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- 3:54am — June 19, 2013
nonprofit local independent online news
A new grading policy at Pueblo High School will award students who cheat a 50 on their assignments, rather than a zero, a Friday email from the school’s principal said. While many teachers would not comment, citing a fear of retaliation, one expressed deep concerns about the change.... Read more»
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4 comments on this story
Wow, just when you think things can’t get any worse at TUSD…
I went there over 20 years ago already, and things were horribly dumbed-down back then. I swear the motto was “if at first you don’t succeed, lower your standards”. But even as bad as the curriculum was back then I never thought they would engage in this type of idiocy…
School is supposed to prepare you for the real world. In the real world, you rarely get do-overs, and very few people care about your self-esteem. I guess this all fits into the theme of not being held accountable for one’s actions,which is the unfortunate direction our society seems to be heading :(
Ideas such as “no zeros” are not only idiotic, but they’re grossly irresponsible. If I had kids there is no way on earth I’d ever let them attend a TUSD school.
Just when Pueblo students were starting to get a bit of respect, this happens. It’s a black eye for these students. Especially those that are excelling.
It is not a fifty point scale, it is a forty point scale. Everything below that is a failure. The grading scale, has always been, 90-100% is excellent, 80-89%, is above average, 70-79% is average, 60-69% is below average, and below 59% is a failure. A, B, C, D, and Fail.
It’s why there has never been an ‘E’.
As much as I hate Flowing Wells and would love to see the entire district burned to the ground, they had a better grading scale when I was a kid. It went…
100-92 A
91-84 B
83-76 C
75-70 D
69 and below was F
not even I know, but it did hold students to a higher standard.
This really is a black eye for Pueblo students and faculty. Ms. Watts seems to be clumsily trying to address the problem of chronic failures by playing with the grading scale and hiding behind district policy. I can almost empathize with the difficulty of dealing with students who are chronic failures. In my experience (and I have 26 years of it) these students arrive with a history of poor attendance, poor study skills and a willingness to resort to easy solutions (cheating and plagiarism). Once a student like this earns a zero for an assignment, he then lacks the skills to pull himself back to a passing grade. The problem is that instead of dealing with root causes, Watts just uses an accounting trick. However, she has done nothing to change the student’s attendance pattern, build study skills or discourage unethical behavior. In fact, she is encouraging these things. Hopefully TUSD’s Superintendent and Board will see fit to correct this, for the sake of the students if nothing else.