Dennis Prager Show - Grade Inflation Is Ruining Our Schools
Aired: 2023-10-17
Duration: 07:21


=== New York Times: The Grade Inflation Debate (05:01) ===

[00:00:00]  This damning article in the New York Times.
[00:00:03]  The left has ruined our schools.
[00:00:05]  That's what it's about, but they never once blamed the left.
[00:00:09]  Not once.
[00:00:10]  They do, though, say bad district policies.
[00:00:16]  A typical response, she sent out a questionnaire to teachers, the writer in the New York Times.
[00:00:22]  Came from Russell, a public high school teacher on the East Coast.
[00:00:26]  He said that when a big chunk of the graduating class, quote, has a 4.0 grade, that's meaningless.
[00:00:36]  This is what he wrote.
[00:00:39]  Failure is a bad word, and the kids know it.
[00:00:44]  It takes way more work to hold a student accountable than to simply pass him, her, him, slash her.
[00:00:55]  Even if a kid does nothing all year, we are encouraged to find a way to pass him her.
[00:01:03]  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.
[00:01:14]  Who has produced these parents, the left or the right?
[00:01:19]  I'm curious, what do you think?
[00:01:21]  Think these are left-wing or right-wing parents who demand that the teacher change, not that their child change.
[00:01:30]  It's, my producer frequently will say to me, you think they put two and two together?
[00:01:42]  You think they put two and two together?
[00:01:46]  Not in Oregon.
[00:01:48]  Two and two doesn't equal four in Oregon.
[00:01:50]  They announced the Oregon Education Department that the idea that there's one right answer in math is white supremacist.
[00:01:59]  The left ruins everything it touches.
[00:02:02]  This is just an example.
[00:02:04]  That's all it is, but not once are you told that.
[00:02:08]  Part of the issue is grade inflation.
[00:02:11]  As Chalkbeat reported last year, Quote, even as students have taken higher-level courses, their GPAs have steadily risen.
[00:02:22]  Geniuses.
[00:02:23]  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.
[00:02:41]  This overall state...
[00:02:43]  Has become more alarming since 2020, given how far behind school children are now.
[00:02:50]  What, by the way, do you think that homeschool children are behind?
[00:02:57]  Of course not.
[00:03:03]  Are there rational reasons to keep your child in most American schools?
[00:03:16]  What's not helping?
[00:03:17]  The policies many school districts are adopting that make it nearly impossible for low-performing students to fail.
[00:03:25]  Who run these school districts?
[00:03:27]  There's no hint in the New York Times.
[00:03:31]  Is there a school district in the United States that is run by conservatives?
[00:03:37]  If there is, it is probably a very small, probably rural school district.
[00:03:46]  They make it nearly impossible for low-performing students to fail.
[00:03:51]  They have a grading floor under them.
[00:03:54]  They know it, and that allows them to game the system.
[00:03:58]  This is New York Times report.
[00:04:01]  Several teachers whom I spoke with, or who responded to my questionnaire, mentioned policies stating that students cannot get lower than a 50%.
[00:04:13]  I think from state of play and 50% is she might be British, this writer.
[00:04:19]  Because we don't say get a 50%, right?
[00:04:23]  Get a 50. I'm just explaining, that's all.
[00:04:26]  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.
[00:04:44]  You get a 50 when you hand it in nothing.

=== Grading Quarters Merged: Failing Students Pass (02:35) ===

[00:04:51]  Well, that's how they would like all of life to work.
[00:04:56]  Because then nobody can fail.
[00:04:59]  This is the feminization of the culture.
[00:05:02]  Because we want to nurture kids that are failing.
[00:05:08]  We don't want to lift them.
[00:05:12]  We want to nurture them.
[00:05:15]  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.
[00:05:46]  They've cut classes, we used to put it, 100 days.
[00:05:51]  And they pass.
[00:05:54]  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%.
[00:06:10]  Yeah.
[00:06:11]  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?
[00:06:22]  It's automatically bumped.
[00:06:24]  You get 2 right out of 10. He said grades are no longer tied to attendance and that grading quarters are merged.
[00:06:33]  So some students, quote, quickly found...
[00:06:36]  That if they could have a passing grade in the first one or two quarters, they could just stop coming to school.
[00:06:46]  And people will vote again.
[00:06:48]  The author of this piece, being a Times opinion writer, will probably vote for the left as well.
[00:06:58]  It is like voting, it is like going to a doctor that you know is a quack.
[00:07:06]  Voting Democrat when you know what the schools have been done with.
[00:07:14]  Not to mention the stores downtown.
[00:07:20]  We return.