By: Diane Benjamin
I was going to wait to post these letters until I received the Unit 5 emails. Since I may not see them until January, I’m going to post the letters now.
Standards Based Grading is making teachers, kids, and parents nuts. It proves why your kids should not be in the Public School system, experimenting with how to teach means a generation of kids receives a substandard education. The US used to lead the world in education, it is no longer in the top 10.
Common Core has made kids unfit for college – it’s almost like the Department of Education is trying to keep kids dumb. Of course we know uninformed populations are much easier to control, but I digress.
Note, the teachers are trying to teach but administrators are not listening!
The first letter is from the English Department at NCHS: English SBG feedback December 19-1
This 4 page letter describes what teachers are facing with this grading system. If kids aren’t graded on homework a lot aren’t going to do it. Kids who want to learn are held back by the ones who skate. Grades are arbitrary and don’t reflect what students really know. Parents can’t decipher them either.
Except from page 1:
The second letter is from the NCHS Science department: NCHS Science SBG Concerns
This is a great letter that clearly details the problems they see coming when Standards Based Grading makes it to their department.
Excepert:
The third letter is from the Foreign Language Department at Normal West: NCWHS Foreign Language SBG Feedback
Side note: I’m told more teachers at Normal West are not speaking out because they are afraid of angering administration.
Quote: We are seeing our concerns play out in our classrooms, in our gradebooks, and our students’ lives. These concerns are affecting our morale. They are affecting students’ behavior. They are affecting our students’ grades.
Excerpt:
Ask yourself why public education has devolved into torturing teachers, students, and parents.
School choice is the only answer. Parents should have vouchers to send their children to the schools of their choice. Teachers could be rewarded instead of lumped in with all the others – school would compete for your skills. Schools would have to compete with each other for students. That is the true “Race To The Top”.
Right now the only choice parents have is home school. If you want really smart engaged kids it is a must.
The school board isn’t listening either. I think video is needed of comments made before them. Let me know if you plan to speak at the next school board meeting, I will come film it. If more letters are floating around, please send them to me.
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Standards Based Grading is an absolute disaster! It was a response to one of the MANY Obama Educational Abominations (like penises in the girlsroom) that sought to collect data and CRIMINALIZE statistical grade differences between ethnic groups. It has flown under the radar because of political correctness and the Hard Left orientation of the educational establishment (what, in the 1980s, we called “The Blob”).
Diane, you are so right. School choice and home schooling are the only reasonable alternative in many situations. Concepts worth fight for!
Merry Christmas! (Another concept worth fighting for.)
Tangentially, the book “Why Meadow Died,” is a book worth reading. In a nutshell, it explains how/why our children are in danger in public schools. The troublemakers are VERY difficult, if not impossible, to remove from school. Consequently, our children are forced to try to learn in this environment. So between this and common core, HOW in the heck are children supposed to learn anything. As of today Homeschooling is the only option.
SBG has some applications where it makes sense. Primarily in math and some of the sciences, where there are hard, definitive standards (i.e. solve the equation, or apply the scientific method to the experiment). It makes much less sense in subjects such as English, composition, foreign language, etc. This is an example leadership wanting one rule, method or process, and applying that rule to all possible applications. Even when it makes no sense. Same thing is happening at the major employer in this city. Apply the same management process, even when it has no relevance to the particular job being performed.
Thanks Diane for drawing attention to this very serious issue. Unit 5 parents better wake up and get involved to try to stop this before it’s too late.
As a Unit Five parent, I would begin by saying that the teachers in this district as a whole are the very best. We’ve had a very good experience in the public school system. The problem is with the administration who will not listen to teachers, parents and students. I’ve talked to many teachers within the district who are concerned about this move. The letters on this page prove this.
As they search for a new superintendent, we need to know where candidates stand on this issue and anyone who wants to follow through an implement this is unacceptable and better be prepared for a fight.
It’s time for Unit Five parents to get involved. There is a petition that everyone who is against this needs to sign. It can be found here:
https://www.change.org/p/unit-5-board-abolish-standards-based-grading-in-unit-5
Sign it!!!!
Then we’ve got to begin to put pressure on the school board. Flood them with emails, phone calls and go to school board meetings and speak during public comment.