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Thursday, August 10, 2006
Do Zeros Lead to Dropouts?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At a recent teacher training seminar, I sat next to a south Georgia teacher. We got into a discussion about what to do when students don’t turn in work on time. When she first started teaching, she was extremely strict, never accepting late papers and assigning a big fat zero. She wanted to teach the students a lesson.
Over time, she has changed her view. The dropout rate in her district is astronomical, with more than 40 percent of students disappearing between ninth and twelfth grade. She found that when she gave a student a zero, the student determined that the final grade would probably be below 70 percent, even if the student put forth some effort. So the student just gave up. Now the teacher believes it’s best for the student in the long run to give a low grade, though not a zero, for missed work and allow the student the opportunity to make it up and raise the grade.
Her ultimate goal is to keep kids in school with the hopes that they’ll graduate.
Thoughts?
