Susan James said:That is really poor advice. It’s exactly this kind of thinking that drives great teachers out of the education system. I noticed you posted this before chiquita mentioned they were being asked to account for their work all year long.
Do you actually realize what most principals do when they get letters from parents? Don't you see that teachers end up facing pressure to bump up grades? We saw the whole circus last year in honors classes... or we end up with an artificial surplus of A's during enrollment, which isn't just an issue for chiquitino's child—it affects everyone else too.
I honestly don't know how you imagine a principal "helping" a student. 🤷 Grading criteria are made clear to every student at the start of the school year (if the teacher doesn't state them directly, parents usually go over them, and they're often available online; not to mention that older kids know exactly what each teacher's style is, even if the teacher is new to the district). Every kid has the entire school year to improve their grades, fix mistakes, or ask for extra credit... look, if it doesn't work out, it just means they weren't cut out for it.
In what universe is a principal going to visit a teacher on June 16th and ask them to re-test a student for the entire school year on June 19th or 21st, just because they received a polite letter—or a threat—from a parent?
Regarding that first point—how am I supposed to know the specific criteria or where this "website" is? There's zero mention of that anywhere; some schools hand out a syllabus at the beginning of the term, but many don't even bother with that.
As for the second point, that's just flat-out wrong. Plenty of teachers would absolutely refuse to do that.
If only they’d actually remove those aggressive types from the system entirely. Usually, they just shuffle them off to a different school. They act like they're doing something for the students, but honestly, their colleagues often follow the exact same patterns.
I completely agree with your last point (something I’ve found myself saying quite often lately), and you provided such a brilliant analysis in that off-topic thread we had earlier—it's a shame it was deleted, but I still remember it vividly 👍.
You should drop by every once in a while regardless; one single person doesn't define this entire community, no matter how much toxicity they try to pour into it 😉. Especially since it looks like we're heading toward some major shifts in high school admissions. These national standardized tests aren't just some performative nonsense; there’s definitely something bigger at play here with much larger implications, and I'm certain of it...
She was honestly my favorite professor because she’d go out of her way to explain which specific grading criteria actually mattered versus just looking at some "standard" GPA. That is, until I pointed out the math to her and showed her that her average was exactly what it looked like. After that, things took a rather entertaining turn 😁
Anyway, I’ve never been much of a fan of fluff—you know, all that talking where there isn't much substance behind it. And that was pretty much all I got from her. The funniest part? She kept insisting she had laid out all the grading rubrics right at the start, even though none of us had any clue. Based on the way she was rambling about it, I don't think she could even define them herself if she tried...
mellowskipper said:Around here, one teacher gave a student a C when their GPA was sitting at a 3.5—but then bumped them up to a B when they hit a 4.4. It’s pretty clear she’s playing by her own set of rules, regardless of what the numbers say. I suspect a fair amount of parents are going to file complaints with the school board... especially since these kids are in eighth grade. It seems like she's more than happy to deal with the fallout from an audit or a visit from the district superintendent if she has to.
Anyway, let us know how it turns out! I'm actually really curious to see what happens...
Most parents in those situations usually don't bother calling in the inspectors, so things just tend to slide under the radar. Personally, I haven't actually seen any cases where an inspection was called in, so I really wouldn't know how they’d rule on those specific examples.
Sarah Hall53 said:Yeah, totally... as long as the final grade stays above the average, nobody bothers to look at the actual math behind it. but if you have a kid who spent the entire year being a total nightmare—distracting everyone, turning in blank pages for all those "participation and effort" assignments because they figured "it doesn't count toward my grade anyway"—and you end up giving them a grade lower than their average, you can basically start counting down from three before the school board steps in and wipes your grade out if a parent files an appeal.
You keep bringing this up, but I’ve actually gone through the district handbook, and what you're saying just isn't in there. It clearly states that the final grade doesn't necessarily have to match the arithmetic mean.
(2) The final course grade at the end of the school year does not have to be derived from the arithmetic mean of all recorded grades, particularly if the student demonstrated significant progress during the second semester.
As you can see, there is absolutely nothing in there stating that you aren't allowed to round down. (And honestly, I’ve seen plenty of cases where that’s exactly what happened).
Dennis Alvarez2 said:It’s honestly surprising to me that San Francisco has such a limited selection of high schools. The lower entry requirements there might suggest that the grades aren't being inflated quite as aggressively, though I can't say for certain. Personally, I find myself leaning toward the idea of national standardized testing. It would function much like the SATs—tests administered under strict conditions with sealed materials until the moment they begin. Implementing a uniform standard across the entire United States would ensure that students with genuine talent and knowledge receive a fair assessment, while simultaneously providing invaluable data regarding the performance of individual teachers and institutions. Of course, I wouldn't mind if schools kept their own entrance exams; allowing each school to set its own specific criteria and expectations for incoming students seems perfectly reasonable.
Furthermore, I feel strongly that grading should be calculated to two decimal places rather than rounding off a 3.5 and a 4.4 into the same value. When you round everything up, you end up with those frantic, last-minute scrambles where a student sitting at a 4.3 or 4.4 spends the final two weeks of the semester desperately trying to claw their way to a 4.4, just to be lumped in with the students who maintained a steady 4.8 or 5.0 all year long. I truly wish I understood the reasoning behind why we don't implement two-decimal grading instead of this simplified system, which puts unnecessary pressure on teachers at the end of the term and feels fundamentally unfair to the students who have been consistently high achievers. So many people advocate for this change, yet it seems to be perpetually ignored, so I am genuinely curious about what arguments are being used to block it. 🤔 Has a two-decimal grading scale ever actually existed within our American school systems? I don't recall it ever being part of the curriculum, though I haven't followed the nuances closely enough to be sure. 🤔
It never happened, and it never has. Besides, everyone does their own math in their head anyway, hoping for a little grace period or asking a teacher to "overlook" one bad test score if everything else looks good. Implementing two decimal places would mean that absolutely every single mistake counts toward the final grade. That would be pure chaos.
Personally, I think we should return to a 60/40 scoring model. We could make it so 60% of the weight comes from national standardized test scores, while the remaining 40% comes from core subject grades during 7th and 8th grade—no averages allowed, and certainly no letting someone's enrollment depend on whether they passed PE.
A transitional phase could work too: increasing the weight of national testing by 15% each year. So, in the first year it’s 15/85, then 30/70, then 45/55, until finally hitting that 60/40 split in the final year.
That would have a pretty significant impact on the quality of education in middle schools over the long run. Parents would actually have a reason to care about academic rigor rather than just being happy that their kid isn't being asked to demonstrate any actual knowledge...
It says 75 is the lowest score for PM, but honestly, with those points, you wouldn't even be able to step foot in NYC for the entrance exams. For languages, maybe it’s around 72 or 69, and then a classic 65 for the last one? That feels significantly lower than the usual minimum scores we see in NYC.
stormymarlin22 said:I think this year the preliminary exam scores come out July 12th, and then the final ones around July 20th. Or maybe not, I’m not totally sure on the dates.
As for the entrance exams, I guess it really depends on the specific college. From what I know, they usually happen right after finals, maybe the first week of July.
Well, in that case, you actually have some breathing room to clear your head and decide on the programs you truly want and are qualified for. Until then, it’s mostly just that dreamy, "what-if" phase of college applications.😁
stormymarlin22 said:Yeah, I guess you can add, delete, or shuffle your college choices on the list for a bit, but once the final SAT scores and graduation results are out, everything gets locked in. Some schools—the ones that require their own entrance exams—have their own specific deadlines you have to hit, too.
See, that’s actually what I was wondering about (just curious, purely for the sake of knowing!)—do those entrance exams happen at the same time as the final high school exams? And how much time usually passes between the initial test scores coming out and when the final graduation results are official? (I know there's always that window for appeals and everything like that.)
Well, you can actually start jumping into those high school applications and putting together your lists even before the final eighth-grade grades are officially locked in. It’s kind of wild—my kid is already being offered a ton of three-year programs because their scores are looking solid enough. 🤣
The system says everything stays open until the final results are posted, so I’m guessing things become pretty much set in stone a few days before the actual deadline. It's just like when you apply to six different high schools; you might be sitting there totally clueless about where you actually stand on the admissions list until maybe two days before everything wraps up.
The hype surrounding the idea that this is "the best school in America for the National Exam" 😂 is actually based on data that’s barely four years old—and even then, they didn't even have these specific stats for half of that time. It's pretty well known that this whole craze really kicked off maybe two or three years ago. Before that, nobody was even talking about it, let alone fighting for a spot in these schools (unless you count one specific institution that's been steady for over 30 years 😁).
redridge13 said:So, the real question is: what does that GPA actually represent? 😉 And would they even pass the entrance exam?
The entrance exam would probably solve everything, but my guess is we'd just end up with a whole new batch of pissed-off parents.
By the way, back when I was applying for college (a lifetime ago 🙂), there were people who had maxed out their points based on grades alone and *still* couldn't hit the minimum cutoff. You can't claim to have a 4.0 and then fail to solve a few basic physics or math problems. Grades, unfortunately, haven't been a real measure of intelligence for a long time now.
Exactly. But let’s be real—if you don't show up for the exam, it doesn't matter how high your GPA is; a 4.8 won't save you if you aren't there. It's a total disqualification.
redridge13 said:@Michelle Nelson4 The whole system is a total joke. If you ask me, they should bring back entrance exams—make grades worth 40% and the exam 60%, then we’d actually be getting somewhere... They scrapped them under the guise of "reducing student stress" (yeah, right?), and now we’re stuck dealing with this absolute madness regarding GPA and grading inflation.
Honestly, if they just brought back those entrance tests, it would help weed out some of the issues we're seeing with dyslexia diagnoses and all the other nonsense currently flooding the schools.
Oh, I completely agree. It feels like we're constantly reading posts from people within the school administration implying that parents are somehow "unstable" if they don't have a perfect 4.0. There's such an immediate, public backlash whenever someone questions things, where they reflexively blame "overbearing moms" with this palpable sense of condescension, acting as if the student had no other choice. Honestly, it feels like a deep-seated systemic issue that's taken root...
I was reading this thread about how kids as young as fifth or sixth grade are already deep in the weeds, debating which high schools to aim for and what the tuition looks like. My little one actually started asking me about local high school options back in fifth grade because her friend’s older sister was going through the enrollment process at the time.
If you check the data on sites like GreatSchools, the stats might be from last year, but they give you a solid look at the trends for every school in the district—you can basically track the trajectory over the last five or six years if you dig.
Looking at that whole situation with the family over in Chicago, I’d say both the parents and the kid totally misjudged the situation. And well, you know how it goes... once things go south, it’s all over the news.
Personally, I still hold her responsible. She didn't fulfill her parental duty regarding supervision. You can't just let a child navigate everything on their own without maintaining at least some level of oversight over the situation.
But honestly, that doesn't change the core issue—which is that the system itself is fundamentally broken. If a student has a 4.8 GPA, they should be able to enroll in an elite prep school without any hiccups. It feels like Americans are living in a fantasy land where we're surrounded by thousands of "perfect" students with straight A's who then end up performing well below average on actual tests. Or look at those standardized national exams, where maybe 0.1% of kids get top marks, yet somehow 20% of them claim to have had perfect scores throughout all four years of high school because they're supposedly "straight-A geniuses."
CNN just released last year's data, not the current numbers. I honestly can't decide if it's truly vital for a kid to grasp how much those cutoff lines shift, or if they're just dealing with typical teenage mood swings—that unshakable belief that being a straight-A student somehow guarantees they'll find a way into their top choice during summer admissions, even if the math doesn't quite add up yet.
Take our local high school, for instance. They haven't actually sat the students down to explain any of this; instead, everyone is just left to figure it out on their own. It’s wild trying to navigate a forest of half-baked information online. I wouldn't bet my life on the idea that the administration actually has everything fully figured out...
Sarah Hall53 said:I mean, look, how many high schools are even in Washington, D.C.? There must be at least twenty or so—so yeah, there was definitely a double-digit number of options he could have landed in. But, honestly... they weren't exactly those elite, Ivy League-prep kind of schools Mom had pictured in her head. So, naturally, she ends up paying the premium just to make sure he actually gets that "high society" experience.
The mom? I’d bet anything she let the kid make his own choices because of that whole "don't interfere with their autonomy" mantra, and now he's just taking advantage of it. If Mom had actually stepped in earlier, he probably would have ended up at a school where he actually met the requirements.
Come on, since you're clearly the resident expert on D.C. high schools, why don't you tell us which of those fancy, "posh" six academies without entrance exams in 2021 are impossible to get into with a 4.8 GPA?
We all know they couldn't have been Prep Academy or Lincoln, because those places already required entrance exams by then.☕
I really have to say something here—there is a massive amount of teachers on this thread being absolutely heartless toward someone else's child. I honestly can't tell if it's just a professional burnout thing or what...
In my case, I had a very specific goal for my high school years. Since my first language wasn't quite where it needed to be for the track I wanted, we went all in. We paid for private language schools, hired tutors, and organized structured testing over five years just so I could actually compete for the school I was aiming for—even though, funnily enough, I ended up enrolling in a different one entirely, but that’s a whole other story.
Does that count as "overbearing involvement," or is it just providing a child with the necessary support to chase their dreams? I mean, did anyone else sit there and teach themselves a language in three years so they could outperform 90% of their peers who spent five years studying it, or was that something I achieved because I had the resources and support to make it a reality?
And looking back, when my child pulls in a string of top marks and honors, is that because they truly mastered the material, or is it a result of my "excessive interference"? Should they have been getting Cs and Ds just because that's what the standard curriculum was designed to produce?
Let me give you an example. When my kid was in second grade, they were pulling straight A's in a specific subject without me even knowing what they were studying or how they were being evaluated. They were even participating in competitions! And through all that, three different teachers had cycled through the classroom. Then, fast forward to eighth grade. Right in the middle of the first semester—and thank goodness we already banked several A's, which turned out to be crucial for the GPA (that "illusion of numbers" that basically dictates where our kids get into high school)—we get a new teacher. Suddenly, the grades drop to B's and C's. At first, I thought, "Okay, no big deal, they'll do better on the next one." But then it was a B. Then a C. Then another C on the next test. Eventually, I went down to the administration office, looked over the actual tests, and had a long talk with someone, and suddenly everything became crystal clear regarding the type of personality we were dealing with here. Since then, before every single test in that subject, my child spends an hour and a half with a private tutor (read: someone who actually knows how to do their job) who explains every little nuance, every trick question—which this new teacher seems to love setting—and just walks them through the material. Now, all of a sudden, the results are back to perfect scores, like 100/100, whereas back in elementary school, they would have been struggling just to pass. And hey, at least they'll have those extra points.
Honestly, I don't care what anyone else thinks. I am 100% convinced the issue lies with the teacher, and there is absolutely no way I'm just sitting back and saying, "Oh well, that's just life," and letting my kid suffer under a broken system.
mellowskipper said:I think that was Anderson Cooper. That’s why we’re looking at those first three schools as our Plan A—mostly because they’re right around the corner and only take one class per grade. The other three schools are more of a Plan B, though I guess she'll definitely get into them.
Exactly. You honestly can't just leave something this critical up to chance without keeping a close eye on how things are unfolding. Take Ivana's situation, for example; she's currently footing the bill for four years of private high school. At the end of the day, it's the parents who end up bearing the brunt of these kinds of screw-ups because they have to find a way to bail their kid out. Well, if they actually care about them, anyway. If they don't, they just feed them some nonsense like, "this is your fault, consider it a life lesson," and let them fend for themselves in some three-year vocational program or whatever's left over during the late enrollment period for kids with a 2.5 GPA.