The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we will ask you a question or provide a topic, and you will talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
Today’s question:
Starting this fall, parents of elementary school students in the Manteca Unified School District will no longer see letter grades on their students’ report cards, according to the Stockton Record.
When parents receive their child’s next report card, rather than seeing traditional grades like A, B, C, D, and F, they will see words like “exceeded,” “proficient,” “approaching,” “beginning,” or “insufficient.”
QUESTION: Do you think this is a good idea, or a bad idea?
Talk about it….
Bad. It is a little woke. Difficult to be admitted to colleges with the new grading system
I’m okay with not using letter grades in K-5 schools.
However, the rubber hits the road (reality) in middle school.
At the end of the day, we need to know who needs help and who does not. Keep the standards high and work on helping those that need it. DO NOT bring the standards down.
But they do every year.
…DO NOT bring the standards down…
Too late I’m afraid.
I don’t have a problem with it, they’re using synonyms instead
of the letters.
Bad – otherwise it’s too ambiguous & subjective …. pluses and minuses are ok with letter grades though … like B+ or A-, etc.
That’s what Valhalla Elementary did in the 80s until you got to (I think) 5th grade. It was Satisfactory, Satisfactory+, etc.
Just go back to basics when we didn’t have all these school problems. It’s such a dumb dem idea!
It’s like “all players get a trophy” for participating. Bad idea.
That’s what I said too. SMH
These days, I believe this is just as much to protect the teacher from proved incompetence as it is for the children’s so-called psychic well-being.
When I was in grade school (a very long time ago in a place far far away…) Grades 1-5 only got “O” or “S” … O was a “zero” and S was a “satisfactory” 6th got grades to prepare for the rigors of Jr High. Report cards were EVERY 6 weeks. If, at the end of the year, you had more O’s than S’s YOU GOT HELD BACK for a full year DO OVER. No argument! No Mama/Papa fighting the school. Do Over! Period!
(Aside: If you got Mrs Feeney in 3rd, you knew by the first report card that you’d study night and day, whack your own knuckles, write “I’m sorry for being lazy” a hundred times. Whatever it took. You’d do absolutely ANYTHING to not have to suffer a Do-Over with her.)
SO. I’m willing to OK the “try something new” if the schools and the teachers are willing to take a MONITARY blame for failure to teach. (and they won’t be)
Where did you go to school
We surely don’t want to offend anyone or hurt anyone’s feelings do we!
I fear what this will bring though, for the overall smarts of the nation. China is surely bypassing us an education. They know how important it is for an advanced country & world power. And that’s what they will be. Our dummy down is send us in the other direction.
They must be overloaded with minorities is the only reason they would do this,to hide who is actually learning and who cant and wont.They think it’s racist when they fail.Another example of liberals hiding the truth from their own people
Why??
That’s a great question, Bob.
MDUSD didn’t give out letter grades in elementary back in the late 70s / early 80s when I was there, not sure how this is even remotely “woke”
It’s a change of labeling, not a paradigm shift of teaching and learning. Expect better.
Does it really matter? You can use letters, numbers. words, stars or whatever else, as long as there is an understanding between the three parties (teacher, student, parents) what each of them mean. And all teachers stick to approximately the same grading rules, so that “proficient” of one teacher isn’t “absolutely clueless and illiterate” of another.
If it doesn’t cost a penny, go for it. Or switch to emojis. Or whatever. However, I suspect, this switch does cost money. In which case the question is whether this money could be better spend on something else.
Will participation trophies now be gender specific ? ? ?
Woke krap is out of control.
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https://imgflip.com/i/3zegs1
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Approaching? Such as, “Your child’s IQ is approaching triple digits”.
Stick with letter grades, they are less open to interpretation.
It’s fine, the kids are illeterate anyway
Oh heaven forbid that little Susie gets an F. This is the same as giving every kid on the soccer team a trophy! Ridiculous! Our children need to learn that not everyone gets something for nothing; otherwise they will never strive to be better.
A rose by any other name is still a rose. Why sugar coat fact that a kid is failing.
It all depends on how the blue, silver & gold star stickers are being determined and issued on tests & essays. Tally those up on the report cards… who needs grades?
It should also be illegal for teachers to write comments on homework in red ink.
No more letter grades! Now everyone gets a trophy!
Letter grades seem better. The students who get an “A” are usually proud of that, tell their friends, and receive praise, which they enjoy a lot, from both their peers and grown ups. It pushes those that did not get an “A” to work a little harder. Most of them knew they slacked off a little. It seems hard to translate an “exceeded” into an “A+” or “five gold stars ★★★★★” so that it’s understandable to, and motivational for, kindergarten and elementary school age people.
Not smarter? Work harder! Saturday morning school for every kid that tests below grade level or gets a failing grade. Invite community volunteers to tutor them until they test at grade level. Problem solved.
Oh yeah I’m sure thousands of volunteers will come forward to do that..
Problem not solved..
The problem is woke teachers and woke curriculum, kids are messed up from the start and can’t even stay their born gender nowadays. The only letters that are forced on kids in school are LBGTQ?, stop that nonsense and problem solved!
Most parents can’t read letter grades nowadays for their kids in California so maybe a thumbs up or down icon works better.
Teaching children that you will never fail and that you won’t have to work for anything. What a great way to prepare children for adulthood.
Oh brother, that’s as bad as all kids getting a trophy.
Kids need to know what it is to win and lose. We’re raising The kids that won’t know how to make it in the world. As far as grades cuz it’s a grade you either did good or you didn’t. You need to know where you stand so you can make it in the world yet again. What is wrong with teachers nowadays? What is wrong with these school educators? No wonder American schools are failing. Or
So….. we can’t call it “grade school” anymore?