Vegas
04-02-2007, 12:21 AM
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1175405779140920.xml&coll=1&thispage=1
Under a new and exceptionally lenient grading policy, high school students in New Orleans' Recovery School District can pass their classes even if their quarterly grades average an "F" for the year.
For example, a student can earn F's in three quarters and a C in one quarter and still pass for the full year. Another way to pass: two D's and two F's, under a policy that educators locally and nationally said falls far below typical standards.
Mathematically, it would be nearly impossible to design an easier standard: The only way to fail a course is by getting F's for all four quarters. That's because the policy calls for rounding up grade-point averages of .5 or higher. If, for example, a student makes two D's and two F's, the .5 grade-point average is automatically raised to a 1.0, or D "average."
And even students who fail to meet that reduced standard can still earn credit for one semester: Three F's and one D -- mathematically a .25 average -- earn students a "half credit," meaning they only have to repeat half the course.
The state-run Recovery School District, which operates 21 New Orleans public schools, revised the grading policy several weeks ago and said it will apply only to this school year.
The district lowered the standards in recognition of the stress many students have undergone since Katrina and the fact that many trickled in well after the school year started, including some who had not been enrolled in any school last year, system Superintendent Robin Jarvis said.
Critics say the policy codifies the low expectations that plague many struggling school systems.
"These standards are just horribly low -- there is no way to fail. You have to work to fail," said Martin Davis, a senior writer and editor at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based education reform group
Davis said he has also come across lenient standards to pass classes in districts in Tennessee, Illinois, North Carolina and Virginia.
Thomas Payzant, former superintendent of Boston public schools and now a senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said school systems hurt students by lowering standards. That only makes the transition to college and the job market tougher, he said.
Under a new and exceptionally lenient grading policy, high school students in New Orleans' Recovery School District can pass their classes even if their quarterly grades average an "F" for the year.
For example, a student can earn F's in three quarters and a C in one quarter and still pass for the full year. Another way to pass: two D's and two F's, under a policy that educators locally and nationally said falls far below typical standards.
Mathematically, it would be nearly impossible to design an easier standard: The only way to fail a course is by getting F's for all four quarters. That's because the policy calls for rounding up grade-point averages of .5 or higher. If, for example, a student makes two D's and two F's, the .5 grade-point average is automatically raised to a 1.0, or D "average."
And even students who fail to meet that reduced standard can still earn credit for one semester: Three F's and one D -- mathematically a .25 average -- earn students a "half credit," meaning they only have to repeat half the course.
The state-run Recovery School District, which operates 21 New Orleans public schools, revised the grading policy several weeks ago and said it will apply only to this school year.
The district lowered the standards in recognition of the stress many students have undergone since Katrina and the fact that many trickled in well after the school year started, including some who had not been enrolled in any school last year, system Superintendent Robin Jarvis said.
Critics say the policy codifies the low expectations that plague many struggling school systems.
"These standards are just horribly low -- there is no way to fail. You have to work to fail," said Martin Davis, a senior writer and editor at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based education reform group
Davis said he has also come across lenient standards to pass classes in districts in Tennessee, Illinois, North Carolina and Virginia.
Thomas Payzant, former superintendent of Boston public schools and now a senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said school systems hurt students by lowering standards. That only makes the transition to college and the job market tougher, he said.