Concerned that a 2.0 GPA is too difficult for athletic students, Norfolk, VA considers lowering the standard. To what, might we ask? Coloring within the lines?
Is it an archaic concept that school is about education, and sports are an extracurricular activity?
Engaged in school? With a 2.0? That’s warm a seat and not snore loudly in class level.
Now here’s a lady who understands the big picture!
A 2.0 is a “C.”
A “C” is supposed to be “average.” “D” is still a passing grade, remember.
If Norfolk is strongly resisting grade inflation and actually reserving "B"s and "A"s for above average / exceptional students, you’d be denying athletics to about half of the student body, which seems a bit harsh.
Of course, if a “C” there means what it means in California public schools, I’m right with you.
You know who also didn’t believe in a real education for athletes?
HITLER! Yup, just get them agile enough to run an obstacle course and strong enough to tote around a 70-pound pack, and that was all they needed to serve the Fatherland. Extra points, of course, for being blond and blue eyed.
Obviously we need plenty of kids as cannon fodder and stoop labor. Thank you, VA, for showing us the way.
:shrug:
If it’s just for freshmen, I don’t see it as a huge big deal. The transition from middle school to high school can be jarring for a lot of kids.
I hate the over-emphasis on atheletics too, but I do think sports keep a lot of kids who would be ne’er-do-wells from becoming, well, ne’er-do-wells. Maybe we should be fixing those circumstances that cause this to happen, but if we can use sports as a bandaide, then I’m all for it.
Sports are extra. As in extracurricular? Outside the curriculum?
I have no problem denying participation in extracurricular activities to people who can’t keep up at least an average level of achievement in the actual things school is for.
A “C” is average? In my school district, there is no “D,” only A/B/C/F. 70% is required to pass.
I also taught in a middle school that had these rules:
You can’t give less than a 50. Rationale: if a kid bombs the first six weeks, they can mathematically put themselves behind the eight ball and never pass.
A kid can’t fail because of the semester exam.
68 and 69 averages are too close to passing to fail a student.
A fellow teacher had a kid who made an 86 first six, an 86 second six, and then trashed the third six weeks with a 15 and semester exam likewise.
86 + 86 + (50) + (50) =272, divide by 4 =68 average. That’s “too close to call,” and she had to pass the kid.
And it’s all sort of a numbers game, isn’t it? You can make the requirement 90% and teachers can pad quizzes with more easy questions.
Worse, I’ve run into the other camp—the idea that maybe if we keep them involved in extracurriculars, at least they’ll be in school and will take care of the basics. IMO and IME it’s like giving the kid dessert in the hopes they’ll eat their brussel sprouts.
It’s supposed to be. I don’t have my high school transcripts handy, but I can quote from my college transcripts (Univ. of California system, 2 schools):
A – Excellent / Superior
B – Good
C – Fair
D – Barely Passed / Poor
F – Failure / Fail
Obviously, grade inflation and other factors have made a mockery of this system, and that has been going on for a very long time. I don’t think a 2.0 is a great achievement or anything, I’m just pointing out that in theory it’s supposed to be standard, not sub-standard.
ETA: I can see Garfield226’s point, as well. For me, that would depend on whether (a) they had physical education or not, and (b) if they did have it, whether it was real exercise or a joke period to let kids blow off some steam. If they have physical exercise as part of their daily education, absolutely restrict extracurricular sports to students who demonstrate good academic achievement first. But I’m one of those crazy idealists who thinks the arts and humanities and physical education are as important as math and science, so feel free to discount my insane ramblings.
Just pointing out that it depends on where you are. When I was in school (hs/college) it was ABCDF, as well. But I’ve also taught in schools where a B in an honors class counts for GPA like an A in a regular class, and a C in an AP class counts for an A. Thus the GPA can be over 4.0.
Agreed. I suspect that’s one of the reasons for standardized testing, though I don’t know if that has really helped. Grades, as you pointed out, are ultimately based on numbers that are easily manipulated in either direction. I had a 4.0+ in high school and I know I did not merit it.
I’m not a high school educator so I can’t claim to know anything about high schools beyond my experience in the 1980s and what my students tell me now. I see enough college students who did play on their high school sports teams and can’t write a basic paragraph to think that the GPA requirements are widely massaged or flaunted for strong athletes, anyway.
If, in the district’s considered judgment, it is more important to keep these students in school and engaged than to marginally increase their incentives to do academic work, who are you to argue? Better a C- student than a B+ gang member (and that’s even generously assuming that kicking them out of athletics improves their grades).
Your criticism seems to echo the general sentiment that the problem with schools is standards. I think the lack of high standards is pretty far down on the list after family life, poverty, gangs, unequal funding, and a half-dozen other factors. Presumably this policy is trying to deal with some of the more important factors first.
How many people read the article before posting their prejudices on this issue? The school is considering a one or two semester bye for Freshmen, not a blanket rule change for the whole of the four years of high school. More than that, the proposed rule change (If the single semester bye is chosen) is actually going to bring the Norfolk schools more in line with the conditions at other local school districts.
I can’t comment about how Norfolk is, now, but the impression I had of the city while I was stationed on a ship home ported there was that it was a bleak, poverty-mired city that had one of the higher per capita murder rates in the nation. And the best anodyne for the conditions that set that sort of Hell up is education. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that for a large number of students, and some parents, the best part of schooling are the sports. If that’s what is keeping a group of students working in the rest of their school work, which the article provides a couple of cites to support that idea - it’s worth a little flexibility at the beginning of the HS years to avoid alienating those students from school.
What makes me cringe, however, is that the only students whom the administrators seem to care about are the student athletes. Which rubs me the wrong way.
The problem I have with this proposal is that it’s only focusing on the student athletes. Now, part of it is simply that they’re a category of students who have shown themselves interested in one of the few carrots that the school can provide. But it still leaves me thinking that they’re leaving a Hell of a lot of other kids out in the cold, because they aren’t Varsity material.
Again, I’m not opposed to this policy, as a stop-gap, or as part of a larger plan, but as it is proposed, it seems a bit too focused on the student athletes for me to give it anything more than my most grudging of support.
The article makes it clear that one of the ways in which student athletes can be directed away from gang involvement is because they’re working so much more closely with the athletic coaches. Perhaps some effort should be made to try to foster that sort of relationship with all students, not just the high performing jocks.
If a kid can’t maintain a 2.0, then he needs to quit sports (which, when I was in school held practices EVERY weeknight) and concentrate on his studies.
Do you know what being the star athlete in high school means? Jack. Less than Jack. You have the whole town cheering for you and then three years later you are working at Wal-Mart for eight bucks an hour. These kids need to learn that.
Unfortately, a lot of these kids actually believe they’ll be the next (insert currently big sports star’s name here) and won’t listen to reason.
Heh. Can I apply for the Handicapper General position when it finally becomes available?
Yeah, I know it’s not a good analogy, but Harrison Bergeron was the first thing that popped into my head when I read this thread.
You’re missing the point. They aren’t trying to keep these kids in athletics because they think passing a ball will keep them gainfully employed. They are keeping them there because such programs have a demonstrated success rate at keeping kids out of trouble.
You assume, without any evidence and in contradiction with what the people who actually know about this (the administrators) think, that these kids are getting poor grades because of the time spent on sports. There is no reason to believe that, and even if true, you’ve not responded to why grades are more important that actually being in school at all.
If a C isn’t average, there’s something wrong with the grading system. Are you really suggesting that half of all students shouldn’t be abler to play sports?
Shouldn’t exclusion from sports be for kids with REAL academic or disciplinary problems? And shouldn’t you be able to demostrate that exclusion from sports will actually help the problem? What about a kid who tries his best but just isn’t very bright, and putters along with a lot of C-minuses?
You know, I’m not actually sure what I think about this. I think more emphasis should be placed on the extracurricular nature of school sports. I think sports should not be placed equal to, or in some cases above, academics (by students, teachers/coaches, administrators and parents alike).
To say sports will get kids in the door and then we’ll hook 'em on the academics seems backward to me. When most places are already struggling with graduation rates, I don’t think lowering the bar and allowing already at-risk students (not student athletes in general, but those who already are achieving substandard grades) to do something to take their time and attention away from academics in their first year in an already more-challenging environment is a good thing. I’m under the (possibly erroneous) impression that grade inflation means Cs are below average AND standards have fallen in general (or at least not risen to meet current needs), and that both of those in combination means we should really be going the other way.
That all said, dropping the requirement for a single semester or year really isn’t a huge deal, and I’m not sure it’ll have a huge effect either way.
Like I said, sports practice is at least 2 to 3 hours every night. If a kid can make the grades and practice that much at night, good for him. But if a kid is struggling (less than 2.0) then how can anyone say that taking those 2 or 3 hours to study wouldn’t be better than to take that time practicing football?
But you are saying (I think) that these kids aren’t going to study anyways, and if they are in football practice at least they aren’t out using drugs or robbing people. To be, that is like putting a band-aid on a severed jugular vein.
Then what happens in three years when the little dunce throws 9 TD passes in a game, but can’t read the newspaper article the next morning about it?
Grades are important because they are an indicator of how well the student is absorbing the material. Just because he’s in school and not learning a damn thing doesn’t strike me as good.
I’ll tell you one thing: It isn’t the teachers making this idiotic policy. It’s Administrators and School Board members who haven’t been in a classroom in decades. A a classroom teacher, it is my place to argue. I don’t care what sports the kid is in. If he can’t maintain a 70% in the classroom, he doesn’t play. If that means he quits school and becomes a serious gang-banger, too bad. It isn’t my job to keep him off the streets. Stop using teachers as the “solution” to societal problems. Fix them somewhere else, we have enough on our plates already.
I fully agree, but it’s just not clear to me why a C-minus average should prevent a kid from participating in an extracurricular activity. If it’s not going to prevent her/him from graduating, then what’s the logical basis for having it prevent them from participating in other school activities?
Okay, so how does it add to your problems to be teaching the same kid the same stuff? Unless you’re a coach, this policy doesn’t appear to have any effect on you; what do you care if he plays volleyball after school or not?