On Tuesday a Las Vegas Sun editorial and a letter to the editor from Laura Friedlander took strong stands against schools giving 50 percent credit for zero-quality work. Ms. Friedlander asked, “Do employers pay 50 percent for not showing up and not producing?” Well, no, but a 50 percent grade is still failing.
Further, teachers are not employers and students are not laborers. With limited resources and limited options, I suspect the schools are trying to motivate students who have failed the first semester by providing a possibility of some “pay” for the second semester.
As a former teacher, I believe the metaphor of grades and pay does not work well. You can buy stuff with money, but not with an A-plus. Successful students tend to come from economically sound families that have expectations for academic success. Students succeed for emotional needs such as love, a sense of identity, and some power and control over their lives.
But let us assume that the pay/grade metaphor works. What does one do with first-semester failures if there is no money for first-semester repeat classes? Do we put them in study halls? Do we dump them in shop classes?
What if all the first-semester failures were put into the second-semester class of Ms. Friedlander, who once was a teacher? How would she go about teaching the work ethic to a class full of students who know they will get no pay for their work?
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