<story><title>Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021</title><url>http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/202105m.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>analog31</author><text>Playing devils advocate for a moment, as grading works right now, a kid can quickly dig themselves into a hole that they have no realistic way to get out of, e.g., by utterly bombing on an exam or missing a few assignments early in the semester. The motivation for that kid to progress any further is zero, yet they are imprisoned in the classroom for the duration of the semester.&lt;p&gt;This hits very close to home for me, and I&amp;#x27;ve read countless comments on HN from people who are successful in life yet angry and bitter about their K-12 experience.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know the answer to this, but meanwhile, messing with the way school works is not exactly messing with success.</text></item><item><author>fallingknife</author><text>&amp;gt; Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50%&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t understand school.  Why do they do things like this?  Who actually thinks this is a good idea?  I&amp;#x27;ve never met anyone who does. How have we gotten to the point where standards are not allowed?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>professoretc</author><text>&amp;gt; a kid can quickly dig themselves into a hole that they have no&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; realistic way to get out of, e.g., by utterly bombing on an exam&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; or missing a few assignments early in the semester.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. The authors of _Grading For Equity_ spoke at my school and the reasoning they gave for eliminating 0-grading (i.e., not using 0 as the lowest possible grade) was because it&amp;#x27;s basically impossible to recover from. Ideally, a student who masters the material by the end of class should get the &lt;i&gt;same&lt;/i&gt; grade as one who masters it at the beginning; being fast or slow shouldn&amp;#x27;t factor into your grade, but with 0-grading, like you say, an early test or assignment can tank your final grade, even if your &lt;i&gt;knowledge&lt;/i&gt; eventually catches up to what it should be.</text></comment>
<story><title>Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021</title><url>http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/202105m.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>analog31</author><text>Playing devils advocate for a moment, as grading works right now, a kid can quickly dig themselves into a hole that they have no realistic way to get out of, e.g., by utterly bombing on an exam or missing a few assignments early in the semester. The motivation for that kid to progress any further is zero, yet they are imprisoned in the classroom for the duration of the semester.&lt;p&gt;This hits very close to home for me, and I&amp;#x27;ve read countless comments on HN from people who are successful in life yet angry and bitter about their K-12 experience.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know the answer to this, but meanwhile, messing with the way school works is not exactly messing with success.</text></item><item><author>fallingknife</author><text>&amp;gt; Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50%&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t understand school.  Why do they do things like this?  Who actually thinks this is a good idea?  I&amp;#x27;ve never met anyone who does. How have we gotten to the point where standards are not allowed?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>6gvONxR4sf7o</author><text>Nothing is going to work while everything is paced by year. In 7th grade, in the fall you are taught X, so if you miss it the only solution is to take it next time: next fall with the next year’s 7th graders.&lt;p&gt;In an ideal infinitely funded world, if you took 20% longer to learn X, you’d just go slower, not be left behind.</text></comment>