Do you want the doctor who passed with "feel good" grades operating on you?

Please, teachers: Fail your kids. I teach university and they are absolutely abominable. They are illiterate, innumerate, and, frankly, don't belong in higher education. They're at what used to be a grade 8 level.

In my area, students cannot be held back a grade without parental approval. Without approval, they are advanced a grade and given an IEP. This is how we end up with young adults that can’t cope. Schools can’t do it alone.

If they don't know the content, how are they getting 65% in the first place? if they can't add and subtract, how are they not getting a string of zeros? Grade honestly from the start of the semester, and it shouldn't be an issue.

I really, really hope these kids are getting flagged for extra help, and not just having to repeat the class. I have Dyscalculia, and this sounds an awfully lot like Dyscalculia to me. I wasn't diagnosed until I was in my 40s, by which time I had suffered a lot. I was a straight A, AP student for everything except math, and it was devastating to me as everyone just kept telling me to "try harder" with math. Trying harder didn't help at all.

I believe that holding back students is necessary if they can't do the work. Socially promoting students can prevent them from having many types of careers. Trades like carpentry, electrician, plumber and crane operator require math skills to do the daily work. Many university courses, even ones that you do not think of as math orientated, require some math. For example, many universities require psychology students to pass a course in statistics, even if they will never work in a branch of psychology that uses statistics.

It seems to me that changing this "It’s my fault for letting their average get that high. Usually, I try to be generous with grading." would solve the problem. Grade them accurately and then the problem goes away.

This is why so many Americans don't trust science. They don't know what it is. And don't want to learn.

I lived in place that became a "Zero Retention" district. That is a fancy way of saying "We pass everyone, even if they are illiterate." The crime and hopelessness was so bad that we abandoned a house we owned and just ran for it. Not a word of a lie...

My daughter has autism and the school board refused to let her go to an autism school at the time. She was forced to be mainstreamed. For some people who don’t live in the US, this means she went to a regular school with the other students, not a specialized school. Her pediatrician and psychiatrist gave a referral for autism school but the IEP board said that medical doctors don’t know what goes on in an educational setting. They only know what goes on in a medical setting, so they will take the recommendation under advisement. Meanwhile my daughter wasn’t learning anything because it was completely over her head. She was given out of school suspension the last two weeks of school and told to study for exams at home but she was given empty exam books to study from. She was in the 9th grade but she was on a 2nd grade level and she couldn’t identify a quarter, yet she was supposed to know what 1/3 x 2/4 - a = identity a. She can’t identify a quarter! How is she supposed to find A? Ugh!

I surprised your school let's you do this. Most of the teachers I know (and I know many) find it difficult - if not impossible - to fail a child in their high school classes.

I actually think that this is not only a good thing but like she said... saving education and saving people. That no child left behind thing is wrong.

I don't see why you need to 'play around with grades'. Isn't 63 a pass? You make tests which prove they know or don't know the material and then judge them by the results. It sounds like you make easy tests, then lower their scores because they passed? The problem with this is that you end up subjectively deciding who passes based on your feelings about their knowledge.

This is actually an extremely horrible practice and should not be celebrated whatsoever. The last bit about "socially promoting" might be the kicker, since the OP is effectively intentionally "socially failing" the kids for not liking that they met an approved standard. We can have plenty of debates about the quality of education or how it is graded to be considered passing. However, by your own tests, these kids met a defined standard to pass. You can't then just walk it back and readjust their grades. If these kids are that bad at this kind of math, how are they scoring well enough to pass? Basically what we have here is a bad teacher that's trying to correct their own mistakes.

But do they learn more in the repeat year when, as you admit, you teach them the same all over again. I fully agree that you can't, in all conscience, put them through when they've learnt nothing, but are they actually capable of learning it the second time round,?

Maybe the way it is tought is the problem. Many children have a different way of learning, as long as noeone puts the effort in those children to teach them in a way they undertsand, you can't plame them. I was terrible at math, bever ment anything to me, later in lofe i started to see connections and understpod the meaning. Now its easy, noeoen ever thought i think in images and am not dom ore lazy.

Don't do this! Fail someone who is failing, grade the actual work. There is no last place prize. Otherwise what would be the point?

Good on you! 💪🫡🪖

I failed freshman year Algebra, and had the same teacher the following year. It wasn’t me. It was the teacher. I excelled with a different teacher.

Make sure the kid actually doesn't know it and you're not just punishing them for being neurodivergent.

Teacher here...If we just had grade levels based not on chronological ages, but rather ability, we might be better off. Just because a student is "x" years old, does not automatically qualify them for "y" grade. This works with all levels of ability.

I didn't go to college until I was 40. I had to take remedial algebra. No credits. I failed that too.

Weird how we've gone from a society where it was considered racist to not teach black kids to a society where it is considered racist to force black students to learn.

If a kid deserves to fail, then they should fail. This shouldn't be controversial.

Couple things: next time you (Americans) go to vote, remember how important it is to FUND education. And by funding I mean actual money to pay teachers what they should be paid and books and equipment they need to actually teach instead of funding meant to "review" (and yes, to ultimately ban 🙄) books like The Diary of Anne Frank or the ghatdam Miriam-Webster dictionary. 🤦‍♂️ (Talking to YOU, Florida! And that's 100% true. Look it up.) GIVE OUR SCHOOLS THE MONEY THEY NEED so they'll stop pushing through grads who can't add fractions and believe the facking Earth is FLAT. 👍

Not a criticism but a sincere question. What do you with a kid who just does get it? I was a math major and am now an IT contractor but not everyone needs to be at that level.