Comments on: Improving Schools: A Job for Parents, Not Bureaucrats

By: Wendy Laubach

Wendy Laubach — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:46:53 +0000

First, hats off to Bill and Parent for sensible posts on the broader issues in education.

Back to the narrower issue of grade scales: my high school in Houston, Texas, used number grades on tests then converted them to letter grades for the semester (93-100 = A and so on), then assigned numbers to the letters (4.0 = A). But students in accelerated classes got 4.4 for an A, to reflect the extra effort. Then students were ranked from 1 through 800 or whatever the student body was — except that for some reason everyone with a 4.0 or above, and there were several dozen, was automatically considered “number 1″ equally.

The system may have been a little crazy, but the school had a good reputation, so the kids with high GPAs had little difficulty with college admissions. The colleges seemed able to determine which GPAs meant something and which didn’t. And of course there were always SAT scores and AP test results to help the colleges interpret the GPAs.

By: bobby b

bobby b — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:22:14 +0000

“Empathize.”

Not “emphasize.”

Coffee. Need more coffee . . .

By: WWTSS? (what would thomas sowell say?)

WWTSS? (what would thomas sowell say?) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:45:10 +0000

A quick couple of questions here: Would having the 6-point scale cause teachers to adjust their grading upwards, resulting in a distribution of grades roughly equivalent to schools using a 10-point scale? And secondly: What was the rationale for having a 6-point scale in the first place? To be different, unique, and etc?

By: bobby b

bobby b — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:01:31 +0000

Ms. Rubin, I generally enjoy reading your work, find it to be well-supported by your citation to fact, and, since I’m a fellow traveler, agree with your conclusions, whether stated or unstated.

But I do note that you’ve not included any explanation of the rationale for the six-point curve in your article.

I’m assuming the board went to that system for a reason, and, if it did so for the most-often-cited reason, then it acted in a manner very consistent with a “we need more rigor in education, not less” philosophy – a philosophy with which many here might emphasize. It seems out of character to be reading here, in approving tones, about parents who want their children to be cut some slack.

In any case, I’m left wondering who the bad guys really are in this story.

By: deguello

deguello — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:16:34 +0000

POlutocrat:Pay attention and realize how wrong(fooled) you are.First of all”diversity’and globalism are two of the justifying and self-reinforcing ideologies of post modern capitalism,as racism,and manifest destiny were for the gilded age plutocracy. Diversity enables them to pose as anti-racist crusaders,while continuing policies that destroy jobs and manufacturing over here.The US economic system has already been dumped by ignorant voters:who do you think voted for Obama.? Obama is backed by the wallst. plutocracy, like Soros, Rubin, etc, who have figured out that to stay rich, and become entrenched ruling class,you pose as liberals,and destroy other’s opportunity by turning over the schools,to utopian sentimentalist,obscurantist idiots,whose academic liberalism ruins the school through bad teaching methods. This is EXACTLY what New york City’s plutocrat mayor Bloomberg has done.Don’t take my word for it;read Sol Stern’s articles in City Journal, a conservative urban policy magazine.The modern globalist doesn’t care where he makes hs money as long as he makes it(outsourcing),and will back any kind of corrupting cultural product(such as rap and madonna)no matter how destructive,as long as they get rich from it.Dick Riorden and you are to be congratulated for trying to get the schools to teach English,yet your efforts are subverted by marketeers(including large corporations) who hang out “se habla espanol ” signs to pander to the english ignorant,for the sake of a few bucks,rather than insist that their clientele speak english.It’s time for folks like you to wake up and realize that our ruling elite like the Roman elite,no longer cares for our nation except to control it as it exploits it, and that the most effective way to do that is through ignorance.

By: Ernie

Ernie — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:24:56 +0000

I’m really surprised that more people, from my generation, haven’t sounded off on this. I was in HS class of ’63 in Houston TX & below 70% (that’s percentage, NOT percentile) was failing. If your average of tests, projects, assignments, etc. was below that – or if you failed the final exam, you failed & did the class over. I know, because I had to re-take solid geometry in summer school.

I agree that the unions, NEA, etc. have done a real dis-service to government schools. Along with the idiotic emphasis on diversity, grading on a curve and lowering the standards to the lowest common denominator, it has resulted in most HS graduates having about the equivalent of a 7th or 8th grade education in ’50s & early ’60s.

I know what I’ve written is just my opinion, but it’s based on reviewing hundreds of resumes, interviewing a bunch of people, hiring 10 or 12 & even firing a couple, over the last 20 years of my working life – some HS grads, some college grads & most all couldn’t find their a## with both hands.

Ernie

By: garrett

garrett — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:19:09 +0000

Most private schools, especially Catholic high schools use the ten point scale. Most private school students do better on SATs then their peers. What’s the difference? School focus on academics and parents that are engaged in their student’s work and study habits parents that model an importance of self reliance anda focus on excellance tend to have kids that do well in rigorous schools. Many students in Catholic high schools have parents that make real sacrifices and scrounge for the money to send their kids to the school. It sounds to me like a bunch of rich parents in fairfax want better grades for their students with out either the parents or the students beign required to make any real effort.

By: Parent(Plutocrat)

Parent(Plutocrat) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:12:38 +0000

Deguello:

I’m tempted to quote Mr. Hand (“Are you on drugs?”), but let me put down my martini and big stoogie, dismiss the servants and respond a bit:

(1) in most major cities it IS the plutocrats that are howling for the unions to let go their death grip on the schools so incompetent teachers can be fired, academic standards reimposed, mindless diversity days dumped, and bungling principals fired. In NY think Trump; in LA think Dick Riorden.

Opposing the plutocrats are the unions and the poverty and diversity pimps: when LAUSD tried to fire a total boob that had run LAUSD for years, they were instantly accused of being racists. Same thing just happened when they wanted to can Mr. Brewer, a nice enough but ineffectual ex admiral hired to run the place, and who simply helped run it further into the ground.

When Plutocrats like me insisted that schools should teach english not spanish in LA, even 70% of the spanish speaking parents approved. They’re not dumb. It was the teacher’s unions, the translators and “educators” who erupted in charges of “cultural racism,” and wanted to prolong spanish instruction into the 12th grade.

Who complains when workers cannot read and write? Employers–non government ones that is. I need people here not in India.

(2) The powers that be know that the US economic system is more likely to dumped by ignorant voters than informed ones: we want people to know about the history of the US, of socialist screw ups, and of socialism’s anti-liberty, anti-freedom bent. Think USSR, Cuba, you name it. Do you think I would have hired Ward Churchill in Colorado? Or any one of the Duke 88?

Get a grip. Read a paper. Maybe a book.

By: Oziripus

Oziripus — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:09:13 +0000

Abe Lincoln asked the farmer, “see that horse? How many legs has it got?”

“Why, four legs!”

“Now, if you call the tail a leg, how many legs has it got?”

“Five, of course!”

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.”

—

When I was in high school and college, in the 1940s, F was 69 and below, A was 94 and above. And the questions/writing demanded were substantial. Good for Fairfax. Bad for Rubin.

By: deguello

deguello — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:43:16 +0000

PARENT: It is not the the teacher’s unions(corrupt as they may be) that ultimately control our schools. The educational system is working fine, thank you very much.However, most people don’t realize that it is supposed, to inculcate feckless ignorance, not seriousness and knowledge,and to drive as many people out the skilled workforce through failure,so that the jobs can either be done by poorly paid immigrants, or shipped out overseas.The interests of the reigning plutocracy would be threatened if our schools graduated competent,informed, politically knowledgeable students, who seeing that their future was being outsourced,would demand political change.The drop out rate in our urban schools hovers at about 50%;that figure contains the majority of our criminals,but a criminal is far easier for the plutocracy to handle, than an active politically informed,or even revolutionary citizen.The public school system of the USA is a tool of repression,and a moral outrage,run by the witting and unwitting servants of the globalist plutocracy.