The photo above is a teacher’s message to her students after being fired. I’m going to play devil’s advocate on this incident. Bear with me.
There’s good math behind the policy that no one receives less than 50% (thank you, Scott West). I adopted this practice myself for the last few years I taught. No one got less than 50%, and students who finally “got it” recovered faster from earlier failing grades. Were there a few who took advantage? Yes, maybe one or two over the years. (You will always have some.) Almost always, students who earned an F received one. Here’s where I differ: I did NOT give 50% for someone who handed in nothing. That remained a zero.
Schools receive funding based in part on how many students graduate. Failing grades cause students not to graduate. A grading policy of not giving grades lower than 50% will help students pass and graduate, and it will help the schools receive more funding. This policy is actually a logical move in the nightmarish assault on public education. It’s better for students (except the 50% for a zero part), and it’s better for schools.
And my final point. This incident as it’s being reported doesn’t make any sense. It looks like a tyrannical administrator fired a saintly teacher, but real life is seldom so black-and-white. We might want to consider that we don’t really know why this teacher was fired; we just know what she says. I want to stand with this teacher. But I also want more information about the situation.
This article suggests some of the complexity of the situation.