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Why getting rid of grades would help rich students — and hurt poor ones
Washington Post ^ | Catherine Rampell

Posted on 05/13/2017 3:48:32 PM PDT by Libloather

Think grade inflation has made grades less meaningful?

A consortium of 100 elite prep schools agrees. But rather than impose stricter grading curves, these schools plan to eliminate grades altogether.

“People are nonstandard,” says D. Scott Looney, head of Cleveland’s Hawken School and founder and board chair of the new Mastery Transcript Consortium. “They grow and evolve in the world in nonstandard ways. Distilling that down to a simple common number like a GPA shaves off a lot of humanity in that journey.”

These are not artsy-fartsy alternative schools; the consortium includes some of the most famous pressure-cooker private institutions in the country, such as Chapin, Phillips Academy and Holton-Arms. Their proposed two-page replacement transcript would exclude not only grades but even the names of the courses a student took.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: education; grades; learning; poor; rich; schools; students; teaching
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Why judge? Besides, everyone starts out at $15 an hour...
1 posted on 05/13/2017 3:48:32 PM PDT by Libloather
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To: Libloather
D. Scott Looney? An unfortunate yet some how appropriate name.
2 posted on 05/13/2017 3:52:16 PM PDT by Captain Compassion
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To: Libloather

So we are going from a system that is objective to one that is subjective. I think I see where this is going.


3 posted on 05/13/2017 4:06:48 PM PDT by stoneyhll (If I am to err, let me err on the side of freedom)
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To: Libloather
do they use nonstandard numbers, elements, materials and equations in their stem classes too?
4 posted on 05/13/2017 4:21:41 PM PDT by Chode (My job is not to represent the world. My job is to represent the United States of America-#45 DJT)
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To: Chode

The ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference is whatever you want it to be.


5 posted on 05/13/2017 4:32:38 PM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Libloather

And people are non-binary. Got it.


6 posted on 05/13/2017 4:37:04 PM PDT by ilovesarah2012
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To: DuncanWaring
and more importantly, how do you feel about that ratio??? was it fair???
7 posted on 05/13/2017 4:50:48 PM PDT by Chode (My job is not to represent the world. My job is to represent the United States of America-#45 DJT)
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To: Libloather

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64PKoAiWhjE


8 posted on 05/13/2017 5:10:29 PM PDT by Redmen4ever
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To: Chode

It’s fair only if it identifies as fair.


9 posted on 05/13/2017 5:19:55 PM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Libloather

A Planet is a body of mass surrounded by a void,mopped to an over educated expert educator.

Meritocracy is what life is all about. The sooner people figure out that your compensation in this world is related to your “batting average” more than anything else.

As the visionary Janet Jackson said - “ what have you done for me lately”


10 posted on 05/13/2017 5:22:44 PM PDT by Jimmy The Snake
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To: Libloather

Why even bother attending school?


11 posted on 05/13/2017 5:55:44 PM PDT by chief lee runamok
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To: chief lee runamok; Liz; AT7Saluki

No record of courses taken and no grades. Uh, oh. Are these the new Husseincare doctors?


12 posted on 05/13/2017 6:04:47 PM PDT by Libloather (Trivial Pursuit question - name the first female to lose TWO presidential elections!)
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To: Libloather

We always knew they have no standards. It’s good that they admit it.


13 posted on 05/13/2017 8:21:40 PM PDT by Seruzawa (FABOL)
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To: Libloather

I call bogus.

I don’t think this benefits anyone. Why work harder if you have no goal?


14 posted on 05/13/2017 9:19:47 PM PDT by luvie (Be still and know that I Am GOD.....Psalm 46:10)
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To: DuncanWaring

heh heh heh heh


15 posted on 05/13/2017 9:24:53 PM PDT by Chode (My job is not to represent the world. My job is to represent the United States of America-#45 DJT)
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To: Chode

Pie are NOT square! Pie are ROUND! Cornbread are square!!! ;)


16 posted on 05/13/2017 9:40:08 PM PDT by Frank_2001
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To: Chode

Over 50% of my calculus students failed last semester. The students that failed my class were premed or engineering majors. If a student can’t pass calculus then he/she will not make it through basic engineering courses like thermodynamics or strength of materials. A student that doesn’t have the work ethic needed to pass my class will not make it through a tough course like gross human anatomy.


17 posted on 05/14/2017 1:14:14 AM PDT by Do the math (Doug)
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To: Libloather
"People are nonstandard," says D. Scott Looney, head of Cleveland’s Hawken School and founder and board chair of the new Mastery Transcript Consortium. "They grow and evolve in the world in nonstandard ways..."

When Charles Murray and Dr. Richard Herrnstein wrote a book about that, they were branded as "racists!"


18 posted on 05/14/2017 3:57:56 AM PDT by SkyPilot ("I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6)
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To: Do the math
Over 50% of my calculus students failed last semester. The students that failed my class were premed or engineering majors. If a student can’t pass calculus then he/she will not make it through basic engineering courses like thermodynamics or strength of materials.

Amen.

When I went through engineering in college, we started out with a very large contingent of students Freshman year. By Senior year, the engineering class was 1/5th in size.

Calculus was "easy" to me compared to other engineering classes such as Statics, Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Vibrations, Materials, Circuits, and Fluid Mechanics.

With Calculus or Differential Equations, you could learn the foundational building blocks and rules, and then practice problem after problem to master the concepts.

With engineering, you could practice until you were blue in the face. Then, on the midterm and final exams, the professors would throw their "curve balls" into the tests, asking you to "think like an engineer" on concepts and strange angles into problems you had to solve (in a very short time and under pressure). In short, what you studied was almost never on the exam in pure form.

19 posted on 05/14/2017 4:04:38 AM PDT by SkyPilot ("I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6)
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To: DuncanWaring
The ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference is whatever you want it to be.

Not exactly. But that jive about pi only works in Euclidean geometry, and as Einstein demonstrated, non-Euclidean geometry more accurately and simply accounts for observations.

20 posted on 05/14/2017 5:17:02 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Psephomancers for Hillary!)
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