The Failure of Grading in Public High Schools
Most people in life that go on to be publicly known or have a successful business after escaping the jail that is high school, are actually the students that didn’t make such good grades. The school grading system trains you students to reach for an unattainable goal, has untruthful promises, has many flaws, causes mental issues in students, leads to cheating, and makes students not even comprehend what they are learning. The grades we get are supposedly the only thing that tracks how a student is doing in school. With that, a student has the mind set that if they do, everything right and good like they’re supposed to they’ll get rewarded with an A grade. Sadly however, the real world hits hard
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In Matt Suarez’s article, “The Flaw of the Grading System,” he makes the analogy, that was altered a little bit so it fits with more of this situation, that says, a person takes a 100 question quiz, that said person would have to get at least 90 of those questions right to get an A. The average person can barely get 80% of the questions right on a test about their grade level. The average student will barely manage to get a low A on their final grade by wasting their time, their childhood in the making, just to get a simple letter in return that’ll barely affect anything. Why should you all as people not realize the flaws of the grading system, and how you have to be near perfect to achieve the one goal you have in …show more content…
They only learn how to answer tests correctly or even cheat their way out of it. Every single time there is an upcoming test in school, a teacher will hype it up just for students to have high stakes about it and then cheat their way out of it to relieve that stress. The accidental fear and stress that is put onto students will affect the way they learn. Not to mention that teachers will unpurposefully put multiple tests on the same day leading towards students freaking out about it, overloading their mind, and they end up cheating off of someone next to them because that’s the only way they can please their parents with a good grade. The chances are however, that the student being copied off is stressed too, so they’ll both fail. According to a 2019 report by the Pew Research Center, “70 percent of 13 to 17-year-olds surveyed believe anxiety and depression to be a major problem among their peers, and this same group—many of whom are now the students in our college classrooms—identifies the pressure to get good grades as the most significant factor leading to these mental health issues.” Students are scared of failing and are only fixated on getting a good grade, and they’re not worried about what they’re actually
Letter grades can lead students to think they are failures. A child that has an F for their grade can be left out or looked down upon not just by other students, but also teachers. If a student feels like a failure that isn’t
In “How Grading Reform Changed Our School,” author Jeffery Erickson, the assistant principal of Minnetonka High School in Minnesota, discusses why and how he and his colleagues changed the way students received their grades. Erickson’s main argument in his essay is, “What should go into a grade?” His answer to this is that a student’s grade is solely reflected based on what a student knows and his or her ability to perform. Erickson opens up his essay by giving a scenario from a personal experience of when his daughter took swimming lessons. It was a challenge for his daughter to master the class, but in the end she finally passed on the last day.
Way back when: parents knew when to be responsible for their children’s academic accomplishments – and students themselves – this seems to have diminished completely. the times have completely changed, nowadays, many people AKA ignorant parents, believe that it is the high school itself, teachers, and the government that are responsible for students getting good grade because the arrogance and sense of pride levels have risen so much, they are too prideful to believe their child could possibly fail and it be their fault. Before, when you got an F, your parents would blame you, ground you, and make you write “ill do my homework” 100 times on a piece of paper; today, they would rather take the time out of their day, go to your school and demand
Grade inflation is a reality throughout the United States. This means that students are being awarded with higher grades than they deserve or worked for. This phenomenon is affecting the quality of education throughout the country. Students insist on getting ‘’their money's worth’’ when it comes to receiving grades. Teachers don’t want to be nagged by students and administration for low grades.
Especially honors and AP Classes, because these are student’s that want that high grade to succeed. I found myself comparing my grades, even if I got a high
I think that this shows that no one cared about their grades as much, as long as they graduated, because they focused on learning the concepts or ideas taught in the class. Today, I can attest to struggling through some classes in high school and not actually putting in the effort and trying to learn from the class. A lot of the time, I can become too focused on keeping my 4.0 GPA, which is not a negative thing, but it gets in the way of me truly learning concepts for my long term
In Carl Singleton’s article, “What Our Education System Needs is More F’s,” he argues that students aren’t receiving the failing grades they deserve. School systems are to blame for the lack of quality in America’s education. No other recommendation for improvement will succeed. The only way to fix the American education system is to fail more students. According to Singleton, the real root of the issue is with the parents.
The Grading System: Completely Necessary Grades are an important part of the school system. Grades set the extraordinary students apart from the ordinary ones. In Jerry Farber’s essay, “A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System,” he argues that grades are the only motivation students have in school. Farber even calls it “phony motivation.” He argues that students do not actually learn anything.
In Kurt Wiesenfeld’s article “Making the Grade”, he address the issue that students want a higher grade than they deserve. He goes on to prove this be by giving examples of previous students that he has had and what can happen when students get the grades that they want and not what they deserve. In Wiesenfeld’s article he states that about ten percent of students that take his class do not care about their grades until final grades are over. “You might groan and moan, but you accepted it as the outcome of your efforts or lack thereof,” Wiesenfeld stated.
Have you ever felt like there was no point in school only because you were easily given passing grades? How can graduates prepare for the hard work in college if they didn 't attain any knowledge throughout high school? Many students may not think about these questions. They probably don’t realize that they could 've been passing classes each year, but they haven 't gained any information. I agree that teachers should start to present accurate grades to help students understand their true academic abilities.
So all in all, in the process of trying to achieve high grades, student neglect relationships, moralities, and happiness. In essence, the notion that high grades lead to a successful life compels students to primarily focus on grades and sacrifice sleep, family, religious beliefs, and other necessities to
These days students seem to think that if they don’t have the highest grade they won’t be able to get the job of their choice. He also stated that a stats professor got flak for proposing a new system to recalculate the grade point averages. This proposal made it seem that students would dodge the harder classes to take easier
Kohn believes grading is a harmful thing for students because it is more of a game with competition. He views grading as something that does not lead to improvements in performance but holds students back from doing their best. He states, “A school’s ultimate mission, apparently, is not to help everyone learn but to rig the game so that there will always be losers” (Kohn 2). Kohn relates school and grading to a game. A game where students begin to try to outdo one another rather than focusing on their academics.
By failing students who do not meet academic standards, educators can provide a wake-up call that pushes them to take their education seriously and work harder. Furthermore, failure can teach students important life lessons about perseverance, resilience, and the importance of taking responsibility for their actions. While some may argue that this approach is too harsh or unfair, it is ultimately in the best interest of both students and society as a whole. Incorporating Sherry's ideas into the education system may not be an easy task, but it is a necessary one. Students need to understand the importance of taking their education seriously and the consequences of not doing so.
Grades are said to drive students to push themselves even more, yet it is not entirely true. Some students cheat, causing their grades to fly high, and that doesn’t reflect wit at all. In a survey of 24,000 students at 70 high schools, Donald McCabe (Rutgers University) found that 64 percent of students admitted to cheating on a test, 58 percent for plagiarism, and 95 percent for some other form of cheating. (Facts) This proves that grades are more likely to cause students to cheat than to motivate