NY passes students who get wrong answers on tests

New York Post ^ | June 6, 2010 | Carl Campanile and Susan Edelman,

[MarkL]

This certainly isn't anything new... When I was a freshman in highschool, back around 1975 or 1976, I took a freshman algebra class and it was the biggest joke, as far as learning and grading went. There was a quiz every Friday, and it was worth 10 points. If you turned in a blank sheet of paper with your name on it, you'd get 5 points. There were 10 problems to solve, and if you got each of them wrong, you'd still get the 5 points!

On the other hand, when I got to college and took CompSci 101, we also had a weekly quiz worth 10 points. If you turned in a blank sheet of paper with your name on it, you'd get a 0. If you didn't show up and turn in a sheet of paper with your name, you'd get a -10! And that course was NOT graded "on the curve." If you wanted an "A," you had to earn at least a 95% (90%-94% was an A-.) A really tough course, and that algebra course wouldn't have prepared me for it.

Mark

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

We as parents and citizens look at schools as a training ground for our children. We naturally want them well trained. The people who run our schools today believe that the school system exists to provide them with an ever increasing income sufficient to support them and their families. Thus, people and their school employees are at cross purposes. The quality of the education does not matter to the teachers and administrators the amount of funding does.