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Oct. 17, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
07:21
Grade Inflation Is Ruining Our Schools
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This damning article in the New York Times.
The left has ruined our schools.
That's what it's about, but they never once blamed the left.
Not once.
They do, though, say bad district policies.
A typical response, she sent out a questionnaire to teachers, the writer in the New York Times.
Came from Russell, a public high school teacher on the East Coast.
He said that when a big chunk of the graduating class, quote, has a 4.0 grade, that's meaningless.
This is what he wrote.
Failure is a bad word, and the kids know it.
It takes way more work to hold a student accountable than to simply pass him, her, him, slash her.
Even if a kid does nothing all year, we are encouraged to find a way to pass him her.
And then, of course, when a student does not perform, parents often want to know what we are going to do about it, not what their child can do.
Who has produced these parents, the left or the right?
I'm curious, what do you think?
Think these are left-wing or right-wing parents who demand that the teacher change, not that their child change.
It's, my producer frequently will say to me, you think they put two and two together?
You think they put two and two together?
Not in Oregon.
Two and two doesn't equal four in Oregon.
They announced the Oregon Education Department that the idea that there's one right answer in math is white supremacist.
The left ruins everything it touches.
This is just an example.
That's all it is, but not once are you told that.
Part of the issue is grade inflation.
As Chalkbeat reported last year, Quote, even as students have taken higher-level courses, their GPAs have steadily risen.
Geniuses.
They're taking more GPA courses, and they still rise from an average of 2.68 in 1990 to 3.11 in 2019. And I'm sure since 2019 it's risen.
This overall state...
Has become more alarming since 2020, given how far behind school children are now.
What, by the way, do you think that homeschool children are behind?
Of course not.
Are there rational reasons to keep your child in most American schools?
What's not helping?
The policies many school districts are adopting that make it nearly impossible for low-performing students to fail.
Who run these school districts?
There's no hint in the New York Times.
Is there a school district in the United States that is run by conservatives?
If there is, it is probably a very small, probably rural school district.
They make it nearly impossible for low-performing students to fail.
They have a grading floor under them.
They know it, and that allows them to game the system.
This is New York Times report.
Several teachers whom I spoke with, or who responded to my questionnaire, mentioned policies stating that students cannot get lower than a 50%.
I think from state of play and 50% is she might be British, this writer.
Because we don't say get a 50%, right?
Get a 50. I'm just explaining, that's all.
On any assignment, you cannot get lower than a 50. You've got to hear what qualifies you for a 50. Even if the work was never done.
You get a 50 when you hand it in nothing.
Well, that's how they would like all of life to work.
Because then nobody can fail.
This is the feminization of the culture.
Because we want to nurture kids that are failing.
We don't want to lift them.
We want to nurture them.
A teacher from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who filed the questionnaire name field with no, no, no, said the 50% floor and no attendance enforcement lead to a scenario where, quote, we get students who skip over 100 days, have a 50%, complete a couple of assignments, To tip over into 59.5% and then pass.
They've cut classes, we used to put it, 100 days.
And they pass.
When I followed up with Russell, the high school teacher, over the phone, he said of his students, even if they plagiarize or cheat on something, it's still a 50%.
Yeah.
If they get 2 out of 10 on a quiz, that's automatically bumped up to a 5 out of 10. Are you aware of all of this?
It's automatically bumped.
You get 2 right out of 10. He said grades are no longer tied to attendance and that grading quarters are merged.
So some students, quote, quickly found...
That if they could have a passing grade in the first one or two quarters, they could just stop coming to school.
And people will vote again.
The author of this piece, being a Times opinion writer, will probably vote for the left as well.
It is like voting, it is like going to a doctor that you know is a quack.
Voting Democrat when you know what the schools have been done with.
Not to mention the stores downtown.
We return.
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