By: Diane Benjamin
Standards Based Grading is causing an upheaval within Unit 5.
Previous stories:
https://blnnews.com/2019/12/24/unit-5-forced-my-hand/
https://blnnews.com/2020/01/07/unit-5-does-comedy/
I found this article, please take time to read it. It attempts to promote Standards Based Grading, but read the whole thing. The writer likely doesn’t realize it, but eventually it will make you wonder why any sane school district would do this! https://www.schoology.com/blog/standards-based-grading
As previously reported, Unit 5 hired Garnet Hillman as a consultant for SBG. The changes to grading are not small. Teachers, students and parents all had to be trained, informed, and pacified before implementation. Since controversy is only getting worse, the costs will likely only go up.
I received the FOIA this morning for what Unit 5 has paid to Garnet Hillman. I know the 2 payments received are not the total cost since the emails I posted yesterday show communication in October and November, the payments are for work in September and early October..
So far: $13,000
It doesn’t cost upend education in Unit 5
I find it ironic that the Koos Krowd keep bragging about their professional staff. “We can’t change anything!” because they’re so trustworthy, all while they have been involved in a number of poor decisions if not outright corruption.
Meanwhile Unit 5 has the opposite problem. “We have to change to Standards Based Grading!” because we can’t trust our teachers to responsibly apply A-through-F grading, while nearly all Unit 5 teachers seem to be doing a good job given the circumstances they’re forced to work under.
I’m extremely concerned about what’s going on in Unit 5 with Standards Based Grading. The members of the school board are more committed to sticking to this utter failure in grading than they are the students. They’re more committed to
They are more committed to their Progressive Marxist Democrat ideology than they are the well being of the students. This is their mantra: Comfort the Afflicted. Afflict the Comfortable. We see it everyday in so many ways. Crime. Illegal alien invasion. Refugees. And more.
$13,000 is way too much period for this garbage. But on the other hand let them go with this standards based BS. When they get out in the real world they won’t last long. I need someone to clean my toilets and mow my yard and I promise I will set my standards expected of them to a lower level so they can make it.
Unit 5 can afford to hire this person but threatens to increase class sizes and fire teachers? Anyone see a problem with that? I went to Unit 5 schools as did my son. Unit 5 used to be a top notch district with high grade scores now Unit 5 is more indoctrination than learning. This BS sounds exactly like a liberal mish mash. Award all or none and see just how stupid schools can make our kids. So sad to see what used to be a high quality educational system go the way of the Dodo bird and if you kids out there have no clue what I just referred to then I’ve proved my point!
SBG is another cog in the machine of the dumbing-down of America. It does no dumbing itself, but it dis-incentivizes achievement. 6×7=42. If you learn that in 2 minutes, master it in 2 months, or knew it 2 years before it was brought up in class, your grade is still a ‘3’, because knowing that is the standard graded against and there is no ‘better’ 42. ‘A’ students are given less and less incentive to achieve above-and-beyond as our education system races towards the least common denominator.
One more story soon