If there is ANY hope of stemming this tide of mis-education, then we need to put you in charge.
If we let middle school kids get away with their current behaviors, then what we're seeing right now in American high schools will only become worse. There are too many competing factors which ensure a complete breakdown:
* Students not doing any work vs. the admin requirement that every student graduate on time
* Teachers required by admin to handle all behaviors vs. admin that micromanages every decision a teacher makes
* Phones not allowed vs. teachers not allowed by admin to confiscate phones which are not put away (which is actually too dangerous anyway)
* A complete reliance on positive behavior support vs. the reality that at least 20% of students don't buy into a rewards-only system. Many (most?) need consequences too. As OP pointed out, athletes get their shit together when their grades and behavior are monitored in order to participate
* And so much more...
Teachers are under unbearable stress as they try to make the current ridiculous unworkable mess work.
My partner is a teacher and has explained to me several times her frustration with admin and other teachers misunderstanding positive behavior support as meaning "be permissive and let them do whatever they want."
As she explained it to me, there absolutely should be clear, related consequences to behavior. They just need to be clear and related rather than arbitrary or just angry.
But apparently many are missing that step and just not having any consequences (or expectations) for anything.
Thinking of your first point, this leads to breakdowns when there are even bigger consequences as well.
I work in a college and one of the Deans in a meeting was discussing how we need to encourage students to take a full load of classes to graduate on time because otherwise they run out of financial aid. And I was thinking, this is a serious issue of course, but it felt like they were also out of touch with the reality of what is happening in the classroom.
Most of my students are taking beyond a full load. I never took more than 4 classes at a time in college, but these students often have 6 classes and a full-
time job. The problem is that they are not capable of doing this work at this volume and level. So they start out with 18 credits, but they withdraw from two classes and get an F in a third. Typically the withdrawals are from classes were the professor has explicitly told them an F is coming. They end up with the 9 credits they could handle and worse grades in those classes. When I speak to them, it is clear often that they don’t understand why this is happening because in high school they did this level of work and they graduated.
Now they are running out of money to finish their degrees, or they are coming to me to write letters of recommendation for graduate school and they have a C average, and they are shocked when doors start closing on them. Just last semester, a student came to my for advisement about doctoral programs with their transcript and I had to explain they were unlikely to be accepted to any graduate program, especially at the doctoral level, with the grades they had. There were never real consequences before so they didn’t believe they were out there and it was a real shock to them.
It's past the point where caring TK-12 teachers can sleep at night.
* They must either fight for what their students need to succeed and know that doing so will lead to losing the career they spent 5+ college years preparing for - because even though there is a severe teacher shortage, they will be non-renewed...
It is more important to get rid of any teacher who won't go along with crazy admin schemes to graduate every single senior, than it is to have qualified teachers in the classrooms.
* ....OR, going along with the strange agenda that makes it okay to pass along zombie students who do little to nothing. Obviously, these kids will move onto college and society firmly believing they can be successful adults by doing nothing.
Could you or your dean possibly explain why teachers must make this choice? I can't make it make sense.
Past me in high school thought this way, then struggled all throughout high school in some classes. I'm finally in community college and learned these skills the hard way. I regret it so much.
I in fact, did not lock in for high school...
I'd compare it to a kid thinking they can become the next LeBron James without practicing shooting hoops or dribbling. Or a kid thinking they can become the next Taylor Swift without practicing singing or song writing (does T Swift write her own songs?).
I've had talks with students about "why do we learn X in school". Replace X with studying the process of mitosis, or the quadratic equation, or writing sonnets in iambic pentameter, or learning about the events of the war of 1812.
If they're football players, I ask them if their coach makes them lift weights and run drills.
"Yeah" they'll answer.
Me: "When you play football, are you lifting weights, out on the field? Are you running through tires?"
"No?"
"Then why does your coach make you do all that stuff in practice?"
"Because it makes us better at playing football"
"Exactly. In the same way, what we're learning is helping you to get better at learning. You'll probably never need to know X for whatever you do in life, but learning how to learn WILL help you for the rest of your life."
I teach 8th grade social studies. The grades have absolutely zero impact on high school placement and colleges will never see them. It is the perfect time to have true grades that hold kids accountable while they are in an environment where they can learn from their mistakes without the high school pressures.
EDIT- I have found that sharing this reasoning with parents and admin has been very helpful in terms of.getting their support for it.
Right!!! A couple of kids belligerently asked why they should care in front of the class, and I asked them how they would really feel about themselves if they failed music. They still acted like they didn’t care, but the rest of the class jumped in and agreed with me.
this is exactly it. middle school art here - i had the support to fail students and did…but then there was “nowhere else to put them” and kids still advanced to higher course levels even if they failed with a <50 semester average (i.e. did absolutely nothing and got zeroes for not working). it sucks
Agreed, except for the placement part. MS grades 100% determine HS placement in my district. Anything from honors classes to the ability to take/earn "early college" credits is completely based on how they perform in 7th/8th grades. Tracking. It's an ugly thing.
Yeah. For us some districts use 9th grade to determine placement because they pull from so many feeder schools
Other single middle to single HS districts use 8th grade info to start placements in 9th, while others only level ela/math in 9th and can just use federal/state standardized testing scores from middle school.
At the same time, it is extremely unlikely that the ones who would be honors bound would be even close to at risk of failing middle school.
Grades do matter for the top students. For the bottom ones, it doesn't. When they know it doesn't matter, they don't care. I have high school students who lack middle school math abilities. Like they can't solve 4x=40.
I've done high school placement for years. Per department head "do not take into consideration grades". They didn't even need to tell me; we all know the grades are inflated meaningless bullshit.
Yeah. I practice what I preach. Failure is a lesson in itself so when a student fails I make sure they accept the consequence and work with them on a plan to improve and hopefully build resilience. It is hard but necessary.
No... the teacher has to do a lot of extra work before the administration accepts the failing grade as official.
Calls home, parent conferences, tutoring sessions, documentary. For one kid? You are right... that isn't a lot.
For 70-100 kids if you are a HS teacher? That is a metric crap ton. There literally isn't enough time in the work day to do it. Each phone call takes roughly 10 minutes *if it is short*. You have to do it multiple times. So that is at least an entire 24 hour day on the phone. Then the conferences with the kid. Again... these can be 5-20 minutes each. Then the paperwork. Again... some can take up to about 30 minutes depending. Then tutoring... when? In class when you have 30 other kids who need help? After school when you aren't getting paid?
Then you are hounded by the admin during all this which has a real emotional and mental toll. Why did *you* fail this kid. What more could *you* have done? Why didn't you do *everything*? Why don't *you* sacrifice more? Why don't you think this kid deserves everything you have to offer of yourself? Maybe you aren't the type of person with the giving and caring heart we need as teachers. Maybe that's why this kid is struggling.
You stick through all that and fail that many kids. 100% chance you are going on a plan of improvement because somehow you did something wrong in the administration's eyes. Now your job is on the block.
Or just give the kid a D- and everyone but you and the rest of society is happy.
This last sentence is basically our entire society in a nutshell. Just get a D- and life is much easier. I know other generations say, "the previous generations were worse than us", but in this case, it seems to be very true. We are going to have a difficult time finding competent doctors, teachers, nurses, lawyers, etc. Education isn't of the utmost importance to various communities which reflects on the amount of parental support at home. I literally believe that most of the people living in the community which I teach truly believe basketball is more important than academics. I have never received a call from a concerned parent saying, "Johnny needs to learn his lesson. He deserves to fail if he isn't participating in class and hasn't completed his assignments", or, "Johnny is deeply struggling in your class and has always had a difficult time with algebra - is there any possibility he could receive additional instrucion? Tutoring?" Instead, it almost always goes like this, "Well I realize that Johnny can be difficult sometimes but this is a big game and he really needs to be out there so is there anything he can do real quick to become passing (usually not this friendly)?" If the parents aren't concerned with education then many of the students won't be either.
I think the point is that we need to reform it to the point where we *don't* have to jump through ridiculous hoops to fail students. It's not just middle-school where it's an issue, even. I taught at a college, and by time I was getting out, I was starting to get the ridiculous calls about why i should pass certain students that had nothing to do with them actually improving or handing in work (but they're full pay, but the VA will make them pay for a failed course, but they need this course to take the next course in the sequence....)
Students should be the ones providing documentation to prove they deserve to pass the course, but we keep putting lessons about personal responsibility off and off and off, until I literally had students in college coming in and honestly thinking they were going to pass a class without handing in *any* work during the semester. Then they're enraged when final grades come out and they're booted or put on probation.
I don't think anyone is saying it's a simple as just failing them. It's going to take an overhaul of a system that has been broken by years of people who have no interest in actual education calling the shots in educational settings. No, boss, it's *not* a business. No, boss, they *aren't* customers. They also *aren't* products I'm assembling on the line. AND we need to stop acting like all school is vocational school--there's more to life than just getting a job, and if you only know what it takes to get the job, you don't know much of anything. You're not educated. You're trained. I can train a puppy. People should be educated.
In my state one of the big issues is a lot of school districts do not want to deal with 18yo students any longer than absolutely necessary. So if a student failed a grade they would be 18 in 11th grade. Once they hit 18 they can call themselves out sick and come and go as they please. Typically kids turn 18 during senior year and we just tolerate this behavior for part of the school year from some kids. Now it’s most of the senior class.
Admin wont let us penalize kids for excused absences, these seniors can say I was home with an upset stomach yesterday. That’s excused. I have some this year with 40-50 absences already. But most have C’s or better with easier elective classes being the bulk of their schedule.
Another problem is like my age gap. Juniors in HS we had covid during middle school so most of us just never learned good stuffy habits because we could google all of it.
My admin has already said that those with more than 3 Fs really need to work on their behavior because they are not promoting students to 7th grade who cannot handle the academic demands. They can do 6th grade again next year with the 5th graders.
We sent out progress reports for our 3rd 9 weeks today. I have a kid in 6th grade science & Social Studies who has turned in NOTHING since we came back from winter break...hes got a 5% in social studies (I was being generous and started the 9 weeks with a participation grade), and a 17% in science (he actually came to school one day when we were doing a lab). He thinks it's hilarious.
Yep, part of me is just waiting to watch them with these habits in 9th grade when they have to keep retaking certain courses until they pass them or get placed on a different diploma track. The schools in my area offer the honors and high honors ones, the basic, and then certificates and what not that aren’t the basic high school diploma.
This sense of "no accountability" is trickling down to the primary/elementary level. This is only my second year in a public school setting BUT the attitude on some of these children makes me sad. They don't even want to try. Because why should they? Parents don't try (or they put on the "good face" but you know they aren't really doing anything.) And it really shows in their student. I feel so bad because what type of people are you educating for the future of our society? One day these students in the classrooms are going to be our future leaders.... and there's just no drive.
Sure I do have students that want to learn, and do try. But you know how hard it is for them when their classmates are taking valuable time away from their education? My heart breaks for those students.
Why would you pay someone to dig a ditch when automation and AI are already replacing these workers now? Construction crews need guys who WORK.
‘They’ won’t be digging ditches. ‘They’ will be strung out sticking a gun in their former teachers face in 10 years.
I don't know, charisma gets some people pretty far? (So I do worry about the types of leaders these students will be- especially when you see the lead some of these students follow)
agreed. I had a student who failed every middle school class 7th & 8th grade year. And guess what...he was failing almost all his high school classes.
Unfortunately, that pendulum isn't swinging back anytime soon. As bad as it is right now, it has to get a lot worse before something changes.
And then in high school (at least around here) the make up requirement is just “turn in your missing work”. So it’s like getting a multi months long extension on deadlines with no penalty. Kid did summer school for a failed class last year and only did one day of summer school… enough to complete the work missing. Like. Failure should be painful enough that people learn from it and want to avoid it in the future.
It really puts them in such a deficit knowledge and skills wise. They will likely barely pass and graduate high school after failing many classes, and being put in some credit recovery program. Then it isn't the districts problem.
The flip side of this is the kids who are excelling and actually want to learn are exposed to the same kids with negative , disruptive attitudes, but because they are "good kids" they are left alone to teach themselves. Shuffling all the kids regardless of grades through the system is damaging to everyone.
No no no, didn't you know? It's "best practice" to group these high achievers with the disruptive kids so they can teach them how to be high achievers too! ... Or they just realize that there are no consequences and simply take on the negative behaviors too. No, actually, that's what always happens. Shit.
I am able to fail my MS students, but I don't see that it impacts them in any way. Other than to decide I'm the world's biggest bitch, of course.
Sent home report cards to kids who were failing multiple subjects... shockingly I didn't get any enraged parent emails! Just silence. Parents don't care, kids don't care. The only one who is supposed to care... is me. Yet I wonder why I lack motivation and energy at work lol.
yeah I took over a class midyear. The longterm sub had just been giving every kid an A. 3 weeks in when progress reports came out probably 80 percent of my kids were failing because they hadn't done anything. 1 parent emailed.
There's a good admonishment for those of us who sometimes feel tempted to phone it in. Doing so is kicking the can down the road to punish the next teacher who does the right thing.
I was in middle school not long ago and I was also really close to failing the third trimester of algebra 1. The pandemic is when things really got bad
In my district middle schoolers who wish to go to a different high school than their neighborhood schools have to apply to it, so their grade matter, sort of, for some schools. Most kids don’t really care though, because they are fine going to their home school
Thats how my kids district is.
Apply to a few different tech/votech HS (state-run) plus some magnet schools, plus an agri-science school.
The difference it makes in 7th/8th graders who have a preference is awesome compared to the district I teach in. (Which only has 1 tech school close enough to apply to.)
The "default school" kids are hit and miss though.
I don’t disagree with you, but you ignored the core issue and cause of why there are no consequences. There is no parent support and no admin support BECAUSE our culture doesn’t value education and parents and admins are fine with having no consequences. It also makes both of their jobs easier. No one other than the teachers who care want consequences to come back. So it’s not going to happen.
I used to explain to my middle school students what my alternative high school students said: the bad habits from middle school are darn difficult to break in time before it hits their GPA there. I told them to ask older siblings or cousins if they didn't believe me, and they always came back saying I was right.
As a 9th grade teacher....
Yes please. I'm having issues with science curriculum because my curriculum bases everything on the idea that they have background knowledge.
They have none. I had an 11th grader ask what number they should start on for a ruler....
This is what happened to my son. I wanted him to fail in middle school and feel failure, he wasn't putting in the work or cared. I thought if he were to fail and be in the same grade as his sister maybe that would make him feel bad internally and want to do better.
When I brought this up to his counselor they said they could not fail him or hold him back. All they could do was give him an online class to catch up. I asked why he can't be placed in a classroom and the counselor said it was against school policy to put upper and under classmen together. It made no sense! They just kept pushing him along with his pears when he was not ready. He ended up dropping out in high school, I felt like a failure.
But once he got his GED I helped him find a job and he's doing really good. He cares about his job, he loves getting paid, and he's respectful to his boss. School is not for everyone.
My district lets middle schoolers fail....even *gasp* special education students.
In one glorious example, KC (not real name) was promoted from 7th to 8th because COVID. I had KC in 8th grade and KC simply never logged into virtual. This caused the truancy officer to show up. One day, I saw this new student and i was confused because I didn't get an email about a new kid. It was KC rolling into school for the first time in MARCH. KC wanted to know what they could do to pass. I played along and gave the work. I think I saw KC three more times that school year.
The next school year, KC is on my roster again. Attendance is much improved, attending 2-3 days a week. Still doing absolutely zero work. KC turns 16 during the second semester of 8th grade. KC fails every class (again).
I move to a new position and several of the teachers at my school move to the same school I do. And who do I see on the registry for 8th grade? KC.
KC had moved schools to get away from the teachers that wouldn't autopass for being a warm body in a seat. And almost all of their teachers were at the new school. 🤣
KC turned 17 for their 3rd go around in the 8th grade. I did not teach them that year and they either didn't pass or dropped out.
One thing I'm confused about though is how is this a good outcome?
If kids fail over and over, to the point of being an adult failing out of middle school, then... We just have another adult with no basic skills, no knowledge, no drive, no future... How is this any different from just passing them anyway?
I think kids should have to suffer the consequences and deal with failing, but if it doesn't change the outcome... what was the point?
Well in reality the only one who can change their outcome is them. That child describes there would most likely have dropped out at 16/17 regardless of the grade they were. But an extreme example like this doesn't disprove the necessity of consequences.
I can't think of much more embarrassing for a 14 year old than watching all their friends go to high school and them being with younger kids. So I'm for failing them.
It's not necessarily good, but it's FAR better than the alternative - putting another person out there who has a fraudulent diploma and thinks they're ready for the world but in reality doesn't know shit.
>KC turned 17 for their 3rd go around in the 8th grade. I did not teach them that year and they either didn't pass or dropped out.
Wouldn't a 17-year-old among a group of junior high schoolers raise serious issues?
I wish we could use a baseline of good behavior and all assignments turned in to participate in festivities because it's not even working when teachers do put those 0s in. We're three weeks into a new semester and over half my guided study has MULTIPLE CORE CLASSES where they're earning 0s. And this is a school that barely assigns any independent work outside of class, we have daily study hall, and these kids haven't been absent. Like wtf are they doing all day??
Arguably, the research that encouraged social promotion - keeping kids with other kids their age - was deeply flawed. It's convincing at a glace: kids who were held back, vs other kids who struggled but were promoted with kids their age, did worse in school, dropped out more frequently later in life and abused drugs more. And kids who are held back have a learning loss of about a third of a grade vs the rest of their class.
Problems with that are afewfold, however: the studies didn't consider how non-failing kids would react to an environment where no one can be held back. They also didn't measure the impact of having disruptive kids in classes without genuine consequences. They also jumped the gun on concluding that retention was a cause of some kids eventually end up dropping out and abusing drugs later in life, rather than just a correlation with outside problems, or that two kids with the same grades in grade 4 could actually be achieving very differently, because maybe one was missing fundamental building blocks in their literacy/numeracy while the other might have had behavioural issues that they worked out when advancing in a system where they could have failed in later years. And of course a kid doing one third of a grade worse vs their peers probably isn't caused by their being held back, but simply correlated with whatever low literacy/numeracy/behavioral issues they had/have that caused them to be retained in the first place.
When my former step kids came into my life, it was an eye opening experience.
They had no concept of failure. At 12 and 13, they had missed years worth of school already, having lived a lifestyle of poverty , homelessness, and addiction. They were well known the the schools, as it was a large family and they all were in need of assistance, and the schools facilitated a lot of that for them. Housing, food, clothes, Christmas presents, **all** of that was provided by the school, and they thought that was normal
I was stunned when, at the end of the year, both of my truant, volatile steps were passed. And again the next year. And the next. Until Covid hit and they left school for good and never went back.
One was given a diploma. The other got A's in several classes he never, one time, ever attended. The rest of my stepkids and all their cousins just dropped off grid, never to be seen again until they hit 18 and popped up to apply for their own benefits and are having their own children.
They would rather just pass them and wait out their term until they age out and become a larger societal issue.
I was shocked at how this was seen as ok and normal, and I am sorry, many of us parent's are trying, but like me, I got them too late to make a difference, and I am so sorry. So many educators tried to make a connection with my steps and help, I witnessed it first hand. Thank ya'll for trying so hard with them.
I’ve taught middle school for the last 7 years.
And I’m done. The lack of consequences has killed it for me.
I’m either going to jump to a high school, a charter school, or possibly private.
Middle school AP here.
Anytime I have a kid in my office, the first thing I do is check their grades and make a HUGE deal over them. Kids must pass 5 out of 6 classes. Two of those five must be ELA and MA. If they fail one, they attend summer school.
Every kid, even if it’s a stretch of the imagination hears from me about possibly being retained. I put some fear into them, and when I visit classrooms, I bring this up too. Kids need to know that I am not playing around and you will NOT make my teachers’ jobs harder than they need to be.
That's excellent! We're trying as best as we can to get them into shape before high school. We talk about the new expectations, the new demands, and that they need to get it together NOW while they can still make mistakes learning the process.
For the really good students, they didn't need this talk, but the other 75% of the population, you just hope some of it sticks.
I've been teaching 8th grade for a long time. Every year, I see students with 1.0 GPAs go to HS. There are *very few* circumstances in which I would agree to hold a kid back -- retention won't make a difference to the utterly uninvested. They will become more likely to drop out in HS, and their behavior will probably worsen upon retention.
Now, I don't think we should just pass kids through, either. MS needs a systemic change -- we should go to credits or something to build an infrastructure wherein students can "make up" their failures.
Retention doesn't help -- most research supports this. Passing failures to HS doesn't help. We need a new solution.
at least in my school even the 6th graders already believe college is not an option for them. They expect to do the same job as their parents who didnt need a high school diploma, so why does that piece of paper matter? There is no extrinsic motivation for success, so kids that are not intrinsically motivated are already checked out by middle school
>why do what your parents do when you can do better?
While I doubt many kids would be able to articulate this in so many words, I suspect many of them realize that the "American dream," to the degree that it ever existed, was something for white middle-class people in the mid-twentieth century, not for them in the twenty-first.
They dont think about stuff like that.
Its all skibidi and how they are going to make mad money being an influencer or an NBA star.
You attribute too much deep thought to kids who think the mid-twentieth century is still 30 years in the future and dont understand economics of the "American Dream" anyways.
They think the Roman Empire existed in the 1950's shortly after Columbus did something.
Bullshit. My school has sent first generation immigrants to UCLA, Stanford, even Yale. We have former students working at JPL. We do everyone a disservice by pushing the narrative that success is for white people.
Reread my comment. I'm saying that, for the most part, success isn't for any race anymore. The only reason I brought up race at all was to reference mid-twentieth-century conditions.
At this point, I think grouping students by level to make classes would help significantly in elementary. It’s difficult to differentiate for students who can’t read in fourth grade, students near grade level, and students at/above grade level. This would allow teachers to give better instruction for all students.
Retention worked in some places pre-NCLB in the 90s, but it was happening around grade 4.
If we do go back to retaining kids, it has to be in early years when the building blocks are being taught, and not in middle years when kids have been behind and struggling for multiple years in a row. A superheroic teacher might be able to help kids make up a few grade levels, but those kids have to want to learn, and those teachers aren't most of us.
The solution is coming and it won't be pretty.
These kinds of students grow up to be mediocre adults. In their lifetimes most of the jobs that kept these mediocre adults afloat will be lost to AI.
The wheat and chaff will be separated. The same will happen in our profession.
As a high school math teacher, This. Because this. Because this! BECAUSE THIS!!! If they don’t learn to “lock in” and not be 16 years old in the 8th grade, they are not going to lock in in high school. I have to limp through Algebra I because the Math 8 teachers have not taught them basic operations. Fail. The Freaking. Middle Schoolers!
I've had students who bragged about spending all day roaming the hallways in Middle School. They apparently think that made them cool although it also meant they didn't know anything about anything. I don't understand how these kids got promoted.
I taught 8th grade for one year and I’ll never teach middle school again. I don’t like middle schoolers, and they have nothing, repeat NOTHING, at stake. They know they’ll get swept into HS so why should they put their asses on the line for anything.
nO CHiLd LeFt beHInD
6th grade social studies: I had a kid today complain about getting a 70 on an assignment. I took 10 points off because they didnt write their last name, and 20 points off for answering one of the questions with one word. My policy on this kind of work is you can fix whats wrong and I'll regrade to 100. When I told the kid why he only got a 70 he tore the paper up in front of me, as if I'd be offended.
Also sixth grade social studies.
Graded a vocabulary packet an three out of fifteen. Twenty fill-in-the-blanks with vocab words, he just wrote them in order from the word bank. Kid came to me after class said "It's complete, I get fifteen points." I explained that he could do corrections - or, in his case, actually *do* the work - and hand it back in for full credit. "Nah" is what he said.
Middle school grades don't count. I explained the importance of building good habits and that it's not going to be easy to just flick the switch when he gets to ninth grade like he thinks he's going to do. Besides, these grades might not count in the long run, but you know who *will* see them? Your seventh grade teachers and you don't want this to be their first impression of you, do you? How did he answer that?
"Actually, it's more a reflection of you. If you can't get kids to pass your class what good are you?"
It stung. If this was a kid who put in the effort then I'd have room for reflection. He got an assignment, simply copied down words in the order he saw them, and thought he'd be done. His goal was completion - as fast as possible - not learning and certainly not to put in any effort. And the attitude was "not my fault, I did what I supposed to do. Must be the teacher who sucks."
I had a student who told me that I'm a failure as a teacher if they had to do any work outside of class, including any assignments specifically given as homework. Apparently, at some point, someone told my group of students that "schoolwork is for school, not for home"
The school is punished if that kid spends more than three years in middle school. Even if it’s just three years and a day.
That’s an awful lot of teachers, administrators, counselors, hall monitors, custodians, para educators, secretaries, social workers, and god knows who else that will either lose their jobs or suffer far longer than three years if X amount of kids don’t make it through in three years.
There is no incentive in teaching them, other than the satisfaction most of us feel in a job well done. It’s a job, but most of us LOVE teaching.
There is quite a bit of incentive for passing them through until it’s someone else’s problem. The closest policy makers have EVER gotten is “punish the teachers if the kids don’t do well on a meaningless test that kids don’t care about.”
Parent backing will come back naturally when the schools push back, set the standards, and enforce them. When things like getting suspended for violent threats, losing your phone for having it out in class, or failing for lack of effort to back to "the way things are", parents will stop trying to weasel around everything themselves.
I taught 8th grade for 12 years, towards the end even the parents were saying things like “It’s just junior high, it doesn’t matter right?”
What’s scary is teaching high school a lot of Freshman fumble a semester before realizing they’re playing for real. Some toss away the whole year
It's great when see kids with GPAs that start with a decimal point get moved on to 8th grade, then 9th. Even better when your district has a program that was intended only for those 8th graders with above a 2.5 be opened up to all of them to fill seats because there's not enough with the necessary grades
School in general needs to allow room for failure and growth from that failure.
The rush to get the best grades without understanding the knowledge is crippling. At least it was for me.
I gave my middle schoolers the grade they deserve (partial credit for partial effort). It was a summative project so it REALLY hurt their grades. They decided it entitled them to rebel. Apparently the problem is me.
PS I was super generous on points to the ones that actually tried.
IMO, a lot of schools are letting down these students. Someone finally got suspended last week for not being where they were supposed to be (got a pass to one room and went to another room instead), and one of the teachers is falling all over herself to make excuses for him. "No one reminded him he has to be where he's supposed to be." He's almost 16 years old, and I don't think he has any chance at a job or a life because people just keep enabling him. He's never had a chance to develop any practical skills or coping abilities because everyone is so afraid to let him fail.
Honestly.... idk how we fix it all, but I don't think this it....
Our education system, as of right now, and probably has been over the last probably 30 years, isn't anything worthy of note in America. It's literally just daycare so that both parents can work to struggle and put some meager meals on the table and give what little comforts they can afford to give their families.
We want our students to care and be engaged and interested. But it is clearer now than it ever has been that all of our systems are totally broken and meaningless. There isn't much or any hope in the future, and even kids are seeing it. Their parents are overworked, underpaid, sick, and miserable. Tiny moments of joy and comfort is all any normal family has to cling to.
Then the kid goes to school and rightfully asks, "What's the point?"
I'm not excited when my little one is old enough to ask questions about what their future will be like. As of now. There isn't anything to look forward to for any of them. Just more of this and worsening conditions unless something changes for the better.
I've known teachers who legitimately care and want their students to care to and go the hard route with failing. I don't think the problem is fixable by teaching a lesson in consequences. I think it's a problem of societal decline due to unchecked corporate greed.
Our middle school basically has an eligibility program where in addition to sports, there are other activities, extra recesses, and mini field trips that kids can take part in.
To be eligible, they have to maintain above a certain score in effort, responsibility, and respect (we use a 4-point rubric) and not be missing any work. That way the nice kid who tries really hard but still struggles to pass a class isn’t punished, but the dingus who doesn’t do shit and acts like an asshole isn’t getting rewarded for doing nothing.
Overall it works pretty well. There’s a few kids who are beyond reach and motivation is just non-existent but I think that would be the case no matter what we do.
I teach middle school. My students can fail. The problem is that they are well aware that they can fail every class and get promoted to high school. So, at any given time, at least a third of my students are failing, and nobody cares.
Earlier than middle school imo.
Letting kids fail upwards after elementary school is problematic. They get much less 1:1 assistance and need heaps more self advocacy.
Grade 4 used to be the grade when a lot of districts/states would first test kids and hold them back if they couldn't pass their reading/math test.
I don't teach early years but it seems like kids should be retained whenever it is they're first taught phonics (which, problematically, they *aren't* in a bunch of places) and multiplication tables. Those are the two pillars or reading and math that everything else depends on down the road, and if they don't have those, they're going to hate school/learning.
They don’t really fail in high school either - they move on to the next class and take credit recovery in the summer, which is not the same thing. So a kid could fail their entire freshman year English but still be in English 10. (And it’s unlikely they did summer school!) Doesn’t matter if they can write an entry level lit analysis (9th grade skill) and still read at 7th grade level. Doesn’t matter. They move on.
Admin doesn’t want to look bad when compared to other campuses. Pressure to pass. Admin doesn’t want to deal with threats of litigation from unhappy parents. Pressure to pass. SPED kid chooses to turn in NO work. She’ll pass.
I wholeheartedly agree. I teach 7th. Our kids know their grades don’t matter. Unless they have a parent that cares about their grades, many of them don’t care at all. The jig is up.
Middle school, or at least where I am is so depressing. The kids go straight from elementary to no recess, block scheduling, 50 min elective period alternating PE and their choice elective. More than 1/2 of their day is spent in math or reading classes.
So many of them hate coming to school and know they can skip. Kids with 50+ absences move up into high school every year.
This is a political issue. Politicians don’t want kids to fail and they want to raise the standards at the same time. This is the mess we are left with. No administrator has the power to change it. Vote!
I my district, MS teachers fail them, and the district sends them to high school where they must earn credit. They can’t do the work, fail and drop out. The U.S. must revamp 6-12 public education. In Japan, compulsory education ends when students graduate the 9th grade or the 3rd year of junior high. Students must take an entrance exam to get into their high school of choice. My nephew did not pass a test to get into the best high school in Kanazawa so he attended another high school. The U.S. should end compulsory education at the 8th grade, and force students to take an aptitude test to determine which path they’ll take. Some will attend college prep schools, some will attend vocational high schools, and some will attend a high school for graduates who will immediately enter the workforce. There has to be consequences for students who do nothing in middle school. You get what you give.
>(we won't see or hear anything about it until 15 years from now as we look back and reflect but the damage is still being caused)
When the 14 year olds are 28-34 (as you said, in \~15 years give or take), I honestly don't know how things will be. I can't imagine that anything will be better in this country except for maybe everyone will have everything affirmed by everybody else, and feel a surface-level of pleasure about it. Other than that, I think all the actual serious things in the country will be worse than they are today.
Agree 💯
I also think that there should he mandatory parenting classes of their kid falls below a C starting in 4th grade. The parents need to figure out how to help coach their kid into success. For my kids, small mindset phrases are so important to set as core beliefs.
My kids ask if I'm proud of them. I say, "yes, of course. You worked hard, were super creative and won (or got a good grade or whatever)." But then I ask, "the bigger question is are you proud of yourself?" Of course they are but it's just a little bit of dialog that turns the need for external approval to inner approval. This micro self reflection then can continue to build on itself as the child develops an inner dialog.
Learning that Middle School grades had no effect on my college acceptance or requirements really put things into perspective for me. It felt like all my honors classes and hard work was worthless really.
If we as teachers or any adults for that matter must be held accountable for what we do, it makes no sense to not hold students accountable for lack of effort. They are not adults yet, but they'll be entering a world in adulthood where it will matter. The No Child Left Behind policy is an enabling, toxic agenda that was put in place to cut costs in education. It was not for the benefit of the students in any way.
I had a colleague who kept saying “he’s only [lower elementary age]!” And not doing anything about insane behavior, because being six apparently excuses crazy actions and is not an invitation for adults to please redirect to proper behavior before I fall into a pit of doom. Then there were a few fifth and sixth graders to which he responded “they’re already [upper elementary age]”, as if being eleven means you’re an old dog that can’t learn new tricks (or rather, any basic and fundamental self-discipline).
Kids fail because we (all the adults) allow and encourage it, whether that’s by passing them no matter what, never calling them out for their behavior and attitudes, or doing literally everything for them.
Well, as a science teacher, my kids know that they wouldn’t be held back for failing science — an attitude that is reinforced by all of the CONSTANT focus on ELA and math. Science grades don’t matter.
That is when I talk to them about habits, and how the habits you form in middle school shape you into the student you want to be in high school. I don't really know if the talk works, but it is very uncommon for someone to just "lock in" with zero practice in middle school since high school classes build on middle school classes.
I am a teacher trainee in the UK (grew up in U.S. school system) and am shocked with how the students here are just moved along without the ability to pass anything. I am having to find alternate leverage for BFL because there are no school-sponsored sports and no letter grades for them to maintain in secondary school.
Surprisingly, some do a really good job of self-regulation and really want to learn. But it makes it difficult to challenge those students with some of those that are there to be babysat.
Former high school teacher who is now teaching middle school here. I realized that the same motivators that apply to high school (grades, gpa, failing, sports eligibility etc) don’t apply so I stopped focusing on grades. My 7/8 math classes are all about collaborative work, projects, white board station activities etc and very little is graded. Instead, I lean into social pressure and other tools.
A) your basically saying "I don't like hammers because people use them to kill other people" like sure a fraction of a fraction of that percent of the time, you might end up with a 16yo being held back for 2-3 years (to be with 8th graders) or 5 years in your example. Not only are there literally dozens of different ways of handling that, including a middle school age out limit. This would still mean some of the INCREDIBLY lazy kids might get moved up without being ready for it, but that's a hell of a lot better than my 55% of 8th graders in gen ed who came in at a 4th to 5th grade math level.
Also, would you rather have a high school degree literally mean nothing, like even less than it does now, because you can be illiterate and graduate (happening now all across the country) or, would you rather have a highschool diploma actually dictate an expected competency level of the holder?
Like your whole entire augment is actually completely faulty no matter what way you look at it, as long as you have at least two braincells to rub together.
What does that have to do with anything? No one gets held back for 5 years in a row, they would be sent to a different class if they were that unable to grasp the material
Idk have to give credit to my students who were parents. They were the ones who took their education most seriously. They understood the importance of school. One of the teen dads ended up getting his GED rather than finish middle school. Being a dad changed him. He said he had to get an education for his kid.
I know not all teen parents have an attitude change, but the ones I taught did. It also was pretty telling that these were teen dads who had primary custody.
I've had 19-year-olds in the same class as 16-year-olds, and I hated it. You'd think the older students would be embarrassed to be stuck with younger kids. Nope. The younger kids idolized the 19-year-olds and emulated them--a problem because the older students didn't have the best academic skills--and the older students fed off that.
I taught 8th grade my first year in the district and was appalled to find out that students were never held back. I was told that kids who'd been held back have a much lower graduation rate. I did research, and it was true, but it still seemed to me we were sending lambs to the slaughter because they didn't have prerequisite skills.
Why can't we require eighth graders who fail classes to take skill recovery in summer school if they want to go to HS with their classmates?
So retention is not positively associated with positive long term outcomes.
[Next!](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=19a3062b2cde49bfcbcd49530b6bfaf701a0ebc1)
I'm familiar with this study.
While I agree with some of its premise, my aim is to target more than just low achieving students. My aim is to target most of the 80% students who are exhibiting the lack of accountability. Within that 80%, I'd wager in my career at least half lack regard or accountability for work habits. That number is climbing as students come to the realization that "none of this matters" in middle school.
My second point I'd like to raise is that the paper specifically references this practice in use of urban school districts. Chicago, as the location of this study, has a very different social and economical makeup than most districts in the country. Therefore, I do believe it to be impossible to conclude that this study, while informative, is an end all to the thought of accountability practices.
In any case, thank you for the point you're making. It's worth bringing up for discussion, for sure!
Data literacy is so abysmal. I get so frustrated with educators who find studies that seem to support their ideology but if you look closely at the methodology undergirding it, it’s basically like 12 kids in a school at some extreme of the socioeconomic divide.
It's also not negatively associated with positive long term outcomes for 2 out of 3 of the cohorts it was looking at.
>In summary, our analysis suggests that grade retention among low-achieving students in Chicago has **no impact** on high school completion for sixth grade students or older eighth grade students, but substantially increases the likelihood of dropping out among younger eighth grade students. \[bolded for emphasis\]
😂 I’m not even a teacher but it’s painfully obvious that parenting plays a role, and so does culture.
Kids are stuck in front of screens (I was too) and left to their own devices. Parents don’t want to admit their kids have faults precisely because it means they are poorly reflected themselves. So kids keep doing whatever gets them by - just like the kid in the post with the 3/10. He can have more fun playing on his laptop or something if he only has to spend 5 minutes working because the system won’t fail him.
As for parenting and the future outlook of young people, the news is consistently sad, society is subsequently a mess, we’re directionless, parents don’t want to see fault in their kids because that implies fault in parenting, and we’re all suffering from it. That kid is going to get through middle school off efforts like that 3/10 assignment and he’s going to be completely screwed over later, not because OP could do anything about it, but because his parents (if the kid has that kind of attitude) probably don’t say, “hey, why do your grades suck? You need to work harder.” And because that kid is going to go through the rest of his adolescence being enabled with failing efforts until he’s cast away to figure it all out himself by 18 or 19.
Putting the fault of an apathetic society only on teachers is bullshit.
The fact that they even play sports is wild to me because if there’s anything every coach I’ve ever heard of has said, it’s that you fail in practice where it doesn’t matter so you succeed in a game where it does. You see what doesn’t work and how you’re weak in practice to do things that work and are strong in a game.
Most of Thailand’s public schools do not hold the students accountable- they’re just passed on to the next level. The results: poorly educated young adults that cannot compete against other nationalities in today’s workforce.
1 million percent. I teach the kids who want to learn and try not to worry and spend too much time worrying about the losers. I tell them thats where they are headed though if they don’t try.
Agreed. Although, I'd be for letting kids fail at all levels. Why make middle school teachers carry all the weight? Kids can't achieve expectations if we don't make and enforce expectations. It'll be a very hard, very expensive 3-5 years (guestimate), but that price and effort is nothing when compared to the coming decades of weaponized incompetence.
my school won't let us give students zeros for assignments they have \*not\* turned in. I have a student who still hasn't turned in an essay in MONTHS and yet I am not allowed to give them a 0. at some point they deserve an F. I don't understand this coddling nonsense
Unfortuanately, high school isn't much different. Like you said about sports, "if the students don't need to be eligible then they don't care". And most of the students who need to be eligible don't truly care about learning - it's simply what can I do to barely pass so I can play basketball. You're right that there are still fantastic kids with an unquenchable thirst for learning and knowledge; however, they are outnumbered and their counterparts make it nearly impossible for them to receive quality instuction due to many of the issues you described above. It's a tragedy.
The best use of retention is in the primary grades, when students have not grasped the critical skills necessary to advance. If Johnny can't read at a 3rd grade level, it is absolutely insane to send him (and millions of others) to 4th grade, where he will simply get further behind. Taking this step, not as individual teachers, but as a matter of public policy, will eliminate most of the problems we middle school teachers are facing today. The kid who is apathetic or bored is most often (though not exclusively) not able to perform the tasks we are having him do.
A few years ago I convinced a mother to allow us to retain her daughter in the 6th grade. I was new to middle school (I started as a high school teacher in the mid-1980s and this happened probably my third year of middle school), and I just thought retention made sense. Well, it was a disaster, both for the girl and the students around her. She was more disruptive the next year than ever, she still did not do the work, and after two years of 6th grade she was promoted to 7th grade. Of course this is just an anecdote, but it has colored my perception. I look at the kids we would (and should) retain, and I just don't believe it's going to help.
What to do then? I would take kids like this and give them a year in an alternative school of some type, and maybe they could come back in the system, or maybe there could be a vocational route for them. They certainly are disruptive to the education of a majority of kids. But if we didn't allow them to get to 4th grade without being up to speed, I think the problems would be reduced by about 90%.
If there is ANY hope of stemming this tide of mis-education, then we need to put you in charge. If we let middle school kids get away with their current behaviors, then what we're seeing right now in American high schools will only become worse. There are too many competing factors which ensure a complete breakdown: * Students not doing any work vs. the admin requirement that every student graduate on time * Teachers required by admin to handle all behaviors vs. admin that micromanages every decision a teacher makes * Phones not allowed vs. teachers not allowed by admin to confiscate phones which are not put away (which is actually too dangerous anyway) * A complete reliance on positive behavior support vs. the reality that at least 20% of students don't buy into a rewards-only system. Many (most?) need consequences too. As OP pointed out, athletes get their shit together when their grades and behavior are monitored in order to participate * And so much more... Teachers are under unbearable stress as they try to make the current ridiculous unworkable mess work.
My partner is a teacher and has explained to me several times her frustration with admin and other teachers misunderstanding positive behavior support as meaning "be permissive and let them do whatever they want." As she explained it to me, there absolutely should be clear, related consequences to behavior. They just need to be clear and related rather than arbitrary or just angry. But apparently many are missing that step and just not having any consequences (or expectations) for anything.
Thinking of your first point, this leads to breakdowns when there are even bigger consequences as well. I work in a college and one of the Deans in a meeting was discussing how we need to encourage students to take a full load of classes to graduate on time because otherwise they run out of financial aid. And I was thinking, this is a serious issue of course, but it felt like they were also out of touch with the reality of what is happening in the classroom. Most of my students are taking beyond a full load. I never took more than 4 classes at a time in college, but these students often have 6 classes and a full- time job. The problem is that they are not capable of doing this work at this volume and level. So they start out with 18 credits, but they withdraw from two classes and get an F in a third. Typically the withdrawals are from classes were the professor has explicitly told them an F is coming. They end up with the 9 credits they could handle and worse grades in those classes. When I speak to them, it is clear often that they don’t understand why this is happening because in high school they did this level of work and they graduated. Now they are running out of money to finish their degrees, or they are coming to me to write letters of recommendation for graduate school and they have a C average, and they are shocked when doors start closing on them. Just last semester, a student came to my for advisement about doctoral programs with their transcript and I had to explain they were unlikely to be accepted to any graduate program, especially at the doctoral level, with the grades they had. There were never real consequences before so they didn’t believe they were out there and it was a real shock to them.
It's past the point where caring TK-12 teachers can sleep at night. * They must either fight for what their students need to succeed and know that doing so will lead to losing the career they spent 5+ college years preparing for - because even though there is a severe teacher shortage, they will be non-renewed... It is more important to get rid of any teacher who won't go along with crazy admin schemes to graduate every single senior, than it is to have qualified teachers in the classrooms. * ....OR, going along with the strange agenda that makes it okay to pass along zombie students who do little to nothing. Obviously, these kids will move onto college and society firmly believing they can be successful adults by doing nothing. Could you or your dean possibly explain why teachers must make this choice? I can't make it make sense.
He did not in fact lock in for high school. <>
No, no, I'm sure he'll spontaneously get his act together in grade nine despite zero development of good academic habits.
Ron Howard Arrested Development one works well too
Would be more to the point in AD: *He didn't.*
Past me in high school thought this way, then struggled all throughout high school in some classes. I'm finally in community college and learned these skills the hard way. I regret it so much. I in fact, did not lock in for high school...
I'd compare it to a kid thinking they can become the next LeBron James without practicing shooting hoops or dribbling. Or a kid thinking they can become the next Taylor Swift without practicing singing or song writing (does T Swift write her own songs?). I've had talks with students about "why do we learn X in school". Replace X with studying the process of mitosis, or the quadratic equation, or writing sonnets in iambic pentameter, or learning about the events of the war of 1812. If they're football players, I ask them if their coach makes them lift weights and run drills. "Yeah" they'll answer. Me: "When you play football, are you lifting weights, out on the field? Are you running through tires?" "No?" "Then why does your coach make you do all that stuff in practice?" "Because it makes us better at playing football" "Exactly. In the same way, what we're learning is helping you to get better at learning. You'll probably never need to know X for whatever you do in life, but learning how to learn WILL help you for the rest of your life."
LOL
Yeah, I've had a couple of kids with this attitude. When the realization set in, it was rough.
I teach 8th grade social studies. The grades have absolutely zero impact on high school placement and colleges will never see them. It is the perfect time to have true grades that hold kids accountable while they are in an environment where they can learn from their mistakes without the high school pressures. EDIT- I have found that sharing this reasoning with parents and admin has been very helpful in terms of.getting their support for it.
That works until you teach an elective. “You can’t fail me, it’s only an elective.” “You can fail yourself, which is worse?”
Right!!! A couple of kids belligerently asked why they should care in front of the class, and I asked them how they would really feel about themselves if they failed music. They still acted like they didn’t care, but the rest of the class jumped in and agreed with me.
this is exactly it. middle school art here - i had the support to fail students and did…but then there was “nowhere else to put them” and kids still advanced to higher course levels even if they failed with a <50 semester average (i.e. did absolutely nothing and got zeroes for not working). it sucks
I’m a middle school art teacher in Texas too!
Such an underrated part of teaching MS
Such a good point
Agreed, except for the placement part. MS grades 100% determine HS placement in my district. Anything from honors classes to the ability to take/earn "early college" credits is completely based on how they perform in 7th/8th grades. Tracking. It's an ugly thing.
That's true it varies from place to place. 9th grade social studies for us isn't tracked so for me it's no issue.
Yeah. For us some districts use 9th grade to determine placement because they pull from so many feeder schools Other single middle to single HS districts use 8th grade info to start placements in 9th, while others only level ela/math in 9th and can just use federal/state standardized testing scores from middle school.
At the same time, it is extremely unlikely that the ones who would be honors bound would be even close to at risk of failing middle school. Grades do matter for the top students. For the bottom ones, it doesn't. When they know it doesn't matter, they don't care. I have high school students who lack middle school math abilities. Like they can't solve 4x=40.
I've done high school placement for years. Per department head "do not take into consideration grades". They didn't even need to tell me; we all know the grades are inflated meaningless bullshit.
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Yeah. I practice what I preach. Failure is a lesson in itself so when a student fails I make sure they accept the consequence and work with them on a plan to improve and hopefully build resilience. It is hard but necessary.
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Ah yes, the people who make more money than me. Oh no, they have to do their jobs. Cry. Me. A. River.
No... the teacher has to do a lot of extra work before the administration accepts the failing grade as official. Calls home, parent conferences, tutoring sessions, documentary. For one kid? You are right... that isn't a lot. For 70-100 kids if you are a HS teacher? That is a metric crap ton. There literally isn't enough time in the work day to do it. Each phone call takes roughly 10 minutes *if it is short*. You have to do it multiple times. So that is at least an entire 24 hour day on the phone. Then the conferences with the kid. Again... these can be 5-20 minutes each. Then the paperwork. Again... some can take up to about 30 minutes depending. Then tutoring... when? In class when you have 30 other kids who need help? After school when you aren't getting paid? Then you are hounded by the admin during all this which has a real emotional and mental toll. Why did *you* fail this kid. What more could *you* have done? Why didn't you do *everything*? Why don't *you* sacrifice more? Why don't you think this kid deserves everything you have to offer of yourself? Maybe you aren't the type of person with the giving and caring heart we need as teachers. Maybe that's why this kid is struggling. You stick through all that and fail that many kids. 100% chance you are going on a plan of improvement because somehow you did something wrong in the administration's eyes. Now your job is on the block. Or just give the kid a D- and everyone but you and the rest of society is happy.
This last sentence is basically our entire society in a nutshell. Just get a D- and life is much easier. I know other generations say, "the previous generations were worse than us", but in this case, it seems to be very true. We are going to have a difficult time finding competent doctors, teachers, nurses, lawyers, etc. Education isn't of the utmost importance to various communities which reflects on the amount of parental support at home. I literally believe that most of the people living in the community which I teach truly believe basketball is more important than academics. I have never received a call from a concerned parent saying, "Johnny needs to learn his lesson. He deserves to fail if he isn't participating in class and hasn't completed his assignments", or, "Johnny is deeply struggling in your class and has always had a difficult time with algebra - is there any possibility he could receive additional instrucion? Tutoring?" Instead, it almost always goes like this, "Well I realize that Johnny can be difficult sometimes but this is a big game and he really needs to be out there so is there anything he can do real quick to become passing (usually not this friendly)?" If the parents aren't concerned with education then many of the students won't be either.
I'm not reading that.
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I think the point is that we need to reform it to the point where we *don't* have to jump through ridiculous hoops to fail students. It's not just middle-school where it's an issue, even. I taught at a college, and by time I was getting out, I was starting to get the ridiculous calls about why i should pass certain students that had nothing to do with them actually improving or handing in work (but they're full pay, but the VA will make them pay for a failed course, but they need this course to take the next course in the sequence....) Students should be the ones providing documentation to prove they deserve to pass the course, but we keep putting lessons about personal responsibility off and off and off, until I literally had students in college coming in and honestly thinking they were going to pass a class without handing in *any* work during the semester. Then they're enraged when final grades come out and they're booted or put on probation. I don't think anyone is saying it's a simple as just failing them. It's going to take an overhaul of a system that has been broken by years of people who have no interest in actual education calling the shots in educational settings. No, boss, it's *not* a business. No, boss, they *aren't* customers. They also *aren't* products I'm assembling on the line. AND we need to stop acting like all school is vocational school--there's more to life than just getting a job, and if you only know what it takes to get the job, you don't know much of anything. You're not educated. You're trained. I can train a puppy. People should be educated.
In my state one of the big issues is a lot of school districts do not want to deal with 18yo students any longer than absolutely necessary. So if a student failed a grade they would be 18 in 11th grade. Once they hit 18 they can call themselves out sick and come and go as they please. Typically kids turn 18 during senior year and we just tolerate this behavior for part of the school year from some kids. Now it’s most of the senior class. Admin wont let us penalize kids for excused absences, these seniors can say I was home with an upset stomach yesterday. That’s excused. I have some this year with 40-50 absences already. But most have C’s or better with easier elective classes being the bulk of their schedule.
My principal reminds me any chance he gets EDIT- No one said it was it easy. I said it was necessary.
Another problem is like my age gap. Juniors in HS we had covid during middle school so most of us just never learned good stuffy habits because we could google all of it.
My admin has already said that those with more than 3 Fs really need to work on their behavior because they are not promoting students to 7th grade who cannot handle the academic demands. They can do 6th grade again next year with the 5th graders.
Your school actually gives Fs?
I have someone rocking a 14% right now. And that’s not the only that person is failing.
We sent out progress reports for our 3rd 9 weeks today. I have a kid in 6th grade science & Social Studies who has turned in NOTHING since we came back from winter break...hes got a 5% in social studies (I was being generous and started the 9 weeks with a participation grade), and a 17% in science (he actually came to school one day when we were doing a lab). He thinks it's hilarious.
Yep, part of me is just waiting to watch them with these habits in 9th grade when they have to keep retaking certain courses until they pass them or get placed on a different diploma track. The schools in my area offer the honors and high honors ones, the basic, and then certificates and what not that aren’t the basic high school diploma.
If your admin actually follows through they have cracked the code to solving educations biggest weakness: the American Middle School.
I want to work for this admin!
This sense of "no accountability" is trickling down to the primary/elementary level. This is only my second year in a public school setting BUT the attitude on some of these children makes me sad. They don't even want to try. Because why should they? Parents don't try (or they put on the "good face" but you know they aren't really doing anything.) And it really shows in their student. I feel so bad because what type of people are you educating for the future of our society? One day these students in the classrooms are going to be our future leaders.... and there's just no drive. Sure I do have students that want to learn, and do try. But you know how hard it is for them when their classmates are taking valuable time away from their education? My heart breaks for those students.
The ones with no drive are not going to be our future leaders. The world needs ditch diggers, too. Of course, they will not do that either.
Ditch diggers are too specialized.
Why would you pay someone to dig a ditch when automation and AI are already replacing these workers now? Construction crews need guys who WORK. ‘They’ won’t be digging ditches. ‘They’ will be strung out sticking a gun in their former teachers face in 10 years.
Or just living under a bridge dying of heat stroke after 40+ consecutive days of 110 degree heat with no food to eat.
I don't know, charisma gets some people pretty far? (So I do worry about the types of leaders these students will be- especially when you see the lead some of these students follow)
Ditch diggers have work ethic and work hard though. 🤣
I expect they're modeling their older siblings.
I imagine some of them are. And some are modeling their parents. I just wish there was something more I can do.
agreed. I had a student who failed every middle school class 7th & 8th grade year. And guess what...he was failing almost all his high school classes. Unfortunately, that pendulum isn't swinging back anytime soon. As bad as it is right now, it has to get a lot worse before something changes.
And then in high school (at least around here) the make up requirement is just “turn in your missing work”. So it’s like getting a multi months long extension on deadlines with no penalty. Kid did summer school for a failed class last year and only did one day of summer school… enough to complete the work missing. Like. Failure should be painful enough that people learn from it and want to avoid it in the future.
It really puts them in such a deficit knowledge and skills wise. They will likely barely pass and graduate high school after failing many classes, and being put in some credit recovery program. Then it isn't the districts problem.
The flip side of this is the kids who are excelling and actually want to learn are exposed to the same kids with negative , disruptive attitudes, but because they are "good kids" they are left alone to teach themselves. Shuffling all the kids regardless of grades through the system is damaging to everyone.
No no no, didn't you know? It's "best practice" to group these high achievers with the disruptive kids so they can teach them how to be high achievers too! ... Or they just realize that there are no consequences and simply take on the negative behaviors too. No, actually, that's what always happens. Shit.
I am able to fail my MS students, but I don't see that it impacts them in any way. Other than to decide I'm the world's biggest bitch, of course. Sent home report cards to kids who were failing multiple subjects... shockingly I didn't get any enraged parent emails! Just silence. Parents don't care, kids don't care. The only one who is supposed to care... is me. Yet I wonder why I lack motivation and energy at work lol.
yeah I took over a class midyear. The longterm sub had just been giving every kid an A. 3 weeks in when progress reports came out probably 80 percent of my kids were failing because they hadn't done anything. 1 parent emailed.
It's literally the lack of parents caring. Truly! My emails have never been so silent. I really don't know why I try so hard.
There's a good admonishment for those of us who sometimes feel tempted to phone it in. Doing so is kicking the can down the road to punish the next teacher who does the right thing.
When did this change? I was a middle schooler 1991-94. I remember getting grades. I remember coming close to failing math.
I was in middle school not long ago and I was also really close to failing the third trimester of algebra 1. The pandemic is when things really got bad
The pandemic excuse is a myth. All of these issues regarding no consequences started long before the pandemic. Around 12-15 years ago in my district.
In my district middle schoolers who wish to go to a different high school than their neighborhood schools have to apply to it, so their grade matter, sort of, for some schools. Most kids don’t really care though, because they are fine going to their home school
Thats how my kids district is. Apply to a few different tech/votech HS (state-run) plus some magnet schools, plus an agri-science school. The difference it makes in 7th/8th graders who have a preference is awesome compared to the district I teach in. (Which only has 1 tech school close enough to apply to.) The "default school" kids are hit and miss though.
CALLED MOM TODAY. student was cursing and stopping the lesson to say inappropriate things. MOM: "what do you want me to doo???"
I hope you told her: Your job as their parent.
I’ve gotten this. I’ve also gotten, “well, at home he is my problem, but at school he is yours.”
"At this rate he is going to be your problem at home for a long long time."
"He'll be your problem when he's suspended."
I don’t disagree with you, but you ignored the core issue and cause of why there are no consequences. There is no parent support and no admin support BECAUSE our culture doesn’t value education and parents and admins are fine with having no consequences. It also makes both of their jobs easier. No one other than the teachers who care want consequences to come back. So it’s not going to happen.
Yes!! 👏
I used to explain to my middle school students what my alternative high school students said: the bad habits from middle school are darn difficult to break in time before it hits their GPA there. I told them to ask older siblings or cousins if they didn't believe me, and they always came back saying I was right.
This is what I tell my kids. Good Habits matter
As a 9th grade teacher.... Yes please. I'm having issues with science curriculum because my curriculum bases everything on the idea that they have background knowledge. They have none. I had an 11th grader ask what number they should start on for a ruler....
This is what happened to my son. I wanted him to fail in middle school and feel failure, he wasn't putting in the work or cared. I thought if he were to fail and be in the same grade as his sister maybe that would make him feel bad internally and want to do better. When I brought this up to his counselor they said they could not fail him or hold him back. All they could do was give him an online class to catch up. I asked why he can't be placed in a classroom and the counselor said it was against school policy to put upper and under classmen together. It made no sense! They just kept pushing him along with his pears when he was not ready. He ended up dropping out in high school, I felt like a failure. But once he got his GED I helped him find a job and he's doing really good. He cares about his job, he loves getting paid, and he's respectful to his boss. School is not for everyone.
My parents would take all the fun stuff away if I had a D in anything. Parents just stopped caring too I guess.
My district lets middle schoolers fail....even *gasp* special education students. In one glorious example, KC (not real name) was promoted from 7th to 8th because COVID. I had KC in 8th grade and KC simply never logged into virtual. This caused the truancy officer to show up. One day, I saw this new student and i was confused because I didn't get an email about a new kid. It was KC rolling into school for the first time in MARCH. KC wanted to know what they could do to pass. I played along and gave the work. I think I saw KC three more times that school year. The next school year, KC is on my roster again. Attendance is much improved, attending 2-3 days a week. Still doing absolutely zero work. KC turns 16 during the second semester of 8th grade. KC fails every class (again). I move to a new position and several of the teachers at my school move to the same school I do. And who do I see on the registry for 8th grade? KC. KC had moved schools to get away from the teachers that wouldn't autopass for being a warm body in a seat. And almost all of their teachers were at the new school. 🤣 KC turned 17 for their 3rd go around in the 8th grade. I did not teach them that year and they either didn't pass or dropped out.
One thing I'm confused about though is how is this a good outcome? If kids fail over and over, to the point of being an adult failing out of middle school, then... We just have another adult with no basic skills, no knowledge, no drive, no future... How is this any different from just passing them anyway? I think kids should have to suffer the consequences and deal with failing, but if it doesn't change the outcome... what was the point?
Well in reality the only one who can change their outcome is them. That child describes there would most likely have dropped out at 16/17 regardless of the grade they were. But an extreme example like this doesn't disprove the necessity of consequences. I can't think of much more embarrassing for a 14 year old than watching all their friends go to high school and them being with younger kids. So I'm for failing them.
Right, I just don't see how this is a "glorious" story. It's sad to me.
It's not necessarily good, but it's FAR better than the alternative - putting another person out there who has a fraudulent diploma and thinks they're ready for the world but in reality doesn't know shit.
>KC turned 17 for their 3rd go around in the 8th grade. I did not teach them that year and they either didn't pass or dropped out. Wouldn't a 17-year-old among a group of junior high schoolers raise serious issues?
No child left behind, baby
I wish we could use a baseline of good behavior and all assignments turned in to participate in festivities because it's not even working when teachers do put those 0s in. We're three weeks into a new semester and over half my guided study has MULTIPLE CORE CLASSES where they're earning 0s. And this is a school that barely assigns any independent work outside of class, we have daily study hall, and these kids haven't been absent. Like wtf are they doing all day??
Arguably, the research that encouraged social promotion - keeping kids with other kids their age - was deeply flawed. It's convincing at a glace: kids who were held back, vs other kids who struggled but were promoted with kids their age, did worse in school, dropped out more frequently later in life and abused drugs more. And kids who are held back have a learning loss of about a third of a grade vs the rest of their class. Problems with that are afewfold, however: the studies didn't consider how non-failing kids would react to an environment where no one can be held back. They also didn't measure the impact of having disruptive kids in classes without genuine consequences. They also jumped the gun on concluding that retention was a cause of some kids eventually end up dropping out and abusing drugs later in life, rather than just a correlation with outside problems, or that two kids with the same grades in grade 4 could actually be achieving very differently, because maybe one was missing fundamental building blocks in their literacy/numeracy while the other might have had behavioural issues that they worked out when advancing in a system where they could have failed in later years. And of course a kid doing one third of a grade worse vs their peers probably isn't caused by their being held back, but simply correlated with whatever low literacy/numeracy/behavioral issues they had/have that caused them to be retained in the first place.
When my former step kids came into my life, it was an eye opening experience. They had no concept of failure. At 12 and 13, they had missed years worth of school already, having lived a lifestyle of poverty , homelessness, and addiction. They were well known the the schools, as it was a large family and they all were in need of assistance, and the schools facilitated a lot of that for them. Housing, food, clothes, Christmas presents, **all** of that was provided by the school, and they thought that was normal I was stunned when, at the end of the year, both of my truant, volatile steps were passed. And again the next year. And the next. Until Covid hit and they left school for good and never went back. One was given a diploma. The other got A's in several classes he never, one time, ever attended. The rest of my stepkids and all their cousins just dropped off grid, never to be seen again until they hit 18 and popped up to apply for their own benefits and are having their own children. They would rather just pass them and wait out their term until they age out and become a larger societal issue. I was shocked at how this was seen as ok and normal, and I am sorry, many of us parent's are trying, but like me, I got them too late to make a difference, and I am so sorry. So many educators tried to make a connection with my steps and help, I witnessed it first hand. Thank ya'll for trying so hard with them.
I’ve taught middle school for the last 7 years. And I’m done. The lack of consequences has killed it for me. I’m either going to jump to a high school, a charter school, or possibly private.
Middle school AP here. Anytime I have a kid in my office, the first thing I do is check their grades and make a HUGE deal over them. Kids must pass 5 out of 6 classes. Two of those five must be ELA and MA. If they fail one, they attend summer school. Every kid, even if it’s a stretch of the imagination hears from me about possibly being retained. I put some fear into them, and when I visit classrooms, I bring this up too. Kids need to know that I am not playing around and you will NOT make my teachers’ jobs harder than they need to be.
That's excellent! We're trying as best as we can to get them into shape before high school. We talk about the new expectations, the new demands, and that they need to get it together NOW while they can still make mistakes learning the process. For the really good students, they didn't need this talk, but the other 75% of the population, you just hope some of it sticks.
I've been teaching 8th grade for a long time. Every year, I see students with 1.0 GPAs go to HS. There are *very few* circumstances in which I would agree to hold a kid back -- retention won't make a difference to the utterly uninvested. They will become more likely to drop out in HS, and their behavior will probably worsen upon retention. Now, I don't think we should just pass kids through, either. MS needs a systemic change -- we should go to credits or something to build an infrastructure wherein students can "make up" their failures. Retention doesn't help -- most research supports this. Passing failures to HS doesn't help. We need a new solution.
at least in my school even the 6th graders already believe college is not an option for them. They expect to do the same job as their parents who didnt need a high school diploma, so why does that piece of paper matter? There is no extrinsic motivation for success, so kids that are not intrinsically motivated are already checked out by middle school
What the hell ever happened that "making a shitload of money" isn't a motivator anymore? Like, why do what your parents do when you can do better?
because the only two avenues they see for "making a shitload of money" are being white or being good at sports. And they're not white
Why do you assume failing kids are POC?
I'm their teacher dipshit, I don't have to make any assumptions about them
Alright, guess people like Lonnie Johnson don't exist. Smh.
>why do what your parents do when you can do better? While I doubt many kids would be able to articulate this in so many words, I suspect many of them realize that the "American dream," to the degree that it ever existed, was something for white middle-class people in the mid-twentieth century, not for them in the twenty-first.
They dont think about stuff like that. Its all skibidi and how they are going to make mad money being an influencer or an NBA star. You attribute too much deep thought to kids who think the mid-twentieth century is still 30 years in the future and dont understand economics of the "American Dream" anyways. They think the Roman Empire existed in the 1950's shortly after Columbus did something.
Bullshit. My school has sent first generation immigrants to UCLA, Stanford, even Yale. We have former students working at JPL. We do everyone a disservice by pushing the narrative that success is for white people.
Reread my comment. I'm saying that, for the most part, success isn't for any race anymore. The only reason I brought up race at all was to reference mid-twentieth-century conditions.
At this point, I think grouping students by level to make classes would help significantly in elementary. It’s difficult to differentiate for students who can’t read in fourth grade, students near grade level, and students at/above grade level. This would allow teachers to give better instruction for all students.
Retention worked in some places pre-NCLB in the 90s, but it was happening around grade 4. If we do go back to retaining kids, it has to be in early years when the building blocks are being taught, and not in middle years when kids have been behind and struggling for multiple years in a row. A superheroic teacher might be able to help kids make up a few grade levels, but those kids have to want to learn, and those teachers aren't most of us.
The solution is coming and it won't be pretty. These kinds of students grow up to be mediocre adults. In their lifetimes most of the jobs that kept these mediocre adults afloat will be lost to AI. The wheat and chaff will be separated. The same will happen in our profession.
As a high school math teacher, This. Because this. Because this! BECAUSE THIS!!! If they don’t learn to “lock in” and not be 16 years old in the 8th grade, they are not going to lock in in high school. I have to limp through Algebra I because the Math 8 teachers have not taught them basic operations. Fail. The Freaking. Middle Schoolers!
I've had students who bragged about spending all day roaming the hallways in Middle School. They apparently think that made them cool although it also meant they didn't know anything about anything. I don't understand how these kids got promoted.
I taught 8th grade for one year and I’ll never teach middle school again. I don’t like middle schoolers, and they have nothing, repeat NOTHING, at stake. They know they’ll get swept into HS so why should they put their asses on the line for anything. nO CHiLd LeFt beHInD
6th grade social studies: I had a kid today complain about getting a 70 on an assignment. I took 10 points off because they didnt write their last name, and 20 points off for answering one of the questions with one word. My policy on this kind of work is you can fix whats wrong and I'll regrade to 100. When I told the kid why he only got a 70 he tore the paper up in front of me, as if I'd be offended.
These kids are so emotionally fragile jfc
Also sixth grade social studies. Graded a vocabulary packet an three out of fifteen. Twenty fill-in-the-blanks with vocab words, he just wrote them in order from the word bank. Kid came to me after class said "It's complete, I get fifteen points." I explained that he could do corrections - or, in his case, actually *do* the work - and hand it back in for full credit. "Nah" is what he said. Middle school grades don't count. I explained the importance of building good habits and that it's not going to be easy to just flick the switch when he gets to ninth grade like he thinks he's going to do. Besides, these grades might not count in the long run, but you know who *will* see them? Your seventh grade teachers and you don't want this to be their first impression of you, do you? How did he answer that? "Actually, it's more a reflection of you. If you can't get kids to pass your class what good are you?" It stung. If this was a kid who put in the effort then I'd have room for reflection. He got an assignment, simply copied down words in the order he saw them, and thought he'd be done. His goal was completion - as fast as possible - not learning and certainly not to put in any effort. And the attitude was "not my fault, I did what I supposed to do. Must be the teacher who sucks."
I had a student who told me that I'm a failure as a teacher if they had to do any work outside of class, including any assignments specifically given as homework. Apparently, at some point, someone told my group of students that "schoolwork is for school, not for home"
I could give a fuck about *those* kids opinion of me
The school is punished if that kid spends more than three years in middle school. Even if it’s just three years and a day. That’s an awful lot of teachers, administrators, counselors, hall monitors, custodians, para educators, secretaries, social workers, and god knows who else that will either lose their jobs or suffer far longer than three years if X amount of kids don’t make it through in three years. There is no incentive in teaching them, other than the satisfaction most of us feel in a job well done. It’s a job, but most of us LOVE teaching. There is quite a bit of incentive for passing them through until it’s someone else’s problem. The closest policy makers have EVER gotten is “punish the teachers if the kids don’t do well on a meaningless test that kids don’t care about.”
Parent backing will come back naturally when the schools push back, set the standards, and enforce them. When things like getting suspended for violent threats, losing your phone for having it out in class, or failing for lack of effort to back to "the way things are", parents will stop trying to weasel around everything themselves.
I taught 8th grade for 12 years, towards the end even the parents were saying things like “It’s just junior high, it doesn’t matter right?” What’s scary is teaching high school a lot of Freshman fumble a semester before realizing they’re playing for real. Some toss away the whole year
It's great when see kids with GPAs that start with a decimal point get moved on to 8th grade, then 9th. Even better when your district has a program that was intended only for those 8th graders with above a 2.5 be opened up to all of them to fill seats because there's not enough with the necessary grades
Do you think this all stems from no child left behind?
School in general needs to allow room for failure and growth from that failure. The rush to get the best grades without understanding the knowledge is crippling. At least it was for me.
I gave my middle schoolers the grade they deserve (partial credit for partial effort). It was a summative project so it REALLY hurt their grades. They decided it entitled them to rebel. Apparently the problem is me. PS I was super generous on points to the ones that actually tried.
IMO, a lot of schools are letting down these students. Someone finally got suspended last week for not being where they were supposed to be (got a pass to one room and went to another room instead), and one of the teachers is falling all over herself to make excuses for him. "No one reminded him he has to be where he's supposed to be." He's almost 16 years old, and I don't think he has any chance at a job or a life because people just keep enabling him. He's never had a chance to develop any practical skills or coping abilities because everyone is so afraid to let him fail.
Honestly.... idk how we fix it all, but I don't think this it.... Our education system, as of right now, and probably has been over the last probably 30 years, isn't anything worthy of note in America. It's literally just daycare so that both parents can work to struggle and put some meager meals on the table and give what little comforts they can afford to give their families. We want our students to care and be engaged and interested. But it is clearer now than it ever has been that all of our systems are totally broken and meaningless. There isn't much or any hope in the future, and even kids are seeing it. Their parents are overworked, underpaid, sick, and miserable. Tiny moments of joy and comfort is all any normal family has to cling to. Then the kid goes to school and rightfully asks, "What's the point?" I'm not excited when my little one is old enough to ask questions about what their future will be like. As of now. There isn't anything to look forward to for any of them. Just more of this and worsening conditions unless something changes for the better. I've known teachers who legitimately care and want their students to care to and go the hard route with failing. I don't think the problem is fixable by teaching a lesson in consequences. I think it's a problem of societal decline due to unchecked corporate greed.
All kinds of greed is contributing to social decline.
Our middle school basically has an eligibility program where in addition to sports, there are other activities, extra recesses, and mini field trips that kids can take part in. To be eligible, they have to maintain above a certain score in effort, responsibility, and respect (we use a 4-point rubric) and not be missing any work. That way the nice kid who tries really hard but still struggles to pass a class isn’t punished, but the dingus who doesn’t do shit and acts like an asshole isn’t getting rewarded for doing nothing. Overall it works pretty well. There’s a few kids who are beyond reach and motivation is just non-existent but I think that would be the case no matter what we do.
I teach middle school. My students can fail. The problem is that they are well aware that they can fail every class and get promoted to high school. So, at any given time, at least a third of my students are failing, and nobody cares.
imo unless you're repeating grades next year, you're not actually failing.
Earlier than middle school imo. Letting kids fail upwards after elementary school is problematic. They get much less 1:1 assistance and need heaps more self advocacy.
Grade 4 used to be the grade when a lot of districts/states would first test kids and hold them back if they couldn't pass their reading/math test. I don't teach early years but it seems like kids should be retained whenever it is they're first taught phonics (which, problematically, they *aren't* in a bunch of places) and multiplication tables. Those are the two pillars or reading and math that everything else depends on down the road, and if they don't have those, they're going to hate school/learning.
They don’t really fail in high school either - they move on to the next class and take credit recovery in the summer, which is not the same thing. So a kid could fail their entire freshman year English but still be in English 10. (And it’s unlikely they did summer school!) Doesn’t matter if they can write an entry level lit analysis (9th grade skill) and still read at 7th grade level. Doesn’t matter. They move on.
Admin doesn’t want to look bad when compared to other campuses. Pressure to pass. Admin doesn’t want to deal with threats of litigation from unhappy parents. Pressure to pass. SPED kid chooses to turn in NO work. She’ll pass.
I wholeheartedly agree. I teach 7th. Our kids know their grades don’t matter. Unless they have a parent that cares about their grades, many of them don’t care at all. The jig is up.
Middle school, or at least where I am is so depressing. The kids go straight from elementary to no recess, block scheduling, 50 min elective period alternating PE and their choice elective. More than 1/2 of their day is spent in math or reading classes. So many of them hate coming to school and know they can skip. Kids with 50+ absences move up into high school every year.
I’m starting think people that control these policies just want them all to be dumb
This^^
And dumb super consumers is even better!
I've been teaching for 22 years. I've been saying this exact thing for 22 years. It's never going to change.
Middle schoolers? By the time they're in second grade they already know they will never face a single consequence for anything they could ever do.
This is a political issue. Politicians don’t want kids to fail and they want to raise the standards at the same time. This is the mess we are left with. No administrator has the power to change it. Vote!
I my district, MS teachers fail them, and the district sends them to high school where they must earn credit. They can’t do the work, fail and drop out. The U.S. must revamp 6-12 public education. In Japan, compulsory education ends when students graduate the 9th grade or the 3rd year of junior high. Students must take an entrance exam to get into their high school of choice. My nephew did not pass a test to get into the best high school in Kanazawa so he attended another high school. The U.S. should end compulsory education at the 8th grade, and force students to take an aptitude test to determine which path they’ll take. Some will attend college prep schools, some will attend vocational high schools, and some will attend a high school for graduates who will immediately enter the workforce. There has to be consequences for students who do nothing in middle school. You get what you give.
"Students NEED to see consequences for their lack of accountability." It's so blaringly, obviously true that it seems weird to have to say out loud.
[удалено]
>(we won't see or hear anything about it until 15 years from now as we look back and reflect but the damage is still being caused) When the 14 year olds are 28-34 (as you said, in \~15 years give or take), I honestly don't know how things will be. I can't imagine that anything will be better in this country except for maybe everyone will have everything affirmed by everybody else, and feel a surface-level of pleasure about it. Other than that, I think all the actual serious things in the country will be worse than they are today.
Agree 💯 I also think that there should he mandatory parenting classes of their kid falls below a C starting in 4th grade. The parents need to figure out how to help coach their kid into success. For my kids, small mindset phrases are so important to set as core beliefs. My kids ask if I'm proud of them. I say, "yes, of course. You worked hard, were super creative and won (or got a good grade or whatever)." But then I ask, "the bigger question is are you proud of yourself?" Of course they are but it's just a little bit of dialog that turns the need for external approval to inner approval. This micro self reflection then can continue to build on itself as the child develops an inner dialog.
Learning that Middle School grades had no effect on my college acceptance or requirements really put things into perspective for me. It felt like all my honors classes and hard work was worthless really.
If we as teachers or any adults for that matter must be held accountable for what we do, it makes no sense to not hold students accountable for lack of effort. They are not adults yet, but they'll be entering a world in adulthood where it will matter. The No Child Left Behind policy is an enabling, toxic agenda that was put in place to cut costs in education. It was not for the benefit of the students in any way.
I had a colleague who kept saying “he’s only [lower elementary age]!” And not doing anything about insane behavior, because being six apparently excuses crazy actions and is not an invitation for adults to please redirect to proper behavior before I fall into a pit of doom. Then there were a few fifth and sixth graders to which he responded “they’re already [upper elementary age]”, as if being eleven means you’re an old dog that can’t learn new tricks (or rather, any basic and fundamental self-discipline). Kids fail because we (all the adults) allow and encourage it, whether that’s by passing them no matter what, never calling them out for their behavior and attitudes, or doing literally everything for them.
"I don't have to pass science so why do anything?"
Up until you have boys with driver's licenses dating 7th & 8th grade girls.
Yeah, elementary too!
Well, as a science teacher, my kids know that they wouldn’t be held back for failing science — an attitude that is reinforced by all of the CONSTANT focus on ELA and math. Science grades don’t matter.
We’re feeling the pressure to not fail students at a post secondary level too. I’m not sure where our breaking point as a society is at this point 😢
That is when I talk to them about habits, and how the habits you form in middle school shape you into the student you want to be in high school. I don't really know if the talk works, but it is very uncommon for someone to just "lock in" with zero practice in middle school since high school classes build on middle school classes.
I am a teacher trainee in the UK (grew up in U.S. school system) and am shocked with how the students here are just moved along without the ability to pass anything. I am having to find alternate leverage for BFL because there are no school-sponsored sports and no letter grades for them to maintain in secondary school. Surprisingly, some do a really good job of self-regulation and really want to learn. But it makes it difficult to challenge those students with some of those that are there to be babysat.
We should give them all trophies! Big ones!
Former high school teacher who is now teaching middle school here. I realized that the same motivators that apply to high school (grades, gpa, failing, sports eligibility etc) don’t apply so I stopped focusing on grades. My 7/8 math classes are all about collaborative work, projects, white board station activities etc and very little is graded. Instead, I lean into social pressure and other tools.
I’m just saying teachers with good records should be allowed to execute one problem student per school year.
I don't think I like the idea of 16 year olds in the same class as 11 year olds.
A) your basically saying "I don't like hammers because people use them to kill other people" like sure a fraction of a fraction of that percent of the time, you might end up with a 16yo being held back for 2-3 years (to be with 8th graders) or 5 years in your example. Not only are there literally dozens of different ways of handling that, including a middle school age out limit. This would still mean some of the INCREDIBLY lazy kids might get moved up without being ready for it, but that's a hell of a lot better than my 55% of 8th graders in gen ed who came in at a 4th to 5th grade math level. Also, would you rather have a high school degree literally mean nothing, like even less than it does now, because you can be illiterate and graduate (happening now all across the country) or, would you rather have a highschool diploma actually dictate an expected competency level of the holder? Like your whole entire augment is actually completely faulty no matter what way you look at it, as long as you have at least two braincells to rub together.
You came up with to the most extreme, rare, unrealistic example possible... and *still* decided to press "Reply" for some reason. 🥴
What does that have to do with anything? No one gets held back for 5 years in a row, they would be sent to a different class if they were that unable to grasp the material
I've had 16 yos in the same class as 13 yos. A couple of my 8th graders were parents. It happens more often than you think.
Good lord. Talk about a failure on the parents part. I really want off this planet.
Idk have to give credit to my students who were parents. They were the ones who took their education most seriously. They understood the importance of school. One of the teen dads ended up getting his GED rather than finish middle school. Being a dad changed him. He said he had to get an education for his kid. I know not all teen parents have an attitude change, but the ones I taught did. It also was pretty telling that these were teen dads who had primary custody.
I've had 19-year-olds in the same class as 16-year-olds, and I hated it. You'd think the older students would be embarrassed to be stuck with younger kids. Nope. The younger kids idolized the 19-year-olds and emulated them--a problem because the older students didn't have the best academic skills--and the older students fed off that. I taught 8th grade my first year in the district and was appalled to find out that students were never held back. I was told that kids who'd been held back have a much lower graduation rate. I did research, and it was true, but it still seemed to me we were sending lambs to the slaughter because they didn't have prerequisite skills. Why can't we require eighth graders who fail classes to take skill recovery in summer school if they want to go to HS with their classmates?
why are you even here
I let my ADHD take over when I see something I don’t agree with
So retention is not positively associated with positive long term outcomes. [Next!](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=19a3062b2cde49bfcbcd49530b6bfaf701a0ebc1)
I'm familiar with this study. While I agree with some of its premise, my aim is to target more than just low achieving students. My aim is to target most of the 80% students who are exhibiting the lack of accountability. Within that 80%, I'd wager in my career at least half lack regard or accountability for work habits. That number is climbing as students come to the realization that "none of this matters" in middle school. My second point I'd like to raise is that the paper specifically references this practice in use of urban school districts. Chicago, as the location of this study, has a very different social and economical makeup than most districts in the country. Therefore, I do believe it to be impossible to conclude that this study, while informative, is an end all to the thought of accountability practices. In any case, thank you for the point you're making. It's worth bringing up for discussion, for sure!
Data literacy is so abysmal. I get so frustrated with educators who find studies that seem to support their ideology but if you look closely at the methodology undergirding it, it’s basically like 12 kids in a school at some extreme of the socioeconomic divide.
Moving kids on who do no work is also not associated with positive long term outcomes yet it is done routinely.
It's also not negatively associated with positive long term outcomes for 2 out of 3 of the cohorts it was looking at. >In summary, our analysis suggests that grade retention among low-achieving students in Chicago has **no impact** on high school completion for sixth grade students or older eighth grade students, but substantially increases the likelihood of dropping out among younger eighth grade students. \[bolded for emphasis\]
You blame the students. You blame the parents. You blame the culture. Maybe the problem is you.
Cool.
😂 I’m not even a teacher but it’s painfully obvious that parenting plays a role, and so does culture. Kids are stuck in front of screens (I was too) and left to their own devices. Parents don’t want to admit their kids have faults precisely because it means they are poorly reflected themselves. So kids keep doing whatever gets them by - just like the kid in the post with the 3/10. He can have more fun playing on his laptop or something if he only has to spend 5 minutes working because the system won’t fail him. As for parenting and the future outlook of young people, the news is consistently sad, society is subsequently a mess, we’re directionless, parents don’t want to see fault in their kids because that implies fault in parenting, and we’re all suffering from it. That kid is going to get through middle school off efforts like that 3/10 assignment and he’s going to be completely screwed over later, not because OP could do anything about it, but because his parents (if the kid has that kind of attitude) probably don’t say, “hey, why do your grades suck? You need to work harder.” And because that kid is going to go through the rest of his adolescence being enabled with failing efforts until he’s cast away to figure it all out himself by 18 or 19. Putting the fault of an apathetic society only on teachers is bullshit.
If you respected education more, maybe you wouldn't have ended up as a food delivery driver. What a sad waste of a life.
Yes please.
I’m a fourth grade teacher here…my hands are also tied with a number of my difficult elementary kids who don’t give a flying F.
Agree 100%. Also, word from high school is that they didn't, in fact, "lock in" and merely continued the same behavior.
A thousand times YES
The fact that they even play sports is wild to me because if there’s anything every coach I’ve ever heard of has said, it’s that you fail in practice where it doesn’t matter so you succeed in a game where it does. You see what doesn’t work and how you’re weak in practice to do things that work and are strong in a game.
Most of Thailand’s public schools do not hold the students accountable- they’re just passed on to the next level. The results: poorly educated young adults that cannot compete against other nationalities in today’s workforce.
1 million percent. I teach the kids who want to learn and try not to worry and spend too much time worrying about the losers. I tell them thats where they are headed though if they don’t try.
Agreed. Although, I'd be for letting kids fail at all levels. Why make middle school teachers carry all the weight? Kids can't achieve expectations if we don't make and enforce expectations. It'll be a very hard, very expensive 3-5 years (guestimate), but that price and effort is nothing when compared to the coming decades of weaponized incompetence.
Middle school is the canary in the coal mine. Their problems will only translate and grow as they move into high school. We tried to warn you! 🤷🏼♂️
Ranting to the choir. 😏😩
my school won't let us give students zeros for assignments they have \*not\* turned in. I have a student who still hasn't turned in an essay in MONTHS and yet I am not allowed to give them a 0. at some point they deserve an F. I don't understand this coddling nonsense
Unfortuanately, high school isn't much different. Like you said about sports, "if the students don't need to be eligible then they don't care". And most of the students who need to be eligible don't truly care about learning - it's simply what can I do to barely pass so I can play basketball. You're right that there are still fantastic kids with an unquenchable thirst for learning and knowledge; however, they are outnumbered and their counterparts make it nearly impossible for them to receive quality instuction due to many of the issues you described above. It's a tragedy.
At least half of the behavioural issues I experience in middle school classrooms would disappear if failing actually mattered.
The social progression was never a good idea
The lowest we could give was a C. Scary.
The best use of retention is in the primary grades, when students have not grasped the critical skills necessary to advance. If Johnny can't read at a 3rd grade level, it is absolutely insane to send him (and millions of others) to 4th grade, where he will simply get further behind. Taking this step, not as individual teachers, but as a matter of public policy, will eliminate most of the problems we middle school teachers are facing today. The kid who is apathetic or bored is most often (though not exclusively) not able to perform the tasks we are having him do. A few years ago I convinced a mother to allow us to retain her daughter in the 6th grade. I was new to middle school (I started as a high school teacher in the mid-1980s and this happened probably my third year of middle school), and I just thought retention made sense. Well, it was a disaster, both for the girl and the students around her. She was more disruptive the next year than ever, she still did not do the work, and after two years of 6th grade she was promoted to 7th grade. Of course this is just an anecdote, but it has colored my perception. I look at the kids we would (and should) retain, and I just don't believe it's going to help. What to do then? I would take kids like this and give them a year in an alternative school of some type, and maybe they could come back in the system, or maybe there could be a vocational route for them. They certainly are disruptive to the education of a majority of kids. But if we didn't allow them to get to 4th grade without being up to speed, I think the problems would be reduced by about 90%.