. Come the end of the course, you had to be able to prove you know what you were talking about. Merely memorizing and spitting back paragraphs from various texts was of no consequence. Got no problem with requirements being spelled out in detail. Always liked it. Made it possible to get a real jump on things early in the semester. Come mid-terms and finals ... you had to be able to perform. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

[PaFrank]

It's all our fault.... Its the way the tests are worded!! Slanted towards the "ruling majority"!

To correct this, (in Chicago), one of the math problems has been reworded to this.....

(deprived minority name here) has an AK-47 with three 30 shot magazines, If he does 4 gang drive by hits, firing 13 round per drive by, How many shots does he have left to fight it out with the Po-lice?

[JB White]

Whatchu be sayin'? Aint nobody gots that many finga's!