More PBE Idiocy
Labels: 9 Kinds of Stupid, Can't Make This up, HIPster, PBE
My school is implementing Proficiency - Based education this year. (Some people call it Standards-Based Grading)
We're behind the curve; the State of Vermont has decreed that ALL schools in Vermont will be using PBE so that the Class of 2020 will have had four years of PBE by the time they graduate. That's this year's sophomores.
Yes, that means we're a year behind. Our school's faculty made the decision last May to push forward with this initiative against the wishes of the SU -- we didn't want to wait two more years to begin, putting us three years late according to the directive from the State.
Our reasoning was that, if this is truly a Good Thing, then why should we wait to put it into place?
But our supervisory office and it's IT staff are hopelessly unready. Incompetent isn't a unfair characterization. They have no transcript format ready to go, no sense of how to ascertain academic ineligibility, etc.
So we faculty are doing it for them and fighting against their bad decisions the whole time.
Faculty: "Don't average proficiencies. In fact, don't even think of them as percentages."
"Hold my beer," they said.
Faculty: "Wait, you shouldn't do that ... and what's with the gaps between the levels? .... and what's with 'Not Attempted' being 0% to 15%?"
SU: "Uh, we don't know, and we don't know how to change it."
Faculty: "If you insist we keep percentages AND that they must average, would you at least fix the gaps?"
SU: "Uh, we don't know how to change it."
SU: "Uh, leadership team needs to make that decision."
SU: "Uh, it's your fault for moving too quickly."
Faculty: sigh.
SU: "Uh, you know there's two different scales, right?"
Faculty: "Wait, what? That's ridiculous, and wrong on so many levels. No one would do anything that stupid."
SU: "Yeah, check this out. Hold my beer."
Faculty: "Okay, so the percentages are the same but why is it called Approaching in this scale and 'Nearly' in the other?"
SU: "We thought it would be fun to change it two days before school starts, but not everywhere. You'll randomly see one or the other."
Faculty: "Whaaaat?"
Faculty: "By the way, if I enter a 3 out of 4, I get an NP. It should be Four Levels means One thru Four, but it isn't working that way. Please explain that."
SU: "Uh, we don't know what you're talking about and we don't know how to change it."
SU: "But, we just figured out that if you use a 5-point scale, and enter a 4 out of 5, then you'll get proficient. Think of it as a feature."
Faculty: "You went out of your way and insisting that it was four levels, not five. Would you please get it straight?"
SU: "BTW, did we mention there's a third scale? Check this out!"
Faculty: "WTF is with those percentages changes?"
Faculty: "If I enter a 3 out of 4, I get an NP again. Please explain that. While you're at it, why is 'Emerging' now 0%-50% instead of the 15%-45%?"
SU: "Uh, we don't know what you're talking about and we don't know how to change it, but all three are active in your gradebook at the same time."
Faculty" "Are you serious?"
SU: "Yep. We're kinda proud of all the work we've done."
Faculty: "It's been all different, the kids and parents are fuming, and we're going back over everything and rescoring everything to make things consistent. THIS HAS NOT BEEN HELPFUL."
SU: "Don't be ungrateful ... BTW, you know how you asked that all of the Common Core State Standards for math be put into the gradebook?"
Faculty: "(Nervously) Um, yeah?"
SU: "We changed the names of each one of them."
Faculty: "Keep your goddamn beer."
Posted by Curmudgeon at Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Ricochet September 24, 2017 at 10:34 AM
My very favorite answer to this is . . . I will be retired before Georgia decides to jump on the bandwagon and see how much better they can screw it up. Sorry for your pain.
Don't Average Proficieny-Based Grades
The Students You Have