How Can Schools Help Students Improve Their Grades?

[Pengwuino]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12633084/

The Golden Plains School District sent a letter to 75% of its eighth graders. The letter said the students cannot graduate until they improve their grade point average to 2.0 or better.

The district will hold a special meeting Thursday night at San Joaquin Elementary School to outline its plan to help students get to high school.

Why do we have standards again?

 

[scott1]

8th grade? It's middleschool not high school.
We need put cybernetic implants in kids brains and just upload knowladge into there minds.

 

[dav2008]

If 75% of 8th graders have a below 2.0 gpa then I think the school is doing something wrong...

 

[JamesU]

Reading that was depressing...

P.S. No, that's not my GPA

 

[Math Is Hard]

I didn't realize 8th graders even had GPAs. I thought that didn't start until high school.

 

[JamesU]

Started as soon as I started middle school.

 

[Math Is Hard]

You guys also have to take a lot more achievement tests than we ever did. My sister has taken some kind of state test every year since about third grade. The schools get their money based on how well the students do, so they spend a great deal of time just on prepping them for the test.

 

[Pengwuino]

You guys also have to take a lot more achievement tests than we ever did. My sister has taken some kind of state test every year since about third grade. The schools get their money based on how well the students do, so they spend a great deal of time just on prepping them for the test.

I had like 2-3 state tests a year and they never prepped us for the test...

 

[Math Is Hard]

I had like 2-3 state tests a year and they never prepped us for the test...

That seems like an awful lot. I was thinking about eventually teaching high school in Texas, but I know people who have taught there and they all say, "You'll hate it. You do nothing but 'teach the test'".

 

[Chi Meson]

So they want all students to be above average? Sounds like Lake Wobegon.

 

[Rach3]

If the GPA curve is scaled so that 2.0 is median, and 75% are still below that... what am I missing here?

 

[eep]

Except GPA's aren't curved, at least not the ones in my middle/high school. It's all based on grade letter, which is based purely on "points" you earn in class. So it's possible to have all A's or all F's, nothing is curved. This varies with teachers but the majority is just a point based system. If we want children to do better in school maybe we should have more interesting curriculum and promote learning rather than sex/drugs/money. It's cool to be stupid.

 

[George Jones]

It's cool to be stupid.

What about the converse?

Regards,
George

 

[cronxeh]

I didn't realize 8th graders even had GPAs. I thought that didn't start until high school.

Perhaps they should teach something else entirely different in Middle Schools, on a PASS/FAIL basis, and more of a philosophical approach. Perhaps, and this is a far shot, we won't have violence in high schools and the foundation and desire for science and knowledge and attainment of would be there from the day they start high school and carried itself to college.

 

[Moonbear]

You guys also have to take a lot more achievement tests than we ever did. My sister has taken some kind of state test every year since about third grade. The schools get their money based on how well the students do, so they spend a great deal of time just on prepping them for the test.

When I was in school, every year or two we seemed to have some form of standardized test, but nobody prepped us for it. They were never hard and didn't require prepping (if anything, we always wondered why they were testing us on such stupid, easy stuff...I'd hate to think the standardized test is what was considered "at" grade level). We might have had a practice test the week before so we'd know the format to expect, but that was about it. I don't think the problem is standardized testing, but the focus teachers are giving to it and spending so much time prepping for something that is likely below the standards of where they should be aiming their lessons.

Nonetheless, if somehow they're managing to grade 75% of students below average (assuming they still use the traditional scale that 2.0 is a C), something is seriously wrong. I'd argue the problem is at the entire community level. If the teachers were the only problem, then why haven't parents been complaining to the school board to make changes before now?

My sister had a really bad math teacher when she was in elementary school. She was a new hire to replace a teacher who left on short notice. She wasn't teaching much, she wasn't assigning any homework, the things they were taught were wrong, and if I recall correctly, there were also some issues with how she was generally running her classroom. Nearly every parent of kids in that class called the principal demanding to know why their kids weren't being assigned homework, and asking about the various other things the kids were coming home and telling them about that class. The principal sat in on the classes for a few days, and that teacher was suddenly gone and they had a substitute take over. This is why I say it's a community-wide problem. If your kids are not being taught well at lower grade levels, and the parents care, they will complain to the principal or board of education. You shouldn't wait until kids have reached 8th grade and the majority of the class are getting grades of D or F to realize there's a problem, and only act on it when it's time to advance them to high school.

 

[loseyourname]

So they want all students to be above average? Sounds like Lake Wobegon.

They just want to raise the average, not have every student be above average. A 2.0 means you're getting straight C's, or at least your grades are coming to that on average (mean, in this case). The mean GPA right now is well below 2.0, with 75% of the students below that mark. They just want to move every student above that line which means you've passed the class with enough knowledge to move on to the next class in the sequence. A C is generally the minimum grade with which one can attain prerequisite credit.

 

[Pengwuino]

Perhaps they should teach something else entirely different in Middle Schools, on a PASS/FAIL basis, and more of a philosophical approach. Perhaps, and this is a far shot, we won't have violence in high schools and the foundation and desire for science and knowledge and attainment of would be there from the day they start high school and carried itself to college.

Yah that is a far shot, way too far and possibly utterly rediculous. I don't think many kids turn to gangs and bullying and violence durin ghigh school because they received a low grade in junior high.

 

[bomba923]

They just want to raise the average, not have every student be above average.The mean GPA right now is well below 2.0, with 75% of the students below that mark. They just want to move every student above that line which means you've passed the class with enough knowledge to move on to the next class in the sequence. A C is generally the minimum grade with which one can attain prerequisite credit.

Another opportunity to introduce grade inflation.

The district is wasting its time requesting "higher GPAs", when it should be requesting "better performance on the state exams," from that school. See, unlike competence, grades can be faked.

Given the described situation, the school will most likely resort to grade inflation .
Another way to shroud incompetence from parents & the school district.
(Fortunately, I have a solution in this link)

 

[cronxeh]

Yah that is a far shot, way too far and possibly utterly rediculous. I don't think many kids turn to gangs and bullying and violence durin ghigh school because they received a low grade in junior high.

See why public education needs improvement? *SMACK* Its "ridiculous" !

 

[Chi Meson]

They just want to raise the average, not have every student be above average. A 2.0 means you're getting straight C's, or at least your grades are coming to that on average (mean, in this case). The mean GPA right now is well below 2.0, with 75% of the students below that mark. They just want to move every student above that line which means you've passed the class with enough knowledge to move on to the next class in the sequence. A C is generally the minimum grade with which one can attain prerequisite credit.

I guess you don't know I am a teacher.

 

[scott1]

Reading that was depressing...

Yeah and it looks in even http://www.theonion.com/2056-06-22/infocapsulations/12/"

 

[Pengwuino]

Yeah and it looks in even http://www.theonion.com/2056-06-22/infocapsulations/12/"

Sad Our children will never have the basic skills needed to survive

 

[Chi Meson]

Sad Our children will never have the basic skills needed to survive

Indeed. My three-year-old son still can't catch even a small animal to feast upon. He's very good at gathering berries though.

 

[kokoro]

Man my mother called me stupid due to the school systems and the way that teachers... well DONT teach anymore. Thats why I am here that's why I am reading like a thousand books again. i think its good. kids are unedjucated! Parents seem not to care and neither do the schools. we have so many probabilities! why can't we learn more! i mean if the student doesn't want to learn let them be who they want to be but most students don't get the choice of higher edjucation or they don't realize its there. We are all blind to reality or... well a better reality.

 

[Moonbear]

Indeed. My three-year-old son still can't catch even a small animal to feast upon. He's very good at gathering berries though.

Survival skills are best taught at home. Just let the kid play with sharp sticks and he'll figure it out eventually.