Time to Add Basket Weaving as a Course

The Irascible Professor^SM

"The schools ain't what they used to be and never was."...  ...Will Rogers.
 

Commentary of the Day - June 22, 2008: Guest commentary by Ben Baker.

A South Georgia Board of Education recently considered a policy that would set the minimum grade for averaging purposes at 60.  In this particular school system anything below a 70 is considered a failing grade, so for transcript and report card purposes no grade below 60 could be awarded.

At the second meeting where the issue was up for discussion and a vote the superintendent withdrew the proposal, saying he'd done it for "shock value" as a way to get people to pay attention to the subject and actually put some thought into what our school system is doing.

I believe he was more serious than he let on.

At the meeting where this was first brought up, he and school administrators argued passionately for this policy change. The superintendent also brought a number of PowerPoint slides to add emphasis to the discussion.  That's a lot of work to just get people to thinking about something.  It is, however, the amount of work someone will invest in something they genuinely want approved.  If this was done to spark discussion only, it's a rather childish way to treat the elected Board of Education (whether they need to be treated like kids is a different matter.)

The idea is that a mediocre student who is doing his best can pull a 60 up, when averaged with other grades, to a passing score.  Whereas the same student might not be able to do the same with a score of 20 or so.

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