Another argument for homeschooling

In an effort to keep students who fail early in their high school careers from falling completely out of school, ninth-grade teachers at Madison's West High School are planning to give classroom grades of no lower than 40%, eliminate extra credit and allow up to 90% credit for late work in required classes.

"mean no assignment could receive less than 40%, regardless of whether it is completed. A 40% would still result in a failing grade"

The alleged motive is that a super-F (i.e. a 0%) is almost impossible to recover from, while a 40% you can, at least in theory, make up for. The fact that they plan to get rid of extra credit tells me that isn't anywhere near the whole story.

This is sympathetic magic: if you get a grade of 40%, you must have learned 40% of the material, right? And no extra credit means nobody gets to be outstanding, so nobody gets embarrassed by being outclassed.

"In Memphis, though, the use of grading floors was banned by the superintendent in 2017 after an investigation found the practice was used to make unwarranted grade changes."

Del Underbakke seems to have some common sense: "a grading floor could result in moving under-prepared students through ninth grade. By definition, at-risk students may require more than four years to complete high school." On the other side, I have to conclude that Boran and Hernandez care more about "equity" than educating students.

So long as the grade is a measure of what the student is learning, use it. If you want to experiment with retaking tests or other approaches, fine--the goal is supposed to be that the students learn--but please don't give up trying to figure out if the student is actually learning.

I wonder how much of the recent educational innovation is driven by fear of being accused of bias.