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Dumbing Down of America? California School District’s New Grading Scale Gives out Cs for “Doing Absolutely Nothing at All”--51kh., b30
A school district north of San Francisco has decided to implement a new "grading system" that almost entirely negates the point of, well, grading systems.
Under a new policy, students will be able to earn passing grades with scores of just 20 percent — and a solid C for doing absolutely nothing at all…
The Cotati-Rohnert Park grade scale deviates from the traditional, well-established A-through-F scale by distributing grades in 20-percent increments from 0 to 100 percent, and by only giving grades of F for students with scores below 20 percent.
A measly percentage of 20-40 warrants passing grades between D- and D+. Along with the new scale, teachers are now required, by district-wide rule, to always give students at least a 50%, even if they never complete any work at all.
Why work extra hard studying for that A on a test when 80% will basically get a kid the same result? In fact, the scale will likely quash any incentive some kids have to do anything academically in school at all period. Talk about being dumbed down… Middle school math and science teacher James Gregoretti suggested that arbitrarily raising F grades to C grades is the exact opposite of promoting education.
Another middle school teacher, Peter Dudik, observed that students are already wising up to the massive grade inflation and not working as hard “because they know they don’t have to.”
Other teachers are thrilled with the new system.“I found a lot under the old system that they were worried about the grades and less worried about the material,” Rancho Cotate High math teacher Adam Green told the newspaper. “Within the new system, it gives more of an opportunity for them to work their way toward an understanding of the material.”
Excited school district officials have also praised the generous grading system. The officials say students who are academically terrible won’t become demoralized as long as teachers are forced to hand out passing grades. And students who somehow manage a 19 percent or lower will remain encouraged.“They’ve still flunked, but they don’t have as much to do mathematically to climb out of the F range,” district superintendent Robert Haley told The Press Democrat. “It doesn’t eliminate the F. It doesn’t lower the bar.”
In his welcome letter on the school district website, Haley assures parents: “Everything is awesome!”Just one school board member, Leffler Brown, v**ed against the dramatic change to the grade scale back in June.
UPDATE: The Cotati-Rohnert Park school district has released a statement suggesting that the district’s new grade scale is so convoluted that its own teachers cannot understand it.
The Press Democrat article contained many inaccuracies, most importantly the grading scale printed on the front page. Without explanation, it does look alarming. Teachers who understood how to implement it developed that scale, but unfortunately it has also been used by some who do not.The interval equivalents need to be understood in order to compare the two. A student failing at the 59% level on the traditional scale would be scoring below 20% on the scale shown next to the article, but that was not made clear. This phrase, which was included with the scale in the paper, “Students who miss homework or tests get 50%” is false. There are other scales being used by teachers in our district and the comparisons need to be made with care, not haphazardly out of context.

source-freedom outpsot, melissa d**es, cotati-rohnert partk, eric owens, thr press demo, leffler brown, peter dudik,