No child left behind is fast becoming all children left behind.

Personally, I'm not a big fan the semester finals that make or break grades. However, I do think they are an important tool for several reasons: for CP students it teaches them the college routine; it provides an academic outlet for students who perform better on testing then in other areas of school work; it allows teachers to see where they may not have taught as well as they thought (a much better gauge than standardized tests).

I can say that it does not matter what level you are at: elementary, secondary, post-secondary, or graduate; it all seems to be geared toward jumping through hoops and showing off how well you can do it, not necessarily how much you have learned.

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Perspective Alters Reality

I never heard of them cancelling midterms before. WTF? They must have some sort of reasoning, or some other testing in mind to figure out how this is all going to shake out.

Keep me posted as I am curious to know.

Our district went to lining up midterms and finals to righ before the winter and spring breaks. More like a college schedule and none of this rapid cramming and review after breaks in preparation.

Makes for a rather odd school year in that they start mid August and are done by Memorial weekend, but in the long run I think it is better.

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The world looks less difficult when standing next to a close friend.

I personally can't relate to the semester system with midterms and finals. I grew up with quarters and a final. I also feel kids can't be pigeon-holed. What's the use in creating Standards On Learning (from No Child Left Behind) if that's all you teach? How many parents have been frustrated when they ask their child what did you learn new at school today and the child tells you nothing.

This situation has now hit the local papers. The county sent out a note that although they have cancelled midterms, students will be given a chance to take them, that our school will be giving us more information tonight. So they haven't cancelled them now? It's confusing.

My problem is they established a system many years ago that includes midterms as 20% of the 1st semester grade. It doesn't say only if we have good weather. The kids have spent hours both in school and on their own studying for them. The county allows 8 snow days. We've only used 6. Stay with the established schedule. If we use up the other 2 snow days during the 2nd semester, either take away the moveable holidays they have or add a day or two to the end of the school year. That's what the county next to us is having to do because they only had 4 snow days built in and they're still having their midterms.

I haven't seen anything from the school yet.

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They have decided the HS students may decide whether to take their midterms and they've set up a new schedule for next week for them to do so either before or after school. If the student decides not to, their grade will be 50% 1st Qtr, 50% 2nd Qtr. Those who do decide to take it will have the established breakdown of 40,40,20.

A fine example of think things through before you leap.

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"The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing." -- Blaise Pascal

I grew up in West Virginia. We had a county HS up on a hill. School was not cancelled for snow unless the snow was too deep for vehicles to get through. The only time I remember school being cancelled was around my 16th birthday when the wind chill was -60 F. There was one time when the National Guard came in with some incredible bulldozers that plowed the streets. My brother has a picture of the main road with snow on the sides literally as high as the telephone poles. Another brother was standing on top of a school bus and he couldn't reach the top of the snow.

I'm told its now a matter of insurance - can't take a chance of a bus crashing. Hence occasions when we've had school canceled when there was just talk of snow.

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I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers so far...

Ugh Becky. I never planned my grades like that, I just tried to do my best all along, but if you set expectations a certain way you should do your best to stick with the rules you've set. I can tell you for sure that colleges have a sense of different areas. I was told flat out by people from the colleges when I was applying that being from central FL at the time was a handicap for the major schools because of the perceived poor quality of the school system. Then when I did go to school, I learned the hard way that I had no study skills even though I'd had high grades in high school, and really, really struggled.

So yeah, I agree, they're really shortchanging your kids. Given the whining that I've seen from parents on FB about homework over xmas break and stuff I have a feeling that some groups of parents are part of the problem, but that's a pretty limited sample to base my opinion on. I can't imagine what they think they're accomplishing. Good on you for planning to keep on paying attention to those seats when you vote even when your son's out of school.

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Eagle Whisperer

Sounds a lot like the issues we had here before we finally voted to get rid of the only appointed school board in the state and switch over to an elected board. I won't go into detail over all the problems they caused -- that would require more typespace than the entire Harry Potter series plus everything written about Harry Potter! Let's just say that the county could conceivably be paying off a bond for the rest of time (that's the way the damned thing was written --- I'm not exaggerating!) because they ignored all the experts who told them the high school buildings couldn't be renovated to meet the needs of a modern classroom. It was recommended that the buildings be converted into office space and new buildings be built. The board chose the more expensive option of "revamping" the buildings (some of which were built in the early 1900's): the high schools are less capable of handling the power demands of completely computerized classrooms, plus the roofs leaks so much that it's as if there were no roofs at all.

And that's just a small sampling...you wouldn't believe the nightmares they caused with their idiotic curriculum policies! But, as I said earlier, I'd be trying to post a seriously huge tome if I gave you all the details!

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“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." --Ray Bradbury

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I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers so far...

My paternal grandfather was a teacher, and he didn't assign homework at all. However, he was the rare type that, if he understood the concept, you would as well by the end of the period. Unfortunately, I didn't have that talent. I found that some kids needed a little extra practice to grasp the concept, so I assigned homework accordingly. I didn't give a lot, and I didn't give the assignments much weight.

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“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." --Ray Bradbury