A Kid May Deserve An F, But Not a K.

My Facebook feed is blowing up with the story of the teacher who allegedly got fired because she refused to give a student a 50% for not turning in an assignment.   She was adamant that those students deserved a 0%.  And the people on Facebook are losing their minds.

Oh, where to begin?

There are many assumptions we must make when getting to the heart of this story.  I will assume she did, in fact, get fired because of this.  I'm also going to assume that the school in question was trying to implement a standards-based grading philosophy in a traditional grading world.  I will not make an assumption on the level of training the school provided this teacher on the concept.

Let me back up.  When I was a novice teacher, a neighboring district had implemented such a philosophy, and I thought it was a lousy one.  I didn't agree with it at the time because I believed the district was simply trying to reduce the number of kids receiving failing grades, so they were giving the kids something for nothing.

Then someone explained it to me.  And it made sense.

The reason schools do this is not to reduce the number of F's students receive.  The reason is that an F should hold the same weight as any other grade, (A, B, C, D).  Except for the letter E.  I'm not sure what the letter E did to be banished from academia.  Take a look at the traditional grading scale below.

A:  90-100

B:  80-89

C:  70-79

D:  60-69

F:  0-59

But what if we continued the 10-point scale, so that an F had the same amount of pull as any of the other letters?

A:  90-100

B:  80-89

C:  70-79

D:  60-69

F:  50-59

G:  40-49

H:  30-39

I:  20-29

J:  10-19

K:  0-9

If you look at it this way, does a kid really deserve a K?  I mean the NFL is protecting quarterbacks more than we are protecting the academic success of some students.  If we give a kid a K, we are just piling on (football pun intended).  A student does not recover from a K.  Did you ever have a D when you were in school and think, "Wow, it will be almost impossible to end up with an A in here"?  Now look at that scale above and imagine you are at a K or a J.  What is the likelihood you are going to recover?

Schools that implement this practice cut it off at 50 because that is what an F is.  There is no need to give a kid a K.

Anyways, just my two cents.

Ryan is the Director of Special Education in the West Muskingum Local School District and principal of West Muskingum Elementary School in Zanesville, Ohio.  He is also the co-author of the book Your School Rocks...So Tell People!