Public School...is it really this bad? (Page 2)

Originally posted by gsmacleod Nor did I - I've had classes with very high failure rates and nobody batted an eye. Shane

Originally posted by gsmacleod



The no penalty for being late has been around for quite a while now however, it is often the end result of a poorly considered policy that is based on not penalizing students for things that are not expressly covered in the curriculum documents. For example, in my Physics 11 class, one of the learning outcomes is "apply Newton's laws" but there is no outcome that says, "hand stuff in on time." So the thinking is that since handing stuff in on time isn't an outcome, if they student can demonstrate the application of Newton's laws, then they met the outcome. IME, the issue then becomes with the interpretation of the assessment policy by admin and beyond so that teachers are pressured to accept assigned work at any point. In my board, the policy clearly states that students must hand in work by the assigned due date and if they do not, they are responsible to meet with the teacher in order to consider a new due date. While there are those who accept anything at any time, in my class it gets handed in when it is due or we have met beforehand so that an extended deadline has been negotiated.

IME there are a couple of issues that lead to the "hand anything in whenever you want to" approach:

1) Parents - many are happy to have standards and consequences until they are applied to their child; then the work is too hard, the teacher is mean/bad/unqualified, expectations are too high, etc.
2) Education department/School boards - elected officials with good intentions but little educational experience outside of going to school and former teachers who may be decades removed from classroom and while often well versed on theory, may no longer have a solid grasp on how to put it into practice; as well, when contacted by parents, they hate to say no that the student deserved their 0% for not handing work in by the deadline.
3) Admin - most are looking to move up; whether from VP to principal, principal of a larger/better school or to a board/department level job and therefore toe the party line; so when the board/department calls with a parent complaint, they look to "fix" things
4) Teachers - many are too nice for their own good and feel they are helping students by constantly extending deadlines and once they been told to and/or had marks changed a few times, just stop fighting the good fight

I believe that this whole thing started with the best intentions however the end result has been the consistent lowering of standards. Instead of raising standards and demanding students live up to them, we lower them until everyone is "successful."

The good news is that there are great teachers out there who will demand more and push students to do their best but getting one of those teachers is often luck of the draw. The other upside is that good students will still learn (albeit maybe not as much as you would like) despite being in a system that doesn't consistently demand they put their best foot forward.

Shane