School Attendance Optional?
Students can’t be failed for excessive absences!
Some Grand Rapids high school teachers say new rules easing attendance and grading policies will boost the number of graduates, but will cheapen the value of diplomas earned by harder-working classmates.
But district leaders say if students can prove they know the material, it doesn’t matter how much time they spent in class — or how they behave.
“We should be in the job of helping students to succeed, not looking for ways for them to fail,” Superintendent Bernard Taylor said Monday.
At issue is a memo sent to high school teachers Thursday — the day grades were due for seniors — saying staff will not be allowed to mark students as failing because of attendance.
Students received grades for the third and fourth marking periods plus a final exam, and previously were required to pass at least two of the three. That rule also was eliminated.
Teachers were told passing grades in the district’s computer system would be locked, preventing staff from lowering them for any reason.
“Our graduation percentages will certainly go up, but at what cost?” said Union High math teacher Pat Wright, one of two teachers to address the Board of Education. “We now have social promotion at the high school level.”
Wright said she had one student who passed the third marking period, then moved to Texas in April, never attending a day of the fourth marking period or taking the final. Yet, he was listed as passing in the district’s computer.
“You just told students, ‘Never mind showing up after spring break,’” she said.
Ottawa Hills High social studies teacher Dennis Branson said he was concerned at how rapidly students appeared to be making up credits using the district’s new online classes, especially so close to the end of the school year.
The move comes weeks after administrators were criticized for creating the “Success Only Option” that gave students a second chance to make up missed or poorly done work.
Remember when we had to show up for class and actually pass the classes we were taking? I guess that’s too much trouble. Now we give them a computer and let them go online, where a student can have someone do the work for them, or they can sit with their books open and just look up the answers.
I love the excuses given for such a policy change:
Deon Sperling says she knows students who miss school because they are taking care of younger siblings or even parents and grandparents.“When they’re taking care of family needs to that extent, you can’t expect them to be in class every day,” said Sperling, a teacher-consultant assigned to two Grand Rapids Public Schools high schools and five alternative schools.
Teachers criticized district leaders who told them last week they no longer could reduce grades based on poor attendance.
School board members said if students can prove they know the material, then attendance and behavior issues should not determine whether they pass.
Educators around the region said similar plans might be the norm before long as the state Education Department places less emphasis on “seat time” and more on demonstrated achievement.
Starting last fall, students in Wyoming’s Rogers and Wyoming Park high schools were disciplined for cutting class — but not through reduced grades.
“They’re getting their punishment for breaking the rules,” Superintendent Jon Felske said. “But to then lower their grades would be like double jeopardy. How can you take credit away from someone who already knows the information?”
Felske said high schools often set attendance rules that mark down students for missed classes.
He said the reason is that people like to have rules. But, he said, students are being prepared for college, where the rules are different.
“Next fall, parents will be paying $30,000 to send their kids to University of Michigan, where they’ll be in a class with 400 other students and no one will even once take attendance,” he said.
A couple of things stuck out here:
- Felske might want to contact the University of Michigan to ask them how many professors base the students grade on their participation in class.
- Yes we like to have rules so that there is order.
- Shouldn’t those students that are family care givers be categorized separately? Shouldn’t the school system know who they are and make arrangements for them? We had a girl in our school that got a drivers license at the age of 14 due to her mother’s M.S. She not only went to school, but she took care of her mother, and to top it all of, this was in the days before we had computers!
Our future is looking more bleak as each commencement address passes! This is nothing more than example of the deliberate dumbing down of America
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Nowhere has the flight from quality plaguing American life these days been more obvious than in our primary and secondary schools — on the whole, the graduates seem less well-read and less well-spoken, less knowledgeable and less able to compute. In this book, Charles Sykes asks why, and lays most of the blame at the feet of the trainers of teachers, the writers of textbooks and the educational policy wonks who influence them. He convincingly shows that in many different school systems, and in many different academic fields, with the help of goofy text-books, watered-down requirements and “recentered” test grade scales, American students have come to value feeling good about a subject over being good in it. Sykes’s recommended reforms include abolishing the federal Department of Education and its state counterparts, abolishing undergraduate schools of education, establishing more alternative routes to teacher certification and merit raises for good teachers. Good ideas all — now if we can only get politicians to put them into action! –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.From Publishers Weekly
Sykes argues that educators’ emphasis on egalitarianism and building self-esteem have caused an eroding of true learning in the American classroom.
From Publishers Weekly
Expanded from an original list of 14 first broadcast on his Milwaukee, Wis., radio talk show, the latest book from Sykes (Dumbing Down our Kids) equips parents to help tween- or teenage children find success in life beyond school. Taking on the education system’s “modern bubble-wrap mentality” of “no losing, no disappointments, no harsh reality checks,” Sykes takes a hard-line but humorous approach to instilling the discipline, morals and good sense that keep kids from becoming “sulky, self-centered, spoiled brats.” Consider Rule 19: “It’s not your parent’s fault. If you screw up, you are responsible”; or Rule 14: “Looking like a slut does not empower you.” Rules are largely rooted in common sense (”Change the oil”), traditional values (”Don’t forget to say thank you”) and the wisdom that only time can bring (”Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could”), and get fleshed out in punchy, chuckle-worthy commentary. Though he can be harsh (”You are not a victim. So stop whining”), Sykes helpfully points out that “Grown-ups forget how scary it is to be your age,” and also that “You are not perfect, and you don’t have to be” (illustrated in an amusing story about Mother Teresa misapplying a bandage); parents will appreciate Syke’s no-nonsense style, but teenage readers may find him condescending (see Rule 21: “You’re offended? So what? No, really. So what?”).
Product Description
Charles J. Sykes offers life lessons that are not included in the curriculum for most children today: honest advice about what they will encounter in the “real world” post-schooling and how their parents can help them best prepare”not with cushy self-esteem talks, but rather with honest challenges. His 50 lessons are frank, sometimes harsh, and often hilarious, including:
#1 Life is not fair. Get used to it.#15 Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it “opportunity.”
#43 Don’t let the success of other depress you.
#48 Tell yourself the story of your life. Have a point.
Sykes elaborates on each of his points, creating a wise, no-nonsense guide for parents to help their children help themselves.
June 4, 2008 - 11:51 PM on June 4th, 2008
They need to teach these idiotic school administrators what people outside of academia who fail to show up as required are called…. unemployed.
June 5, 2008 - 07:51 AM on June 5th, 2008
Excellent point! Employers don’t allow makeups!
June 5, 2008 - 09:52 PM on June 5th, 2008
Thanks Pam. Sometimes long dissertations are required to make a point, this wasn’t one of them. Employers are finding that they are having more and more problems with young employees not being aware that actually showing up and working are required to keep their jobs. I once had an assistant manager at Foot Locker who didn’t get it either. Until he showed up for a store sales meeting 35 minutes after he was supposed to be there to help set up. He got the idea when I escorted him back to my office, took his store keys, and then showed him the way back out of the store. From then on, whenever a district manager had an assistant manager who needed training or termination, they sent them to me. In 2 years, I canned 2, had 2 quit, and trained 2 to the point of them surpassing everyone else in their store operational skills, one of which became regional rookie manager of the year.
June 5, 2008 - 10:11 PM on June 5th, 2008
Very good articles. In college, you can sometimes get by if you know the stuff. In highschool, part of the training is disciplining yourself to make the schedule. These administrators are just putting off the inevitable learning experience so its not within their walls.
NY-David
July 3, 2008 - 07:57 AM on July 3rd, 2008
[...] the number of graduates, but will cheapen the value of diplomas earned by harder-working classmahttp://rightvoices.com/2008/06/04/school-attendance-optional/Michigan Educational Credit Union – Plymouth, MI Credit UnionsMichigan educational credit union – [...]