The principal recommended that my contract not be renewed. My dismissal hearing was a lonely affair attended only by my superintendent, my principal, a stenographer, and me. No champion of high educational standards descended from his ivory tower to speak on my behalf. I pointed out that those students who eschewed drugs and attended class regularly were doing well. Some of my ESL students had learned enough English that year to function in regular academic classes, and many of my language arts students were beginning to write coherent essays. I offered student compositions and tests as proof and suggested that we compare my students' standardized test scores with those of other students in the same track. My arguments fell on deaf ears.
That job and its $17,000 annual salary were hardly worth fighting for, so I left quietly. After a year as a salesperson and graduate student, however, I began to miss the classroom and decided to give teaching one more try. I returned to the district where I had given a failing grade to a star fullback. My superiors correctly assumed that I had learned my lesson and welcomed the return of the prodigal teacher. Just as Orwell's Winston Smith was finally able to win the victory over himself and love Big Brother, I was finally ready to embrace the floating standard.
In the ensuing seven years, only two of my students failed. My evaluations were "above expectations" twice and "clearly outstanding" five times. By my fifth year I had climbed to the top of the Texas teachers' career ladder and earned an annual bonus of $3,300.
I really did become a better teacher after my rebirth, if only because I had gained the cooperation of my students and superiors. My classes became much better behaved after I quit trying to force students to learn more than they cared to. My superiors became more supportive, and I actually met with cooperation, not hostility, when I sent students to the office. I tried to be as honest as possible with my charges. All of my students and any parents who bothered to visit my classroom or return my phone calls understood that grades above 80 honestly reflected performance, while those in the 70 range were fluffed up with extra credit. I explained to the parents of my immigrant students that here in the United States passing grades may be given for attendance and minimal effort and do not necessarily reflect mastery of the course material. Students who needed to be pushed lost out, but that was the price of harmony.
The Effective Schools movement of the early '90s gave the brief illusion that schools were ready for real change. In 1991 I was named head of the campus High Expectations Committee. We recommended that administrators stay out of the grading process and that teachers not be required to give evidence that failing students had been retaught and retested. We also suggested that students who complained that their grades were too low or that they were being unfairly retained should be required to prove that they had done the required work and mastered the required material.
Our recommendations disappeared over the summer. In their place was a plan to give high achievers pizza parties and letter jackets.
Why the Floating Standard?
Years ago there was a con game called the razzle-dazzle. Players threw marbles onto a numbered grid. The total corresponded to another number on a chart, where the winning numbers were very high or very low. Since there were many marbles, the odds of hitting such a total were infinitesimal. The operator could give the player the illusion that he was winning early in the game by miscounting in the player's favor. When it appeared that the player was close to winning the jackpot, the operator began counting the numbers as they really were.
Like the razzle-dazzle man, schools have fooled their clients by miscounting in what appears to be the clients' favor. By giving high grades and class credit to anyone willing to occupy space in a classroom, schools create the illusion that their players--their students--are winning. Only after leaving school and facing work or college do the students discover that they have lost.
Knowledge is power, but a diploma is just a piece of paper. Our schools have undersold the former and oversold the latter. Most employers would rather hire a 10th-grade dropout with a solid 10th-grade education than a high school graduate with only fifth-grade skills. Likewise, a dropout who later graduates from night school at age 21 will be better prepared for work and life than a student who graduates illiterate at 18. Many students and even parents fail to grasp this simple truth. For too many of them, a diploma is a sort of philosopher's stone, an object that can magically guarantee one an annual income in excess of $25,000--an object that is, furthermore, an entitlement owed to anyone willing to serve sufficient time in school.
Such students do not see teachers as mentors who help them strengthen their knowledge and skills. They see them as obstacles.
It should come as no surprise that grade inflation and course content reduction have become the norm. Grades are educational quality control, and passing grades "prove" that teacher, student, and school are successful; therefore, the "best" teachers are those who give the highest grades, and the "best" administrators are those who can convince their teachers to do so. In this bizarre system, it is better to teach 10 vocabulary words than 100. If a teacher assigns 10 words and the student learns eight, the student scores 80 on the exam and both teacher and student are successful. If the teacher teaches 100 words and the student learns 50, both student and teacher have failed, even though the second student has learned more than six times as much as the first.
Teachers have an abundance of curricular guides provided by textbook publishers, district committees, and state agencies. Although teachers are required to follow these guides, they are also expected to teach students "where they are at," help them compensate for learning disabilities, modify lessons for various learning styles, reteach students who fail to master material in the allotted time, and so on. A teacher's worst nightmare is to be assigned a "regular" class in which most students' skills are several years below par.
Imagine that you are required to teach Hamlet to a group of students who are either unwilling or unable to read such a work. If you demand that your charges read and understand the play, most will fail and you will be blamed. If you drop Hamlet and convert the class into a remedial reading course, you will be out of compliance with the curriculum. If you complain that your students are not up to the mandated task, you will be labeled insensitive and uncaring.
Fear not: The floating standard will save you. If the students will not or cannot read the play, read it to them. If they will not sit still long enough to hear the whole play, consider an abridged or comic book version, or let them watch a movie. If they cannot pass a multiple-choice test, try true-or-false, or a fill-in-the-blank test that mirrors the previous day's study sheet. If they still have not passed, allow them to do an art project. They could make a model of the Globe Theater with popsicle sticks or draw a picture of a Danish prince, or Prince Charles, or even the artist formerly known as Prince. Those who lack artistic talent could make copies of Shakespearean sonnets with macaroni letters on construction paper. If all else fails, try group projects. That way you can give passing grades to all the students, even if only one in five produces anything.
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