The Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children is calling a community meeting for Thursday to complain about "the inaction of" the Wake County school board's student achievement committee.
In a Tuesday night press release, CCCAAC calls it an "an inexcusable dereliction of duty" that the student achievement committee hasn't met for a year. The standing committees were suspended by the Republican board majority but have been restored by the new Democratic majority.
The CCCAAC specifically focuses on how the grading policy has been put on hold. The CCCAAC charges that putting the policy on hold "has resulted in our children being retained at alarming rates and failing courses that are needed for graduation."
As part of what staff called an effort to make sure that grades reflect mastery of material and not behavior, changes had been proposed such as:
* Removing behavior from the academic grades.
* Reducing how much homework can be counted for the academic grade – from 15 percent to 10 percent per marking period – in grades 6-12.
* "Homework for practice" can't be included in the academic grade. But "homework for evaluation" can be used.
* Prohibiting K-12 teachers from handing out extra credit.
* Requiring teachers to allow students to have up to five days to hand in late assignments with the penalty capped at 10 percent.
* Requiring that higher scores on retests replace the original exam grades.
The CCCAAC has been a big advocate of the grading changes.
When some school board members balked in August, it was put on hold.
Here's the CCCAAC press release:
For Immediate Release
The Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African American Children believes that the inaction of the WCPSS Student Achievement Committee is a major contributing factor in the failing of our students. As elected officials, school board members have the primary responsibility to ensure that all children receive equal educational opportunities. Student Achievement committee meetings have been delayed for over a year, an inexcusable dereliction of duty that is gravely impacting our children’s future.
The CCCAAC believes that “grades” determine our children future by affecting graduation rates, promotion, and college admission and scholarship opportunities for our children. Putting the “New Grading Policy” on hold for a year has resulted in our children being retained at alarming rates and failing courses that are needed for graduation. A community meeting will be held on Thursday, May 3rd, 6:30-8:00 p.m. at Martin Street Baptist Church, 1001 East Martin Martin Street, Corner of State and Martin Street, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Comments
I don't see how any of this
Thu, 05/03/2012 - 08:59 — tropicalgirlI don't see how any of this would prepare a child to succeed in the real world. Unless you have a legitimate excuse, not turning in an assignment on time is unacceptable. Being able to be up to 5 days late with a penalty capped at 10 percent does nothing to teach the discipline and good work habits that kids will need in the future. Reducing how much homework can be counted also seems to be a dumbing down of the system - homework again teaches children to manage their time and take initiative and now we're going to say it's not that big a deal?
And don't get me started on disconnecting behavior from grading. In the real world, you can be an absolute star at your job but odds are you may lose that job for insubordination or disregarding office policies.
We should be doing more to get all children ready for what will probably continue to be a challenging economy in a very competitive future - the ones who can behave, deliver on time, and take initiative will do the best at their chosen fields.
Success in the real world. . .
Thu, 05/03/2012 - 12:08 — garnergradPreparing children to succeed in the real world is not the goal. The goal is the high school diploma, not the learning that a diploma supposedly represents.
I am totally with everything you've said tropicalgirl. But, look at the goal. The goal is not to teach academic behaviors. The goal is to not penalize kids who have not learned academic behavior, (because it isn't their fault they haven't learned it).
It comes down to getting grades to match EOG scores (and of course the achievement gap). Read E&R Report No. 09.39 from March 2010, about the relationship between high school course grades and exam scores. The gist is that some kids pass the EOC and fail the course, others pass the course but fail the exam. The conclusion talks about a "hidden curriculum" that might explain this. Behavior explains the difference, therefore, we can't grade behavior.
To my way of thinking, being really clear about teaching the correct academic behaviors would be a better solution. Unfortunately, behavior isn't on the EOC. The powers that be have decided that not grading behavior is more effective than explicitly teaching academic behaviors. Student accountablility doesn't seem to enter into it. I haven't gotten a really good explaination about how or why, I just keep hearing that grading behavior separately according to some as yet unexplained rubric will absolutely work better!
...
Thu, 05/03/2012 - 06:53 — SideburnsPutting the “New Grading Policy” on hold for a year has resulted in our children being retained at alarming rates and failing courses that are needed for graduation.
Is Calla suggesting that changing the policy will magically decrease retention and improve passing rates?
There is much more to this Standards Based Grading. Our BAC had two discussions about it over the past 2 years. Rather than reviewing the 1, 2, 3, 3*, 4 scale at elementary (which WCPSS has never done), the push was to bring a similar grading scale to our middle and high schools.
...
Thu, 05/03/2012 - 08:46 — garnergradI thought they did review Standards Based Grading long ago and it matched up better with EOG scores than the traditional A-F scale did. (Well, it matched better at the low end, for level 4 not so much.)
If the objective is to get grading to match up with EOG/EOC scores because you think the standardized tests measure everything you need to know, then the proposed new grading policy probably works. If you think education is about learning content AND learning the skills and behavior that make life-long learning possible, then the new grading policy has limited utility.
Or maybe it really is all about the pass rates.
I think this misses the heart of what is wrong
Wed, 05/02/2012 - 20:03 — snordonewith our system where African American children and low income children are concerned. Outside of the Title I schools there is little understanding of lack of resources and why some kids can do extra credit and some can't. I know that Calla's intentions are good but banning extra credit won't solve the problem.
Last year the kids I was working with in SE Raleigh were given the assignment of doing a 3rd grade science project outside of class - at home. This was NOT extra credit, this is part of their 3rd grade curriculum. It required the purchase of a trifold poster board and supplies to make the poster and do the project. No supplies were given, no in school help was given. These families don't have 50 dollars to spend at Michaels nor the transportation to get there.
We did it with them in our after school program and provided the resources. The day they were due the kids met me in the office to pick up their posters (I did not want them to take them on the bus) and they were crazy proud to show off their work.
Children don't want to fail, we force them to fail. Changing the grading policy won't help this, it will just piss off high income parents. We need equity in the classroom and we need to understand that ALL children want to succeed.
I agree
Thu, 05/03/2012 - 20:42 — turnerk1I think the goal of trying to de-emphasize homework is to make sure that kids who don't have support at home (for whatever reason) are not unduly penalized for not doing their homework. I think this is especially important in the elementary school years when it is unreasonable to expect a 3rd grader who doesn't have parental help to do a project that requires arts and crafts materials and research at home by themselves. When my older kids were in ES, teachers could not assign projects like what you are describing for this very reason. Big projects were always done at school, and homework was confined to simpler things that a child could do by themselves. The trick is finding a way to gradually put homework back into the picture as the students get older and parental support isn't as crucial.
A problem...
Fri, 05/04/2012 - 10:20 — Bob_SconceSo, basically, this is penalizing the students who do have support at home in favor of kids who don't. That's a recipe for chasing supportive families out of the school district.
I'd prefer a solution closer to Shelia's: get after-school programs in place to provide some support when it's missing.
penalize?
Fri, 05/04/2012 - 16:35 — turnerk1How does it penalize a student with support at home to do a project at school with teacher supervision? Personally, I loved not having to run all over town to get supplies, fight with the son who hated doing project, or calm down the daughter that wanted to spend 4 hours a day on hers so that it would perfect.
Because
Sat, 05/05/2012 - 11:17 — Bob_SconceThat 'doing a project at school with teacher supervision' is in lieu of other activities that would have happened during that time.
Consider it this way: Option A "Teacher introduces project, gives rubric to students, moves on to teach multiplication for next hour." Option B "Teacher introduces project, gives rubric to students, spends next hour helping students with project." Something's missing from Option B.
Sure, Option B also have the benefits you cite. But, there are lots of parents who would choose option A anyway because it means that their kids get more in-school instruction, which they value more than not having to deal with doing projects at home.
[Note: some projects seem to have very little pedantic value. Those projects should just be dropped altogether.]
projects
Sun, 05/06/2012 - 20:40 — turnerk1But in elementary school, one of the main reasons for doing a project is learning HOW to do a project. How does one budget one's time? What do the instructions in a rubric really mean when it is more complicated than "read this story?" What do I do when I get stuck? and on and on. If a project is well-designed and thoughtful, the process of doing the project should teach a student far more than an hour lecture on multiplication ever could. Not only in learning the process of how to do the project, but also in the many different content areas that a good project will touch upon.
some projects ... A HS
Sat, 05/05/2012 - 11:49 — loriacsome projects ...
A HS English teacher assigned a project, detailed rubric. My son is not in the least bit artistic, but he followed the rubric and had all the elements included in this 'English' project. Was it pretty and decorated as much as some of the girls' projects? Of course not, and I didn't want to step in and make it look like his Mom did it for him. He got a poor grade because it wasn't artistic enough .... on an English project! Talk about a dumb project and dumb grading.
Yup...
Sat, 05/05/2012 - 18:16 — Bob_SconceThat would have gotten a call to the teacher from me: "You gave them the rubric. He followed the rubric. Under the rubric, he deserved grade X, but you gave grade Y. What gives?" I generally dislike questioning a teacher's grading decisions -- kids need to get used to people who act arbitrarily, even if it's a teacher. But, sometimes, an intervention just has to happen.
I agree
Sat, 05/05/2012 - 15:18 — lferreriI remember those projects. This is especially unfair when it's a high school English class. I often found these kinds of projects to be fairly content-weak too. It isn't as if there aren't plenty of content-rich activities the students could be doing.
Ditto...
Fri, 05/04/2012 - 09:11 — JSBinNCWhen I questioned the homework (or lack of) at our ES, this was exactly the reason cited. It has gradually increased up from 3-5th grade, incremental steps, higher expectations, but still lots of support... I understand the reasons, but at the same time - worry that when the kids land in 6th grade and all of a sudden are faced with multiple teachers/assignments all needing attention - if they haven't been granted chances in the past to (learn how...) prioritize and manage time, it gets overwhelming to them.
$50 at Michaels? Really?
Thu, 05/03/2012 - 08:53 — garnergradMy kids never seem to need anything more than 2 for a dollar poster board and access to the recycle bin for projects. And shoeboxes. Maybe they're just doing it wrong.
think about what you have at home
Thu, 05/03/2012 - 13:25 — snordoneand then start from scratch. I paid for it, not the afterschool program because we did not have any money.
Of course it misses the heart of what is wrong
Wed, 05/02/2012 - 21:50 — FSandYOUAs this whack job group always does.
I don't even know where to
Wed, 05/02/2012 - 19:13 — spiffy1I don't even know where to begin on this one; We want to have this low of standards and expect kids to succeed in the real world? If you don't turn in work..you should be penalized (minus excused absence--i.e.,sick, death in family); And a 0 is what you deserve if you don't do it. Penalty capped at 10 percent. Really?
No extra credit? Don't even know where to start on this one.
Requiring higher grades on retakes to take the place of the original exam?
What ever happened to being held accountable for your actions, the quality of work you do period..end of discussion? I can only imagine these kids going to college and saying to their professor that they'd like a redo and have that better grade replace the other one. Or better yet, going into the workplace and messing up big time on a project and coming back with can I have a redo? In the private sector, this would not fly and it should not fly in the public either.
We need to be raising the bars not lowering them. While we are at it, can we get rid of the 1, 2, 3, 4 grading system in Elementary. Let's bring back the A, B, C, D, F that takes out the subjective grading that is now occurring. When you can have kids getting perfect or close to it on tests and other work and receive the same as someone that misses half of the test and does not turn in work.
I agree with you on this
Wed, 05/02/2012 - 19:43 — RWTI agree with you on this one;however, I like the idea of 6th grade serving as training for 7-12. Perhaps the supports should be there in 6th and then removed gradually each quarter, with the teachers emphasizing the grade they would have gotten if NHI=0 and there were no retests.
I agree that they do need to return to, or better yet, layer on objective grading in elementary school, especially beginning in third grade. I'd like to know if that 3* is A or B level work!
What's wrong with extra credit?
Wed, 05/02/2012 - 18:11 — RWTIf it's available to everyone with sufficient fanfare that everyone knows about it, then what is wrong with it? The other parts of the policy I can understand. Our middle school's grading policy includes most of those suggestions. they even average in of 60s instead of 0s for homework that is never handed in.
The idea behind banning
Wed, 05/02/2012 - 19:20 — KeungHui (author)The idea behind banning extra credit is that it's not universally applied. Teachers in the same sibject might not all offer extra credit or they might offer it differently. The idea is that the student would get the same grade regardless of the teacher.
Universal?
Wed, 05/02/2012 - 19:37 — RWTEvery teacher has a different way of designing assessments. You might get a teacher who's all into creativity and projects and another who's strictly into worksheets and short essays. Even the same teacher will teach the same subject differently in different periods in response to the needs and enthusiasm of that particular class. Banning extra credit seems like it actually removes a tool for success in an attempt to equalize something that cannot be equalized.
extra credit
Wed, 05/02/2012 - 19:45 — turnerk1A good homework assignment can help children reinforce lessons they are learning in school and deepen their understanding of a topic. Extra credit rarely does this, and is too often just a way to inflate grades for students who would not be in grade trouble to begin with if they had just done the work when it was assigned. Especially when too much extra credit is offered, it can rob kids of the chance to actually learn something, while at the same time distorting their grades to make it look like they mastered material they actually don't know.