No Social Promotion = entire freshman classed held back

[don7031]

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2013/07/05/news/new_haven/doc51d623a9304b4310474542.txt

The school system set up a program where the students have to "master" all grade level material to progress to the next grade level. No more handing out D's when kids should be getting F's. They actually have to earn a passing grade in order to pass a class. What a concept!

[fivehundred2go]

Bet it "doesn't not nevert" "stood" up in "cort."

Lawyers - Sharpen your pencils!

[Davydd]

I don't know. If it is 100% failure maybe it is not the students. Statistically that shouldn't happen unless they are not getting the education they deserve.

[Gomer Simpson]

It is hard to imagine that not 1 out of 44 students excelled at their courses.

I would agree that the problem may not be the students, and the parents may well have a legitimate concern with the school.

Who knows, though. I only read the first page.

[TheAngryDwarf]

This is called standards based learning where I am live. If they are doing it correctly they should hardly have very few failures. The premises behind it is that you are grading each standard based on mastery level. If you do not master a target, you retrain and retest until you achieve mastery. If all kids failed it seems to me they are trying to apply this with a get it the first time or tough sh## attitude.

[Sea Fury]

If they are doing it correctly they should hardly have very few failures. The premises behind it is that you are grading each standard based on mastery level.

This is just a hunch, but I don't think you would have made it, either.

[Jsieczka]

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2...4310474542.txt

The school system set up a program where the students have to "master" all grade level material to progress to the next grade level. No more handing out D's when kids should be getting F's. They actually have to earn a passing grade in order to pass a class. What a concept!

Thats not what mastery teaching is.

What they are doing really does work with small groups that have the same average abilities when the abilities are farther apart things fall apart. How it works is on day 1 all students start at the same point lesson 1, they take a test that 45 out of 50 pass. On day to 45 students are studying lesson 2 while the others are on lesson 1a, at the end of the day another test is taken 41 in lesson 2 pass, 4 in lesson 1 pass. On day 3 you now have 41 in lesson 3, 4 in lesson 2a, 4 in lesson 2 and 1 in lesson 1c. This continues this way till teachers basically give up trying to juggle everything and give up on the back markers and/or slow the progress of the top group.

[Frank Capua]

Have they run any tests... Maybe it's something in their water?

[Jamski]

This is just a hunch, but I don't think you would have made it, either.

Well played, good Sir. Well played.

[TheAngryDwarf]

This is just a hunch, but I don't think you would have made it, either.

Maybe not But I can tell you this. The U.S. Armed Forces does this far more than some want to let on. It's called recycle. There is a reason I got a four day weekend at one school I attended. I picked up on land navigation and passed it first go around. While I was on a beach throwing down some beer in Panama City the others were going through remedial and retesting. In fact, those that didn't get it the second time were still retraining and retesting until the period for that instruction ended. No one failed.

Switch mastery teaching to sports. You got a kid who just exactly isn't getting the proper blocking techniques down. You place him on the bench and keep retraining him. He finally gets it mid season and starts performing better than some of the starters. You put him in a game and he out performs everyone else. Some people are slower at catching on but once they get it, they got it, it just might take longer for them to get it. Sometimes those who took longer getting it end up being your top performers because they work so damned hard to get it. I've seen it in the Army, I've seen it coaching, and I have close family who teach that have seen it. Should a kid get failed because he/she doesn't get it the first go around? I wasn't perfect in everything nor do I think everyone else is either.

[TheAngryDwarf]

Thats not what mastery teaching is.

What they are doing really does work with small groups that have the same average abilities when the abilities are farther apart things fall apart. How it works is on day 1 all students start at the same point lesson 1, they take a test that 45 out of 50 pass. On day to 45 students are studying lesson 2 while the others are on lesson 1a, at the end of the day another test is taken 41 in lesson 2 pass, 4 in lesson 1 pass. On day 3 you now have 41 in lesson 3, 4 in lesson 2a, 4 in lesson 2 and 1 in lesson 1c. This continues this way till teachers basically give up trying to juggle everything and give up on the back markers and/or slow the progress of the top group.

You can do mastery teaching without slowing the rest down or the teacher giving up. I know of more than a few that are successfully doing this at the moment.

[Antoneli]

Why the hell can't kids just go to normal school anymore??

[don7031]

^ Because social promotion and zero tolerance have created schools that are failing to adequately educate our youth.

The school in question went from a "normal" school to one where the students had to learn and the teachers had to teach and they couldn't do it.

[FTHurley]

Why the hell can't kids just go to normal school anymore??

What constitutes normal varies based on where you live. When my wife was going into her freshman year of high school, her family was considering moving from about 90 minutes north of NYC (somewhere near Poughkeepsie, for those who know the area) to somewhere way up by the Finger Lakes. She would have left a school with excellent honors-level classes, a strong math and science program, and the option to take classes your senior year at a local community college, for one that had none of that. Not even honors or AP classes. Zip. The school system ended up being one of several reasons they called off the move. She ended up going to Dartmouth, so it looks to have been the right call. That said, both of those were "normal" schools that to a mid-level student likely would have been identical. And yet, two graduates who both ended up at the same college would not have been equally ready, through no significant fault of either student.

Normal is highly variable in America, and for a great many things.