Yes, Dedicated Teachers Fail Kids

December 15, 2005

Via yesterday's Carnival of Education: 8th grade teacher PostHipChick wrote about her frustration at the lack of progress her students are making, writing "I did grades this week; almost exactly 50% of my students are getting F's in my classes."

She then wrote of the standing-on-one's-head efforts she's put into getting her charges to learn, and her chagrin at not having a more positive effect. From what we've read of her writings, she's a teacher with heart and soul, who cares deeply about her students, and truly tries her best.

Yet she blames herself for this failure:

But 50% getting F's? It is clear that I have failed as a teacher, because 50% is an F. Is this fair? Am I doing something wrong? Is there more I should be doing?

Our answer is simple.

All she needs to do is teach the class at the level of the students who are paying attention, to the best of her abilities, and grade her students fairly, according to her professional judgement. If this means that 50% of the class fails the marking period, then this simply means her students need to wake up and get on the ball.

Of course this plan will only work if her principal supports teachers who give more failing grades than commonly found in public schools. Without a supportive principal, there is nothing she can do to change the situation. If she lowers her standards then the kids will respond by lowering theirs even further. This death-spiral never has a happy ending.

But when teachers are given latitude to grade according to fair standards, letting the score distribution fall where it may, regardless of the numbers of failing students, then an interesting thing will happen, as shown in the following annecdote.

Years ago we met a Biology teacher at a high school in Philadelphia who had two score-distribution printouts on his wall. The plots were frequency distributions of his students' grades: one from the first marking period, the other from the second, and each looked like jagged bell-shaped curves. He proudly told us that he'd been teaching for decades and was very consistent with his standards and grading, holding kids to the same level of performance in both marking periods.

The bell curve in the second marking period was a full letter grade higher than the first.

So what changed? Not the teacher, this guy was a rock. Not the material, if anything it got harder later in the year (as most subjects are wont to do, knowledge being cumulative). There's only one answer: the students improved themselves.

One of our core principles is that students will become responsible only when given responsibility. Most likely many students slacked off in this teacher's Biology class first marking period, thinking that either the teacher would ease up, or that the grades would be scored "on the curve" or maybe they just thought, "There's no way this guy's gonna fail so many of us!" Chances are good that this is what experience had taught them in their years of public schooling.

But this teacher was unmoved, and in standing his ground he forced his students to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Of course if you let students fail on their own accord you have to "cover your back" to avoid charges of unprofessionalism. Experienced, dedicated teachers have no trouble here, for the key questions are easily answered yes:

• Did you teach the material thoroughly?
• Did you entertain questions regularly?
• Did you assign meaningful homework which would help the students learn the knowledge and skills necessary for mastery?
• Was this homework discussed or were students given feedback on how they're doing?
• Were the students given adequate notice and preparation before quizzes and tests?
• Did you offer students extra help or tutoring outside of class?
• Did you share progress reports with the student and parents?

Of course even the best teachers probably don't hit all these points all the time. But the best, most effective teachers do most of them, most of the time. If this is the case with PostHipChick, and we think it is, then she needs to assign failing grades to the failing students, without looking back.

One pernicious side-effect resulting from teachers of previous years passing students on regardless of skills is reflected in the following complaint:

You may (or may not) be shocked by how many 8th grade students need to be prompted into the most basic things, like what a noun is. I would say at least 75% of my students couldn't tell you right off the bat. A noun. Where have they spent the last nine years of their lives?

We know exactly where they've been for the last nine years. In crappy schools which profess to care about children but yet will invariably promote students each and every year regardless of any skills or knowledge attained.

There's no sane reason why a dedicated teacher should go along with such a farce. Grade your students fairly and they'll thank you later.