A Teacher Grows Disillusioned After a ‘Fail’ Becomes a ‘Pass’
Several weeks into his first year of teaching math at the High School of Arts and Technology in Manhattan, Austin Lampros received a copy of the school’s grading policy. He took particular note of the stipulation that a student who attended class even once during a semester, who did absolutely nothing else, was to be given 45 points on the 100-point scale, just 20 short of a passing mark.
Mr. Lampros’s introduction to the high school’s academic standards proved a fitting preamble to a disastrous year. It reached its low point in late June, when Arts and Technology’s principal, Anne Geiger, overruled Mr. Lampros and passed a senior whom he had failed in a required math course.
[…]
She had not even shown up to take the final exam. She did, however, attend the senior prom.
[…]
“It’s almost as if you stick to your morals and your ethics, you’ll end up without a job,” Mr. Lampros said in an interview. “I don’t think every school is like that. But in my case, it was.”
Here’s why. You’ll notice it’s not about the students.
They also describe a principal worried that the 2006 graduation rate of 72.5 percent would fall closer to 50 or 60 percent unless teachers came up with ways to pass more students.
What does the mother of such a slacker student think? Do you even need to ask?
Samantha Fernandez, Indira’s mother, spoke on her behalf. “My daughter earned everything she got,” she said. Of Mr. Lampros, she said, “He needs to grow up and be a man.”
What a fool for thinking he’s supposed to do the right thing!
Truly sad. 🙁 No wonder Google et al are pushing for more H1B visas.
Whole reason for this was “No Child Left Behind,” which made it rather important for schools to “make the numbers,” or else they’d be punished monetarily. While it’d be best to do this with actual results, it was exceptionally tempting for the administrators to just pass up semi-fraudulent results, since it’s definitely a whole lot easier and cheaper to do so.
And we wonder why Americans are academically falling behind the rest of the world? I think this teacher should be commended for not giving up his ethics even though he was overruled. Stories like this almost make me embarrassed to be a student in the United States. Grades should be earned, not given to make the school look better. Of course this is what happens when you base school funding on graduation rate and state exams (CATS testing and a few others here in Kentucky).
“He needs to grow up and be a man.”
Samantha Fernandez need to grow up and be a mom.
Been there, Done That, left teaching after two years over the exact same crap. This isn’t an isolated incident, it is the norm.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident. I teach in a district that mandates the lowest grade a student can receive on an item that sent home (report cards, progress reports, etc.) is a 55. At first this just meant if they failed with anything below a 55 we rounded it up to 55. But now that semester and end-of-course exams are printed on the report card, they too have to be rounded to a 55. The idea or “explanation” for this is anything less than a 55 is pretty much unrecoverable meaning if the student receives a 55 or less for a semester it is not possible to still pass the remainder of the course. i an somewhat see the logic of this because what would be the incentive for the student to keep working if their is nothing they can do to pass. On the other hand as a teacher it angers me to know that no matter how little the student has learned or how little effort they apply, they are guaranteed at least half of the points. By that logic they student could game the system by keeping up their average just high enough and long enough that a 55 would allow them to pass and then just quit!
#4….Improbus….don’t be silly. Take responsibility for something, you must be mad. Her daughter isn’t the first generation to be expunged of the **responsability** gene…..Mom’s generation had it done too.
Of all the hairbrained crap that comes down the pike from Liberals and Conservatives alike….the idea that it hurt little Dimwad’s psyche to FAIL at anything has got to be the most outrageous. Conservatives tell me this was a Liberal **feel good** policy….is that true??
What’s your problem, Dave? Failing the kid would hurt self esteem. People should be working together to try to build people up, not tear them down.
“My daughter earned everything she got,” she said.
Thanx to PC, minority-group members in modern America have come to feel that they are entitled to be given anything the majority has to work for – otherwise it’s not “fair.” A generation bred by people who have achieved their artificial “equality” by affirmative-action fiat and who literally have no concept of succeeding on merit. This passing grade, that job, these are felt to be “owed” to them simply because of their belonging to a particular minority, and therefore automatically assumed to be “discriminated against” no matter what the actual facts are.
OOPS. Sacred Cow Violation. My bad.
Not supposed to mention these things – even though most every adult with a brain is quite aware of them…
#9 – God forbid someone doesn’t pass because they haven’t done the work to do so. Everyone should have everything handed to them with no work at all, because that’s how the real world works.
You know that movie Idiocracy is not the work of fiction but really is a crystal ball into how the future will be.
#10
To actually think that only non whites feel that way is quite bigoted don’t you think?
sheesh. Is there an emoticon for “slowly shakes head in disgust”?
My sister left teaching after her first year because of the same sort of thing.
My mother retired from teaching a few years early because the focus on passing the assessment tests is so high that the classes are about learning to pass the test rather than learning the subject.
But I didn’t say that, did I, Angel?
It matters not what way you group humans, by gender, race, hair color, you name it – it’s a consistently human trait. Segregate a group and give them something, deserved or undeserved – it doesn’t matter. After a while, a subgroup will coalesce that has developed a sense that what they receive, they receive it because they are entitled to it and others not of their group are not entitled to it. It’s common to all races, all genders, and is an intersecting function of the normal human traits of greed and group identity.
So-called Affirmative Action quotas, whatever their initial reason for existence, have been in place too long, because now there are members of the groups targeted by AA who have been brought up from birth to believe that X% of everything is automatically theirs because they belong to that group – they have no obligation to work for it. It is regarded as being owed to them.
If the circumstances were otherwise, and whites were a minority in a predominantly black nation, they would be doing the exact same thing. It isn’t about what group you belong to, or that group’s abilities or character, it’s about human nature. But that doesn’t make it right.
IOW, give people – blacks, Hispanics, whites, women, men – any unfair advantage as a group, and after a while they will see it not as a means to help them achieve equality, but a gimme that they alone have a God-given right to.
And that’s simply bullshit, wouldn’t you agree?
#12 – You know that movie Idiocracy is not the work of fiction but really is a crystal ball into how the future will be.
True.
#13 – To actually think that only non whites feel that way is quite bigoted don’t you think?
In Lauren’s eyes, it’s only dirty little minorities who takes advantage of the system and feel entitled. You should have known this by now…
#11, yes it is how the world works, and our schools should be that way too.
#16 – its probably a good idea to also mention that those that believe that they are entitled to these “Affirmative Action quotas” are primarily black. That is in no way a racist statement, but the cold hard truth.
Another way to put it is how blacks believe that they’re somehow entitled to free shit because they emigrated over here against their will – just like a lot of other races/cultures/creeds that were forced out of their homes over the last few centuries, and the only place that would accept them was America (for cheap labor).
As far as the article itself goes, I bet that since the teacher was female, and the failing student was female, there some some kind of supposed “empathy” or some such nonsense over sex-based inequality. Which is itself a real problem right there. With luck the student will become a teen-mother & end up as part of the ever expanding welfare-catering-to-affirmative-action-entitlements system, get the H5N1 brid-flu and get booted off of the mortal coil.
damn this county is so fucked
How would you say Conformance trumps Performance in Latin? It would make a great slogan, don’t you think? Sadly, there are no more teachers. They’re educators now. ( If you didn’t know whether to use they’re their or there, you’re a product of the system! Congrats!
The astute reader will have noticed that my legendary rhetorical talents have been honed to the point where I now actually refute bogus criticisms before they’re even made! 🙂
My post, #16:
“If the circumstances were otherwise, and whites were a minority in a predominantly black nation, they would be doing the exact same thing. It isn’t about what group you belong to, or that group’s abilities or character, it’s about human nature. But that doesn’t make it right.”
Jägermeister’s #17:
“In Lauren’s eyes, it’s only dirty little minorities who takes advantage of the system and feel entitled.”
Riiiiiight. Just keep sayin’ it ’til you believe it…
#19: The teacher, Austin Lampros, who’s picture is show in the post, is male. The principal who changed the student’s grade was female.
Only one thing needs to be said…
Dear God, humanity is doomed.
Unfortunately, what happened in this Manhattan school is the rule, rather than the exception. I have yet to find a school that does not “strongly encourage” their teachers to engage in some form of just such behaviors.
The school district where I teach mandates that the lowest average that students may make on report cards is a 60 (used to be a 55, like #6); another rule is that no more than 20% of each teacher’s class–and each sub-group within the class–may fail. This, despite the fact that I have heard groups of students planning to intentionally fail or not turn in an assignment because “she can’t fail us all.”
#16
Oh yes you did. Who’s the Majority? The white folk and its numerous ethnic white flavours, by default you know what a minority is.
Oh and I almost forgot: A MOTHER WILL ALWAYS SAY THAT HER KID WORKED HARD. THAT’S WHAT MOTHERS DO.
If you’re going to blame someone blame the system.
‘s the same in canuckistan, i’m afraid — we are all following ultralame edutheories from the UK, only 10 years after they went through it. Our educrats are now forcing us to pass 90% of the students (or else, our principal said, we would be looked into…hooboy).
The students are still mostly nice folks, but they know how the game is rigged, and on any given day, in any given (university-bound) class, no more than 4 of 10 will have done any homework (near 0% for what we used to call “general’ level, now called ‘College’)
Parents are another thing. Many – not all [about 30% in my n-of-1 survey!]– see education as a consumer good, and want the best product (mark) for their kids – however that occurs. Pressuring the principal via the ‘parents council usually helps.
But worst of all are the new administrators. The old saying can’t teach/teach gym should be amended to can’t teach/learn eduspeak/kiss butt/get promoted/craponteacherswhostillgiveashit
Y’know, there are two very simple solutions to this.
A) Increase funding to schools across the board; they’ve needed it for years. If schools are cutting science because they can’t afford textbooks and lab equipment, there’s something very, very wrong.
B) Cut funding to any school district that has a policy of requiring X% of the class to pass, requires report cards to be above Y% average, or changes failure to a pass for increased funding or ‘self esteem’ reasons. Kids have their self-esteem damaged far more by each other than they ever will by failing a class. Do you worry about the fifth lock on the front door when the back door is wide open?
…but the parents of these kids – they can and DO demand that their kids be passed, whether or not the kid made the mark or not.
Once people see others getting unearned benefits, they don’t demand it stop, they demand that they get in on the action too.
#2
I disagree. Before the NCLB, they would have still been passed, we just wouldn’t know about it. At the end of the day, the core issue is accountability; accountability of the students, teachers and principals to their performance.
I have to say this issue of being passed without earning it is not new. I remember many people in college (many moons ago) that were simply not prepared for real academic competition in the form of grades based on curves and no special treatment.
#30
I’m not sure that cutting funding is the right solution. Instead, simply disallow any policy that forces teachers to pass students on anything other than academic performance. Violations are subject to termination. I think one of the best solutions is to give principals the authority to hire and fire whatever teacher they wish based on performance and the school boards the authority to hire and fire principals based on performance. Right now there are so many barriers to principals and teachers getting fired that it is difficult to weed out bad teachers and/or principals.
The answer to this problem is to privatize schools and start a voucher system. The schools that provide a decent education will get more students. I went to private school and this shit didn’t occur. If you didn’t earn the grade, you failed.
The public school system as it now stands is fucked.