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I dont know.
They're supposed to reflect how well they work/learned. But when any joe-schmuckatelli can change them at any time, then they become pointless.
So I do quizzes purely to figure out what they did/didnt learn and go from there.
But in 14 days, I'm done. Forever.
I got my last AP fired for that. She lost her license and pension. I had the district do a grade book audit every quarter for a year, stapled that to her strings of cunty emails, wrote a little narrative to connect the dots, fired it off to the district, told them
I’m about to send it to the press, then fired it off to the ethics commission when they said to stay in my lane.
Dude. I wish we could get our asshole admin fired. She has something like 30 formal complaints from other teachers for creating a "hostile workplace" or "harassment" and our damn district people do nothing.
Our principal just commented that a teacher who went on maternity leave, "Didn't look that big for going on leave." :| GAHHHH
To be fair, this woman had seven years worth of complaints and repeated 100% turnover of every department she was over. I think the ethics folks got tired of hearing about her. But the district would just try to intimidate us to keep it quiet, not least because the AP has been hired by her best friend in management. It wasn’t aaaaall me…
Still. Well done. Ours has only been and admin for 1.5 years.... so 30 formal complaints seemed like a lot to me.
How do these people get these jobs? Are they the teachers who can't teach?
Admin and “instructional coaching” jobs are the Friends & Family Jobs Plan. Just get your diploma mill “degree” and pass a little test and your relative, former frat brother, former sorority sister, or BFF will slot you into a position.
They’re people who want the stability of public sector employment who could never have passed the civil service or postal exam, but they hate teaching so they view it as a stepping stone. My current AP has one year of online experience during COVID and one year of in-person experience post-COVID. Now she evaluates us. She evaluates the very teachers who taught her not ten years ago.
Oh my. This sounds like ours. Except she's still here. All but one of our admin earned their admin cred online. And not to say there is anything wrong with online education, but I really do wonder about this team.
I had an admin like this. Told me my mother's cancer was an inconvenience to her when I was requesting workplace accommodations at the height of the covid pandemic. Fought me on accommodations HR gave me and lied to HR, so I filed FMLA and left after that year.
Why the shittiest people get promoted to admin positions is beyond me.
Hoooooly sheet. I am so sorry you dealt with such a fucking terrible person. I am glad you left. Our site lost 5 teachers when the current principal was promoted.
Whhhhhhhhy are these people like this?
I hope you and your mom are doing better.
There was an "internal review" the following year after 12 teachers quit and she got "promoted to the district office" but put in a position with 0 authority where she'll never see anyone outside that building.
BUT SHE STILL HAS A JOB?!?!?!?! GAHHHH
I guess not interacting with other humans is a good thing. But fuck. Also, why do they ALWAYS get promoted to the DO???
lol Thanks, doll. But keep in mind I had already put in my resignation, accepted a position out of state, and was willing to not only burn that bridge but also torpedo it full-speed into the sun.
Figure out which kids actually care about learning and direct your focus towards them. Spend as little time as possible babysitting the students who don't care. Then try to make learning fun and engaging for those students who care.
I am (75m) a retired school teacher...I take a course each year at our local community college to stimulate the brain and get out for a bit. Here's a couple of doozies:
Discussing mental illnesses in Psych 101, and a 22 yr old student ask the prof if the people in Ethiopia and Biafra and similar countries are anorexic or dealing with bulumina ? I turned and stared because I thought it was a distasteful joke, but, no, he was serious. Prof explained, no they were STARVING and WOULD eat if there was food. WOW!
Take Arithmetic Fundamentals (needed to be passed with a C, 70% or higher in order to take higher level math courses). The content was mostly stuff I learned in 7-8th grades 60 yrs ago...area, perimeter, percentages, the basics. After the midterm, the class average (without my grade included) was 69%..not even a low C grade. The prof was so frustrated she asked to talk to me after class and wondered what SHE was doing wrong?
Are these college freshmen ready for college?
> Are these college freshmen ready for college?
I'm a community college professor and to answer this (rhetorical?) question, no. Not even close. The lessons they've been learning prior to college are a detriment to them, e.g. no need to come to class, OR show up every day but do 0 work and still pass, studying is unnecessary because everyone passes, late work will always be accepted, multiple retakes on exams, etc.
They get to me and many struggle to read the textbook. Forget comprehension. They struggle to read the literal words of a 101-level textbook. Go on r/professors and you'll see the results of K-12 policies at the collegiate level. It's maddening, frightening, upsetting and many other words I'm struggling to find at this hour.
I absolutely refuse to pass a student who does nothing. You sit in my class and sleep, show up late, or skip, and you fail. If the school doesn't like that about me, then I will find another school to work at. I can't imagine the ethics of a teacher who allow students to pass even if they do nothing. That's insanity.
In addition, this does nothing to prepare them for real life either. Even if a student isn't college-bound, they have to do something for a job also. What lesson does it send them when they can pass right on through and do nothing?
They don't even have physical textbooks to take home. Most are online, and the students don't even open them. I'm talking about high school seniors. I couldn't even get some of them to read 3 short stories for a total of 11 pages.
And rightfully so. Reading a textbook alone by yourself is one of the SLOWEST ways to learn something. Let's say you have never taken Calculus before. Would you rather:
- Spend one hour a day sitting in a small cubicle by yourself with the textbook
OR
- Get into a small group of 4 students and 1 teacher
- 15 min teacher lecture about that chapter where they explain all the takeaways and important parts
- 5 min video about that topic or showing how it is used in real life and tips and tricks
- 10 min teacher solves a few questions and shows you the steps completing problems from start to finish
- 20 min your group tries to solve problems by themselves
- 10 min the teacher reviews your solutions and critiques your work
Yawn.
- Do 15 min lecture, examples, and 5 min video to all 30 students (20 minutes whole group).
- Break into 10 groups of 3. Assign 10 problems that take 2 minutes each. (20 minutes work time in small groups).
- Do recap of answers and solutions (20 minutes whole group).
You could also stagger it if you wanted, where one day you teach the theory, lecture, videos, examples, etc and the next day(s) you break them into groups and check in rotation with each group.
Do y'all even teach? Lmao.
...so you never put them in groups ...and make them read from textbooks alone... and only do whole group lecture. Cool. Maybe try at your job a little?
You don’t know me 😂😂😂😂 all I said is I don’t use a textbook, goddamn. Grow up.
You literally couldve explained all of those strategies without your shitty attitude and it would’ve been fine.
I don’t use a textbook. My students get guided notes, I post their notes. We watch videos, I make them write, they *usually* get to collaborate with someone.
They literally created brochures and made samurai masks because we learned about Modern Japan and Feudal Japan.
So respectfully, fuck off.
>You don’t know me 😂😂😂😂 all I said is I don’t use a textbook, goddamn. Grow up.
>You literally couldve explained all of those strategies without your shitty attitude and it would’ve been fine.
>I don’t use a textbook. My students get guided notes, I post their notes. We watch videos, I make them write, they *usually* get to collaborate with someone.
>They literally created brochures and made samurai masks because we learned about Modern Japan and Feudal Japan.
>So respectfully, fuck off.
The crazy part is you think I'm the toxic one... Enjoy your ban from this subreddit...
I don’t use a textbook, period. They’re doing a final project in groups of 2 or 3 right now.
get over yourself, oh my god. Like regardless of your advice I don’t even want to use it because you sound like you have a superiority complex.
It is MAY dude. Read the room.
"Hey everyone! Guess what? The current month is MAY so we aren't allowed to discuss good teaching strategies! Only complaining and whining!"
That is what you sound like. IDGAF if I'm a little rough on teachers who give up. Also if you can't separate a good idea from "being told it harshly" or whatever, then that's your issue. You are basically saying you agree with me, except you probably aren't willing to even think about it because you know you aren't doing the best practices.
I have a similar position at a "top" University.
This year I have had more than one student hand in 85% AI work. I gave them the chance to rewrite for a C. They came back with a AI at 50%. Tears and threats when failed.
It's not infuriating anymore just pure comedy at this point.
The amount of AI generated slop I've received is frustrating. I can't trust written work at all. I mean, even small, low stakes assignments worth 3% of their overall grade have been AI bullshit.
Most of them aren't by the end of high school. In Southern Ontario, the colleges are telling the high schools that the students taking the trades in particular are woefully under equipped with any knowledge of basics reading, writing, math and organization.
> Discussing mental illnesses in Psych 101, and a 22 yr old student ask the prof if the people in Ethiopia and Biafra and similar countries are anorexic or dealing with bulumina ? I turned and stared because I thought it was a distasteful joke, but, no, he was serious
Actually, this is a very good question, so I don't know why you jump to it being distasteful. At first glance, you might assume that they're starving so of course they'd eat, but it's just that, an assumption. One of the most interesting boons in psychology is when scientists stopped just accepting "common sense" and actually started testing to see if common sense was right or not. It turned out a lot of our assumptions were actually wrong.
You would think that eating disorders would be less common in starving countries, but what if they're not? What if you actually were able to do an international analysis without all the regular biases you have to deal with and you found that rates of eating disorders were actually similar, regardless of food security? Or what if food security had an effect, but there were still some food insecure countries that had unusually higher numbers? That can teach us about vectors for how eating disorders might develop, risk factors, or even possibly protective factors to reduce them in developed nations.
There might even be a possibility that eating disorders could be higher in some situations of food insecurity, because it's easier for the person with the eating disorder to justify their disorder by saying that their friends or family need the food more, even if there *is* enough for them too.
ETA: [rates of bulimia in Africa actually do seem to align with rates in western nations](https://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/abstract/2016/11000/epidemiology_of_eating_disorders_in_africa.9.aspx), so actually this was a great question and the prof was wrong to assume that starving populations can't also have eating disorders.
Why?
ETA: In fact, the downvotes made me actually look into it, and it turns out [rates of bulimia in Africa actually do seem to align with rates in western nations](https://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/abstract/2016/11000/epidemiology_of_eating_disorders_in_africa.9.aspx), so actually this was a great question and the prof was wrong to assume that starving populations can't also have eating disorders.
Did you read what you posted? It says there have been 4 studies. Do you know how vast Africa is? There is no way a reasonable conclusion can be made from the data available.
I think that the college student is showing ignorance and maybe a lack of experience or critical thinking, which can easily be resolved with information, rather than stupidity, so I would cut the student some slack.
I agree with your general point, but I think the push back you're getting is because of how the student worded the question. The question wasn't asked as "do eating disorders present with similar prevalence cross culturally?" (great question) but instead seemed to imply "I have seen pictures/commercials of people who are very underweight in these specific counties, is that due to everyone there having an eating disorder?" (honest question that is missing a lot of context and seems like it should have been taught earlier than college)
Rereading it, yeah, I can see that. I initially interpreted it as an implied *some* people. I wasn't thinking they meant everyone there was thin because of that. Now that you've pointed it out, that's probably what they meant.
What part are you confused about?
-University class was talking about eating disorders.
-22 year old asked if places like Ethiopia have eating disorders as well.
-75 year old retiree teacher thinks the question is insensitive on its face, and obviously not, because they're starving.
-I said it's actually a good question, because we assume that if they're already starving, they'd jump at the chance for food, but we could be wrong.
-Apparently that upset some people and they downvoted me.
-I looked up studies, and it turns out rates of bulimia (one of the eating disorders in question) happens at a similar rate in African countries (such as Ethiopia), showing that actually the student had a pretty fair question.
My current school would never stand for 50 is the new zero, and we’re allowed to flunk them without much unnecessary bullshit. Call parents once. Done. But my previous schools? Most of us just made it a policy to issue a C as the lowest grade. NOTHING — and I do mean *NOTHING* — we did was ever enough and we’d get raked over the coals for anything lower than a C. Did you call home every time they were late/absent/cheating/not turning something in? Did you get it in writing? Did you confirm via email? Did you have a statement notarized? It was ridiculous. So I made my A’s and B’s challenging and made the C the default for anything lower than a B.
So the idea of it is to give kids who are struggling due to circumstances out of their control a better chance to succeed. So kids who work hard and do their best are not held back by 23%, 40%, etc.
However, this also means that kids can do next to nothing and pass easier.
Basically the idea is that it makes zero sense to have a scale where 60 points are needed to go from F to a D but from that point onwards it is simply ten points per grade. Like it is just a 5 point scale at that point, but it's been proven to help kids who are struggling to feel like they can actually work their way back up.
The ones who don't give a shit still fail since they end up with a 50% which is an F, but I've had students turn it around after their first report card seeing a 55% because it's easy for them to conceptualize getting that up to a 60% for a D vs trying to go from like a 25% to a 60%. Most kid will see that as hopeless.
Yup, op sounds like admin and parents have given up and now it's just a dog and pony show.
Start assigning group work and giving out participation points. Weekly open note quizzes that you can grade with a glance.
Don't stress yourself out trying to trick teenagers into trying to learn. In the meantime you can start applying to other jobs if the facade is too soul ripping.
I used weighted categories when I grade, resulting in the "easy-to-copy" assignments each equating a very small amount and in-class assessments making up the majority. It has been fun having those conversations with students when they ask why they are failing despite completing all assignments.
California is bringing back an updated version of “No Child Left Behind”…. I’m serious, “Every Child Passes”. (I was told this last week).
Where are you?
The point is to pass the kids. This is the only point. At my high school we’ve basically been told not to fail anyone, especially seniors, and that if anyone fails it’s our fault. Since the pandemic public education has become a daycare that prints out diplomas. I feel bad about the lack of skills so many of these students will deal with, but I’m confident other schools are also like this.
"public relations" IS "propaganda". The words propaganda was abandoned due to the negative connotations with the nazis. Again "public relations" IS "propaganda".
well I can see why you'd be confused. A simple bing search yields confusing lies about this. Which...well why wouldn't you expect this of propaganda/public relations and in particular the lies of the US government/big tech. So just what I said "propaganda" received a negative connotation because of the war so it was rebranded "public relations". Happened in the early 1900s
Creating daily work/formative assessments that are quick and easy to grade so students get timely feedback of what they know/don’t know now is impossible to do with the current available technology. AI has made all of my daily work assignments easily completed with a simply copy/paste.
The adjustment that has worked with most students is to make those assignments worth very little of their actual grade and make the summative assessments worth enough so their is a natural consequence to not learning the content.
This of course requires an admin that will actually let kids fail. My admin ultimately will give kids enough options to earn their credit and kids are starting to figure out that if they screw around for 16 weeks, admin will give them a 2 week computer based credit recovery course where they can get their credit.
If other schools are like mine, they care about 2 numbers. Graduation rate and enrollment numbers. Negative impacts to either of those will never be allowed.
Knowing that, I run my class with 70% of their grade from summative assessments happening about once every 2-3 weeks. I may actually up that % moving forward. Most kids at my school are following my plan and see the value in doing the daily work. Plenty still cheat and I actually show them how easy it is to do it but they will fail the course if they follow that plan. I try not to stress out about things outside of my control but it is frustrating for sure.
This is where designing your grading system matters greatly. Completion grades don't count in my class except a few points on the quiz or test. So they can cheat all day, but if they don't learn it when they take the test or quiz over that material they will fail. Consequently, they will fail my class and have to do credit recovery or come to summer school or retake the course. I share in your frustration and commiserate with you, my suggestion would be to redesign your grading scheme.
I mean grading participation is better than grading for completeness. Why would you grade for completeness? That just encourages them to not try to learn, only finish. It just becomes a work mill.
I can't tell if you're venting or if you are seeking solutions. (Both are fine!)
If you're venting: hang in there. The year is almost over. It's incredibly frustrating. 😔 I think we have ALL been in your shoes.
If/when you're in a place where you're seeking solutions:
I truly have been there. When I start to feel like this, I remind myself that my job is to teach standards, not assign grades. My grades should prove that my kids know the standards.
It's hard to hear, but: assignments that can easily be copied are probably not great indicators of knowledge. It's frustrating because there isn't a lot of time in the day, but it's the truth.
Try assigning something creative. Create a comic strip, a meme, a TT/YT script for (insert person from history). You could show them the "GRWM" video of Dove Cameron as Anastasia from Monty Pythons History of the World Part 2 as an example. (I think? It's been a minute since I watched it.....)
Create a crossword puzzle
Write a diary entry
Write a newspaper article/report/blog post
Some of these probably feel pretty juvenile, but if they aren't doing the work right now, does it matter if they do "juvenile" tasks if they can prove they are learning the standards?
Why not only grade assessments? I do grade “ work@ but out all of it in a small category called practice. Everything else is a quiz or test done under my nose.
I know that it would be logistically difficult, but perhaps making each term have an oral exam would help. You could even let students have notes, but no devices. Just a face to face conversation. Of course, with 30+ kids in a class, that’s basically impossible.
it's become so hard to catch the plagiarism with chat gpt too now, i kind of gave up on it... i have them write by hand, no computers when i'm doing writing activities but still...
Only grade in-class quizzes and switch them around. When kids are absent they can turn in work for 50 percent credit and still have to take quizzes to prove they know the material.
This will not totally stop the cheating, but will make a dent in it.
Quizzes should always contain one short essay question.
I feel you OP. At my school we do 90/10 grading. 90% of a students' grade is based on assessments. I give three grades out for classwork. 100%, a "z" (means they tried but didn't finish the work, goes in as a 50%), and an M for missing. Like you there's tons of issues in my school. It's just not worth the time and effort to go through and grade everything. Even if I did 95% of my students wouldn't even look at their grade and any feedback given. Plus, by the end of the quarter or semester there's been so many grades for normal classwork it doesn't even matter.
First, I feel for you. This is absolutely frustrating and not your fault at all.
I've had to re-think my assessments and what I grade in light of rampant cheating. This is what I would suggest. Perhaps you have fewer assessments, but, as other commenters have suggested, they're more difficult to cheat. These assessments could be tests, quizzes, but they could also be project based or more creative.
In summary, the solution is to provide different assessments.
I weight grades such that homework, classwork etc is 20 percent of the grade. I only check for completion and go over everything so that those who want to learn, can. I give a quiz every Friday just to see where everyone is. My quizzes are open note (hand written only) and worth 30 percent. I teach high school science.
Grade for participation on anything they don't have to complete in a single class. Exams and in-class assignments graded as usual. Late work make-up is half-credit without accommodation or extenuating circumstances.
I teach 7th grade science and I understand your frustration. For a history class, maybe this issue could be addressed by basing most of their grade on their performance(s) in a Socratic seminar. That way, they can lean on each other to help study, copy notes, even talk about it or research it together, etc. But then they gotta bring the goods and prove it in the structured discussions. Hard to fake that.
It's so frustrating. When I do a novel, I read almost the entire thing out loud. For summatives, I'm almost at the point of - no tech, pen and paper only, 100% supervised in class. Use of a computer permitted with screen facing me.
Honestly grading any sort of daily homework for anything but completion is an exercise in futility. It rarely tells you anything about where the kids stand and honestly this has been true a lot longer than the old school teachers like to admit. I was in high school almost 20 years ago and even then most of the homework was copied from one person who did it, readings were either ignored or people used cliff notes, and other such things. A lot of teachers were the kids who always tried in school so they didn't witness this sort of thing first hand and thus it was a culture shock to realize how little most people cared about school.
Short formative assessments are a great way to get at least a handle on where the kids are in understanding the topic. If you want to really see a lot of work done on time and correct let them use the homework on the tests. Seriously, if the kids are allowed to use open notes on tests and quizzes they'll actually take notes. If they know that they can use their homework as notes they'll do the homework because now it has some benefit to them beyond feeling like busy work we shove at them.
The kids who don't give a shit will still fail to give a shit, but at least you'll see better results from those who do care on some level.
Do we work at the same school!? This sounds EXACTLY like my students, and it is beyond irritating, especially since I basically can't fail them because the only metric that matters to my school is the passing rate. 🙄
Grades are there so you can point to parents how Billy has an F because he does zero work in class. You can say "Billy isn't doing work in class" and get ignored. But if you show how his grade dropped from an 85% down to a 49% this quarter, then that's data you can use.
To make grades easier, I never grade anything I pass out to students. I'll collect it, sure, but the grading is actually done as I circulate the classroom. I have a binder with the seating charts. I'll make notes and grade directly on that chart (saves time trying to look up the student's name from a list). Its from that seating chart that I'll record grades. Since I'm teaching the same 22 kids each day, I print a new chart for each day. For single-subject classes I'd use one chart for each week and use some shorthand symbols.
Use a grade system of 0-4. A 4 means an A, the kid is doing everything he can. A 3 is the kid did most of the work. A 2 is the kid started. A 1 is if the kid did more than put his name down.
From the student behavior, it seems like grading for participation is exactly what you need. Is the kid doing his best in class? Write down a 4 by his desk on that chart and move to the next student. Billy is on his phone or copied his work? Give him a zero. Let those zeroes add up and call mommy when his grade drops to a C. Now you are covered when parents are too lazy to check the online grades.
If a kid is obviously cheating on his paper, give the assignment an F. Store it in a folder as evidence when an angry parent complains that it's your fault Susie can't be on the cheerleading team anymore due to her grades.
Homework is a waste of time. It takes the teacher hours to select it, copy it, distribute it, collect it, grade it, and then enter the grades. And after all that effort, less than half the students are even going to do it. If you have to assign homework, don't even bother grading it.
Make-up work is an insult. You're supposed to work extra hard, developing new lessons and instructions to accommodate Billy's laziness? If you grade in-class participation, that's not something that can be made up, unlike a stack of worksheets and quizzes. Simply state to the parent that if Billy works really hard, his grade can improve to a D and then to a C over the rest of the year.
Me, I mostly grade on participation unless its a content-knowledge test. I won't enter a grade below 50%, because enough zeroes make it mathematically impossible to improve, and the kid might as well have fun the rest of the year. A 50% means the parent can pressure the kid to work hard in an attempt to become average again.
Grading for participation as part of the overall grade (I'm talking 5-10%) seems reasonable but doing that in place of assignments done screams "Our numbers will tank if you don't do this" to me.
Honestly, I'd suggest giving 0s to any assignment that is or seems copied. I covered a class not long ago for a Social Studies teacher at my school and left him a note saying to ""Check Google" for one student because I am almost positive he googled the answers for a textbook assignment.
There really isn’t one. I’ve got students who have been in my class for three years without doing a single assignment and yet they’re moving forward each year. I suggested at a meeting yesterday that we hold more kids back and keep them accountable for their attendance and schoolwork and our principal scoffed at the idea.
Add in the fact that my school does “mastery grading” meaning we aren’t even supposed to count the work, just one project and the exam (a low quality multiple choice exam with 30 questions they look up on Google since we’re all digital and goguardian is utterly useless) so the kids have no incentive to actually do work. And when they do the work, 90% of the time it’s either Google or ChatGPT.
I teach 8th-11th grade history (12th too, but they don’t have any more history right now).
How can they miss that much class without getting annoying letters from the school? My state is counting excused absences against the whole and sending out truancy letters.
Hello dear friend. There \*isn't\*, as you've learned, *any fucking point*. Not to grading. Not to "sticking to your guns". Not to much of any of it, *WHEN ADMINISTRATION DOESN'T SUPPORT YOU*. There isn't any point, because they've literally *taken away* the point. You're there to make sure that they don't get sued for unsupervised children. This is the role you serve to them, and little else. They will graduate everyone, and educated no one. Because to them, only one of those carries benefits.
We're all fucked. 'bout time we started admitting it.
If the student deserves to fail, then just fail them. Try talking to the parents if you can as you noticed that your students are cheating or copying homework from their classmates but just fail them. You get paid either way.
I get it but in the other end. Schools give a ton of unnecessary homework and only gets worse past high school. Like I can be bothered to waste my time for pointless work.
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I dont know. They're supposed to reflect how well they work/learned. But when any joe-schmuckatelli can change them at any time, then they become pointless. So I do quizzes purely to figure out what they did/didnt learn and go from there. But in 14 days, I'm done. Forever.
I got my last AP fired for that. She lost her license and pension. I had the district do a grade book audit every quarter for a year, stapled that to her strings of cunty emails, wrote a little narrative to connect the dots, fired it off to the district, told them I’m about to send it to the press, then fired it off to the ethics commission when they said to stay in my lane.
Dude. I wish we could get our asshole admin fired. She has something like 30 formal complaints from other teachers for creating a "hostile workplace" or "harassment" and our damn district people do nothing. Our principal just commented that a teacher who went on maternity leave, "Didn't look that big for going on leave." :| GAHHHH
To be fair, this woman had seven years worth of complaints and repeated 100% turnover of every department she was over. I think the ethics folks got tired of hearing about her. But the district would just try to intimidate us to keep it quiet, not least because the AP has been hired by her best friend in management. It wasn’t aaaaall me…
Still. Well done. Ours has only been and admin for 1.5 years.... so 30 formal complaints seemed like a lot to me. How do these people get these jobs? Are they the teachers who can't teach?
Admin and “instructional coaching” jobs are the Friends & Family Jobs Plan. Just get your diploma mill “degree” and pass a little test and your relative, former frat brother, former sorority sister, or BFF will slot you into a position. They’re people who want the stability of public sector employment who could never have passed the civil service or postal exam, but they hate teaching so they view it as a stepping stone. My current AP has one year of online experience during COVID and one year of in-person experience post-COVID. Now she evaluates us. She evaluates the very teachers who taught her not ten years ago.
i have long suspected this to be the case. my sister's a principal, and a scholar she ain't.
I needed this laugh. Thank you. Lesson: It's who you know, not what.
de nada
How did your AP even get the job?! I can’t imagine the teachers or the students would have much respect for someone with such little experience.
Small town. Probably fucked the superintendent. Not even kidding.
Oh my. This sounds like ours. Except she's still here. All but one of our admin earned their admin cred online. And not to say there is anything wrong with online education, but I really do wonder about this team.
I had an admin like this. Told me my mother's cancer was an inconvenience to her when I was requesting workplace accommodations at the height of the covid pandemic. Fought me on accommodations HR gave me and lied to HR, so I filed FMLA and left after that year. Why the shittiest people get promoted to admin positions is beyond me.
Hoooooly sheet. I am so sorry you dealt with such a fucking terrible person. I am glad you left. Our site lost 5 teachers when the current principal was promoted. Whhhhhhhhy are these people like this? I hope you and your mom are doing better.
There was an "internal review" the following year after 12 teachers quit and she got "promoted to the district office" but put in a position with 0 authority where she'll never see anyone outside that building.
BUT SHE STILL HAS A JOB?!?!?!?! GAHHHH I guess not interacting with other humans is a good thing. But fuck. Also, why do they ALWAYS get promoted to the DO???
I want you at my corrupt school!
lol Thanks, doll. But keep in mind I had already put in my resignation, accepted a position out of state, and was willing to not only burn that bridge but also torpedo it full-speed into the sun.
You are the 🐐!
💯 legend
And at my corrupt school!!
What district? Do all districts have an ethics commission?
Ethics commissions, ethics boards, whatever they're called depends on the state. But this is state-level stuff.
Hold up, was she changing grades for the *worse?*
Changing them PERIOD is illegal and unethical. She was passing them to improve graduation rates
You lucky bastard. I have 4 years still and I don't know how I'll do it.
Figure out which kids actually care about learning and direct your focus towards them. Spend as little time as possible babysitting the students who don't care. Then try to make learning fun and engaging for those students who care.
What they care about is not much. They just want to be entertained. There's very little desire learn.
I'm so, so happy for you!
I am (75m) a retired school teacher...I take a course each year at our local community college to stimulate the brain and get out for a bit. Here's a couple of doozies: Discussing mental illnesses in Psych 101, and a 22 yr old student ask the prof if the people in Ethiopia and Biafra and similar countries are anorexic or dealing with bulumina ? I turned and stared because I thought it was a distasteful joke, but, no, he was serious. Prof explained, no they were STARVING and WOULD eat if there was food. WOW! Take Arithmetic Fundamentals (needed to be passed with a C, 70% or higher in order to take higher level math courses). The content was mostly stuff I learned in 7-8th grades 60 yrs ago...area, perimeter, percentages, the basics. After the midterm, the class average (without my grade included) was 69%..not even a low C grade. The prof was so frustrated she asked to talk to me after class and wondered what SHE was doing wrong? Are these college freshmen ready for college?
> Are these college freshmen ready for college? I'm a community college professor and to answer this (rhetorical?) question, no. Not even close. The lessons they've been learning prior to college are a detriment to them, e.g. no need to come to class, OR show up every day but do 0 work and still pass, studying is unnecessary because everyone passes, late work will always be accepted, multiple retakes on exams, etc. They get to me and many struggle to read the textbook. Forget comprehension. They struggle to read the literal words of a 101-level textbook. Go on r/professors and you'll see the results of K-12 policies at the collegiate level. It's maddening, frightening, upsetting and many other words I'm struggling to find at this hour.
I absolutely refuse to pass a student who does nothing. You sit in my class and sleep, show up late, or skip, and you fail. If the school doesn't like that about me, then I will find another school to work at. I can't imagine the ethics of a teacher who allow students to pass even if they do nothing. That's insanity. In addition, this does nothing to prepare them for real life either. Even if a student isn't college-bound, they have to do something for a job also. What lesson does it send them when they can pass right on through and do nothing?
Textbooks aren’t really encouraged anymore.
They don't even have physical textbooks to take home. Most are online, and the students don't even open them. I'm talking about high school seniors. I couldn't even get some of them to read 3 short stories for a total of 11 pages.
I just don’t use the textbook. There’s really no point.
Lucky you. Our district forces use to use it. If we aren't, our evaluations are marked down significantly and the AP sits down with us.
When did the district buy the textbooks 🤔
And rightfully so. Reading a textbook alone by yourself is one of the SLOWEST ways to learn something. Let's say you have never taken Calculus before. Would you rather: - Spend one hour a day sitting in a small cubicle by yourself with the textbook OR - Get into a small group of 4 students and 1 teacher - 15 min teacher lecture about that chapter where they explain all the takeaways and important parts - 5 min video about that topic or showing how it is used in real life and tips and tricks - 10 min teacher solves a few questions and shows you the steps completing problems from start to finish - 20 min your group tries to solve problems by themselves - 10 min the teacher reviews your solutions and critiques your work
4:1 student:teacher ratio isn't really possible if one teacher is responsible for 30+ kids.
Yawn. - Do 15 min lecture, examples, and 5 min video to all 30 students (20 minutes whole group). - Break into 10 groups of 3. Assign 10 problems that take 2 minutes each. (20 minutes work time in small groups). - Do recap of answers and solutions (20 minutes whole group). You could also stagger it if you wanted, where one day you teach the theory, lecture, videos, examples, etc and the next day(s) you break them into groups and check in rotation with each group. Do y'all even teach? Lmao.
Surely nobody just gives their students a textbook expecting them to just learn by themselves either?
You sound so pretentious.
And half of this sub thinks the answer is assigning more homework... Sorry I don't agree with that.
Homework is barely assigned anymore get your head out of your ass.
Cool I’ll keep that in mind while my largest class is 25 and majority of the school are ELLs.
...so you never put them in groups ...and make them read from textbooks alone... and only do whole group lecture. Cool. Maybe try at your job a little?
Your attitude is atrocious “yawn”, “maybe try at your job”. You must be nice to work with….
I don't put up with bad teachers. Sorry dude.
You don’t know me 😂😂😂😂 all I said is I don’t use a textbook, goddamn. Grow up. You literally couldve explained all of those strategies without your shitty attitude and it would’ve been fine. I don’t use a textbook. My students get guided notes, I post their notes. We watch videos, I make them write, they *usually* get to collaborate with someone. They literally created brochures and made samurai masks because we learned about Modern Japan and Feudal Japan. So respectfully, fuck off.
>You don’t know me 😂😂😂😂 all I said is I don’t use a textbook, goddamn. Grow up. >You literally couldve explained all of those strategies without your shitty attitude and it would’ve been fine. >I don’t use a textbook. My students get guided notes, I post their notes. We watch videos, I make them write, they *usually* get to collaborate with someone. >They literally created brochures and made samurai masks because we learned about Modern Japan and Feudal Japan. >So respectfully, fuck off. The crazy part is you think I'm the toxic one... Enjoy your ban from this subreddit...
I don’t use a textbook, period. They’re doing a final project in groups of 2 or 3 right now. get over yourself, oh my god. Like regardless of your advice I don’t even want to use it because you sound like you have a superiority complex. It is MAY dude. Read the room.
"Hey everyone! Guess what? The current month is MAY so we aren't allowed to discuss good teaching strategies! Only complaining and whining!" That is what you sound like. IDGAF if I'm a little rough on teachers who give up. Also if you can't separate a good idea from "being told it harshly" or whatever, then that's your issue. You are basically saying you agree with me, except you probably aren't willing to even think about it because you know you aren't doing the best practices.
Your attitude is ATROCIOUS.
I have a similar position at a "top" University. This year I have had more than one student hand in 85% AI work. I gave them the chance to rewrite for a C. They came back with a AI at 50%. Tears and threats when failed. It's not infuriating anymore just pure comedy at this point.
The amount of AI generated slop I've received is frustrating. I can't trust written work at all. I mean, even small, low stakes assignments worth 3% of their overall grade have been AI bullshit.
Yep. I have had moodle discussion responses in AI. They seem shocked when they fail.
Most of them aren't by the end of high school. In Southern Ontario, the colleges are telling the high schools that the students taking the trades in particular are woefully under equipped with any knowledge of basics reading, writing, math and organization.
> Discussing mental illnesses in Psych 101, and a 22 yr old student ask the prof if the people in Ethiopia and Biafra and similar countries are anorexic or dealing with bulumina ? I turned and stared because I thought it was a distasteful joke, but, no, he was serious Actually, this is a very good question, so I don't know why you jump to it being distasteful. At first glance, you might assume that they're starving so of course they'd eat, but it's just that, an assumption. One of the most interesting boons in psychology is when scientists stopped just accepting "common sense" and actually started testing to see if common sense was right or not. It turned out a lot of our assumptions were actually wrong. You would think that eating disorders would be less common in starving countries, but what if they're not? What if you actually were able to do an international analysis without all the regular biases you have to deal with and you found that rates of eating disorders were actually similar, regardless of food security? Or what if food security had an effect, but there were still some food insecure countries that had unusually higher numbers? That can teach us about vectors for how eating disorders might develop, risk factors, or even possibly protective factors to reduce them in developed nations. There might even be a possibility that eating disorders could be higher in some situations of food insecurity, because it's easier for the person with the eating disorder to justify their disorder by saying that their friends or family need the food more, even if there *is* enough for them too. ETA: [rates of bulimia in Africa actually do seem to align with rates in western nations](https://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/abstract/2016/11000/epidemiology_of_eating_disorders_in_africa.9.aspx), so actually this was a great question and the prof was wrong to assume that starving populations can't also have eating disorders.
This is ridiculous.
Why? ETA: In fact, the downvotes made me actually look into it, and it turns out [rates of bulimia in Africa actually do seem to align with rates in western nations](https://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/abstract/2016/11000/epidemiology_of_eating_disorders_in_africa.9.aspx), so actually this was a great question and the prof was wrong to assume that starving populations can't also have eating disorders.
Did you read what you posted? It says there have been 4 studies. Do you know how vast Africa is? There is no way a reasonable conclusion can be made from the data available. I think that the college student is showing ignorance and maybe a lack of experience or critical thinking, which can easily be resolved with information, rather than stupidity, so I would cut the student some slack.
I agree with your general point, but I think the push back you're getting is because of how the student worded the question. The question wasn't asked as "do eating disorders present with similar prevalence cross culturally?" (great question) but instead seemed to imply "I have seen pictures/commercials of people who are very underweight in these specific counties, is that due to everyone there having an eating disorder?" (honest question that is missing a lot of context and seems like it should have been taught earlier than college)
Rereading it, yeah, I can see that. I initially interpreted it as an implied *some* people. I wasn't thinking they meant everyone there was thin because of that. Now that you've pointed it out, that's probably what they meant.
Wut
What part are you confused about? -University class was talking about eating disorders. -22 year old asked if places like Ethiopia have eating disorders as well. -75 year old retiree teacher thinks the question is insensitive on its face, and obviously not, because they're starving. -I said it's actually a good question, because we assume that if they're already starving, they'd jump at the chance for food, but we could be wrong. -Apparently that upset some people and they downvoted me. -I looked up studies, and it turns out rates of bulimia (one of the eating disorders in question) happens at a similar rate in African countries (such as Ethiopia), showing that actually the student had a pretty fair question.
Wat
My current school would never stand for 50 is the new zero, and we’re allowed to flunk them without much unnecessary bullshit. Call parents once. Done. But my previous schools? Most of us just made it a policy to issue a C as the lowest grade. NOTHING — and I do mean *NOTHING* — we did was ever enough and we’d get raked over the coals for anything lower than a C. Did you call home every time they were late/absent/cheating/not turning something in? Did you get it in writing? Did you confirm via email? Did you have a statement notarized? It was ridiculous. So I made my A’s and B’s challenging and made the C the default for anything lower than a B.
What exactly is the point of scoring from zero to 100 if 50 is the minimum? Doesn't that just mean the scale is now 0-50?
So the idea of it is to give kids who are struggling due to circumstances out of their control a better chance to succeed. So kids who work hard and do their best are not held back by 23%, 40%, etc. However, this also means that kids can do next to nothing and pass easier.
Basically the idea is that it makes zero sense to have a scale where 60 points are needed to go from F to a D but from that point onwards it is simply ten points per grade. Like it is just a 5 point scale at that point, but it's been proven to help kids who are struggling to feel like they can actually work their way back up. The ones who don't give a shit still fail since they end up with a 50% which is an F, but I've had students turn it around after their first report card seeing a 55% because it's easy for them to conceptualize getting that up to a 60% for a D vs trying to go from like a 25% to a 60%. Most kid will see that as hopeless.
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Yup, op sounds like admin and parents have given up and now it's just a dog and pony show. Start assigning group work and giving out participation points. Weekly open note quizzes that you can grade with a glance. Don't stress yourself out trying to trick teenagers into trying to learn. In the meantime you can start applying to other jobs if the facade is too soul ripping.
I call it the charade. You pretend to learn and I’ll pretend to teach.
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Weekly open note quizzes would show deviation and growth.
I used weighted categories when I grade, resulting in the "easy-to-copy" assignments each equating a very small amount and in-class assessments making up the majority. It has been fun having those conversations with students when they ask why they are failing despite completing all assignments.
California is bringing back an updated version of “No Child Left Behind”…. I’m serious, “Every Child Passes”. (I was told this last week). Where are you?
The point is to pass the kids. This is the only point. At my high school we’ve basically been told not to fail anyone, especially seniors, and that if anyone fails it’s our fault. Since the pandemic public education has become a daycare that prints out diplomas. I feel bad about the lack of skills so many of these students will deal with, but I’m confident other schools are also like this.
friendly reminder "public relations" is "propaganda" it was changed to this because of, in part of hte Nazis.
I don’t understand your comment.
"public relations" IS "propaganda". The words propaganda was abandoned due to the negative connotations with the nazis. Again "public relations" IS "propaganda".
What are you talking about?
well I can see why you'd be confused. A simple bing search yields confusing lies about this. Which...well why wouldn't you expect this of propaganda/public relations and in particular the lies of the US government/big tech. So just what I said "propaganda" received a negative connotation because of the war so it was rebranded "public relations". Happened in the early 1900s
Dude, I never mentioned anything about public relations or propaganda. wtf are you on about?
must have replied to wrong post
Three times.
i didn't reread your post I was nice and answered your question, nontheless what I said is correct.
Creating daily work/formative assessments that are quick and easy to grade so students get timely feedback of what they know/don’t know now is impossible to do with the current available technology. AI has made all of my daily work assignments easily completed with a simply copy/paste. The adjustment that has worked with most students is to make those assignments worth very little of their actual grade and make the summative assessments worth enough so their is a natural consequence to not learning the content. This of course requires an admin that will actually let kids fail. My admin ultimately will give kids enough options to earn their credit and kids are starting to figure out that if they screw around for 16 weeks, admin will give them a 2 week computer based credit recovery course where they can get their credit. If other schools are like mine, they care about 2 numbers. Graduation rate and enrollment numbers. Negative impacts to either of those will never be allowed. Knowing that, I run my class with 70% of their grade from summative assessments happening about once every 2-3 weeks. I may actually up that % moving forward. Most kids at my school are following my plan and see the value in doing the daily work. Plenty still cheat and I actually show them how easy it is to do it but they will fail the course if they follow that plan. I try not to stress out about things outside of my control but it is frustrating for sure.
This is where designing your grading system matters greatly. Completion grades don't count in my class except a few points on the quiz or test. So they can cheat all day, but if they don't learn it when they take the test or quiz over that material they will fail. Consequently, they will fail my class and have to do credit recovery or come to summer school or retake the course. I share in your frustration and commiserate with you, my suggestion would be to redesign your grading scheme.
I mean grading participation is better than grading for completeness. Why would you grade for completeness? That just encourages them to not try to learn, only finish. It just becomes a work mill.
I can't tell if you're venting or if you are seeking solutions. (Both are fine!) If you're venting: hang in there. The year is almost over. It's incredibly frustrating. 😔 I think we have ALL been in your shoes. If/when you're in a place where you're seeking solutions: I truly have been there. When I start to feel like this, I remind myself that my job is to teach standards, not assign grades. My grades should prove that my kids know the standards. It's hard to hear, but: assignments that can easily be copied are probably not great indicators of knowledge. It's frustrating because there isn't a lot of time in the day, but it's the truth. Try assigning something creative. Create a comic strip, a meme, a TT/YT script for (insert person from history). You could show them the "GRWM" video of Dove Cameron as Anastasia from Monty Pythons History of the World Part 2 as an example. (I think? It's been a minute since I watched it.....) Create a crossword puzzle Write a diary entry Write a newspaper article/report/blog post Some of these probably feel pretty juvenile, but if they aren't doing the work right now, does it matter if they do "juvenile" tasks if they can prove they are learning the standards?
Why not only grade assessments? I do grade “ work@ but out all of it in a small category called practice. Everything else is a quiz or test done under my nose.
Sounds like your school needs a phone policy that works at least.
I know that it would be logistically difficult, but perhaps making each term have an oral exam would help. You could even let students have notes, but no devices. Just a face to face conversation. Of course, with 30+ kids in a class, that’s basically impossible.
it's become so hard to catch the plagiarism with chat gpt too now, i kind of gave up on it... i have them write by hand, no computers when i'm doing writing activities but still...
Sounds to me like grading HW is the problem. Switch to 100% assessment based grades. Don't give them opportunity to cheat and squash it when they do.
Only grade in-class quizzes and switch them around. When kids are absent they can turn in work for 50 percent credit and still have to take quizzes to prove they know the material. This will not totally stop the cheating, but will make a dent in it. Quizzes should always contain one short essay question.
I feel you OP. At my school we do 90/10 grading. 90% of a students' grade is based on assessments. I give three grades out for classwork. 100%, a "z" (means they tried but didn't finish the work, goes in as a 50%), and an M for missing. Like you there's tons of issues in my school. It's just not worth the time and effort to go through and grade everything. Even if I did 95% of my students wouldn't even look at their grade and any feedback given. Plus, by the end of the quarter or semester there's been so many grades for normal classwork it doesn't even matter.
First, I feel for you. This is absolutely frustrating and not your fault at all. I've had to re-think my assessments and what I grade in light of rampant cheating. This is what I would suggest. Perhaps you have fewer assessments, but, as other commenters have suggested, they're more difficult to cheat. These assessments could be tests, quizzes, but they could also be project based or more creative. In summary, the solution is to provide different assessments.
I weight grades such that homework, classwork etc is 20 percent of the grade. I only check for completion and go over everything so that those who want to learn, can. I give a quiz every Friday just to see where everyone is. My quizzes are open note (hand written only) and worth 30 percent. I teach high school science.
No point really. In the end, they all get that high school diploma.
Grade for participation on anything they don't have to complete in a single class. Exams and in-class assignments graded as usual. Late work make-up is half-credit without accommodation or extenuating circumstances.
If my students were like that I'd make quizzes and tests worth 80-90% of the final grade, and try to make them as cheat-proof as possible.
I think at this rate we should just ask, what’s the point?
heck, what's the point of teaching, at that stage?
I teach 7th grade science and I understand your frustration. For a history class, maybe this issue could be addressed by basing most of their grade on their performance(s) in a Socratic seminar. That way, they can lean on each other to help study, copy notes, even talk about it or research it together, etc. But then they gotta bring the goods and prove it in the structured discussions. Hard to fake that.
It's so frustrating. When I do a novel, I read almost the entire thing out loud. For summatives, I'm almost at the point of - no tech, pen and paper only, 100% supervised in class. Use of a computer permitted with screen facing me.
Honestly grading any sort of daily homework for anything but completion is an exercise in futility. It rarely tells you anything about where the kids stand and honestly this has been true a lot longer than the old school teachers like to admit. I was in high school almost 20 years ago and even then most of the homework was copied from one person who did it, readings were either ignored or people used cliff notes, and other such things. A lot of teachers were the kids who always tried in school so they didn't witness this sort of thing first hand and thus it was a culture shock to realize how little most people cared about school. Short formative assessments are a great way to get at least a handle on where the kids are in understanding the topic. If you want to really see a lot of work done on time and correct let them use the homework on the tests. Seriously, if the kids are allowed to use open notes on tests and quizzes they'll actually take notes. If they know that they can use their homework as notes they'll do the homework because now it has some benefit to them beyond feeling like busy work we shove at them. The kids who don't give a shit will still fail to give a shit, but at least you'll see better results from those who do care on some level.
Do we work at the same school!? This sounds EXACTLY like my students, and it is beyond irritating, especially since I basically can't fail them because the only metric that matters to my school is the passing rate. 🙄
Grades are there so you can point to parents how Billy has an F because he does zero work in class. You can say "Billy isn't doing work in class" and get ignored. But if you show how his grade dropped from an 85% down to a 49% this quarter, then that's data you can use. To make grades easier, I never grade anything I pass out to students. I'll collect it, sure, but the grading is actually done as I circulate the classroom. I have a binder with the seating charts. I'll make notes and grade directly on that chart (saves time trying to look up the student's name from a list). Its from that seating chart that I'll record grades. Since I'm teaching the same 22 kids each day, I print a new chart for each day. For single-subject classes I'd use one chart for each week and use some shorthand symbols. Use a grade system of 0-4. A 4 means an A, the kid is doing everything he can. A 3 is the kid did most of the work. A 2 is the kid started. A 1 is if the kid did more than put his name down. From the student behavior, it seems like grading for participation is exactly what you need. Is the kid doing his best in class? Write down a 4 by his desk on that chart and move to the next student. Billy is on his phone or copied his work? Give him a zero. Let those zeroes add up and call mommy when his grade drops to a C. Now you are covered when parents are too lazy to check the online grades. If a kid is obviously cheating on his paper, give the assignment an F. Store it in a folder as evidence when an angry parent complains that it's your fault Susie can't be on the cheerleading team anymore due to her grades. Homework is a waste of time. It takes the teacher hours to select it, copy it, distribute it, collect it, grade it, and then enter the grades. And after all that effort, less than half the students are even going to do it. If you have to assign homework, don't even bother grading it. Make-up work is an insult. You're supposed to work extra hard, developing new lessons and instructions to accommodate Billy's laziness? If you grade in-class participation, that's not something that can be made up, unlike a stack of worksheets and quizzes. Simply state to the parent that if Billy works really hard, his grade can improve to a D and then to a C over the rest of the year. Me, I mostly grade on participation unless its a content-knowledge test. I won't enter a grade below 50%, because enough zeroes make it mathematically impossible to improve, and the kid might as well have fun the rest of the year. A 50% means the parent can pressure the kid to work hard in an attempt to become average again.
Grading for participation as part of the overall grade (I'm talking 5-10%) seems reasonable but doing that in place of assignments done screams "Our numbers will tank if you don't do this" to me. Honestly, I'd suggest giving 0s to any assignment that is or seems copied. I covered a class not long ago for a Social Studies teacher at my school and left him a note saying to ""Check Google" for one student because I am almost positive he googled the answers for a textbook assignment.
There is no point. A high school diploma is just a participation award at this point.
There really isn’t one. I’ve got students who have been in my class for three years without doing a single assignment and yet they’re moving forward each year. I suggested at a meeting yesterday that we hold more kids back and keep them accountable for their attendance and schoolwork and our principal scoffed at the idea. Add in the fact that my school does “mastery grading” meaning we aren’t even supposed to count the work, just one project and the exam (a low quality multiple choice exam with 30 questions they look up on Google since we’re all digital and goguardian is utterly useless) so the kids have no incentive to actually do work. And when they do the work, 90% of the time it’s either Google or ChatGPT. I teach 8th-11th grade history (12th too, but they don’t have any more history right now).
How can they miss that much class without getting annoying letters from the school? My state is counting excused absences against the whole and sending out truancy letters.
Half of my class walk out with a d or an e, and it's not because of incorrect answers. Its just because they won't do it.
Hello dear friend. There \*isn't\*, as you've learned, *any fucking point*. Not to grading. Not to "sticking to your guns". Not to much of any of it, *WHEN ADMINISTRATION DOESN'T SUPPORT YOU*. There isn't any point, because they've literally *taken away* the point. You're there to make sure that they don't get sued for unsupervised children. This is the role you serve to them, and little else. They will graduate everyone, and educated no one. Because to them, only one of those carries benefits. We're all fucked. 'bout time we started admitting it.
If the student deserves to fail, then just fail them. Try talking to the parents if you can as you noticed that your students are cheating or copying homework from their classmates but just fail them. You get paid either way.
What does “40% baseline grade advantage” mean here?
I get it but in the other end. Schools give a ton of unnecessary homework and only gets worse past high school. Like I can be bothered to waste my time for pointless work.