Baltimore City Public Schools announced a brand new grading policy this week that will prevent kids from being held back if they fail one class, which essentially makes the grading system completely useless.
The school district stated that it was going to take this brand new approach because of the effects on education and schooling caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Joan Dabrowkski, the Chief Academic Officer, said that this new policy is meant to try and “avoid the punitive approach of failing students,” according to a report published by CNN.
“This is not about a failure, but it is about unfinished learning and giving multiple opportunities, multiple onramps for young people to complete that … learning,” Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Sonja Santelises went on to add.
A high school student who normally would receive an “F” for a course will now receive a “No Credit” designation. For students in second through eighth grades, “Unsatisfactory” or “Fail” will now be marked “Not Completed.”
Dabrowski explained, “In all of these instances, we want to emphasize the word ‘yet.’ Not completed yet, no credit yet.”
“Sixty-three percent of middle and high school students are failing at least one class according to Baltimore City Public Schools — that’s nearly 25,000 students out of the nearly 40,000 sixth through twelfth graders in the district. Even more worrying, 51% of students in grades 2-5 and 37% of Kindergarten and first-graders failed at least one course during this school year,” CNN went on to note.
One more reason to homeschool, right?
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