College Board unveils revised college entrance exam:

Yep. Just another part of the counter-hegemony that the followers of Gramsci are using to turn the West into one big socialist nanny-state.

Uncle Karl: In college often a curve is appropriate as tests are often written in a manner that no student is expected to score more than about 50%.

/had some evil professors.

I actually feel privileged to go to a college where this is the case. And the only subject I've heard of here where you get points for trying is the required one-per-semester Humanities courses (Engineering school). Well, once a prof offered a friend of mine a D instead of an F given that he sees a performance boost on the final, keeping in mind that my friend attended all the classes and that his major had very little to do with the class in general.

He didn't measure up and he got the F anyway. A D isn't even really a godsend either, since you need a 2.0 not to face probation or possible expulsion, so the D has to be the exception, not the rule.

What happened to people wanting to drive themselves? What is the philosophy of "good enough"? Don't they know that our ancestors didn't receive the manna of tools, machines, and accumulated human knowledge and wisdom from the heavens?

I've heard that the grade inflation at Harvard is so bad that not getting a near A is like getting a pineapple stuck in your anus. And companies aren't taking it seriously anymore. My high school suffered woes with Columbia University and NYU due to reports of inflationary practices. Who do these administrators think they're helping by pumping everyone up? At the far end of the education "career track" is a high school graduation followed by a sojourn into a world where you need to know something in order to matter. And no one knows how to figure out what a person does or doesn't know anymore. People seem to be learning less and less, while those on the other side have less and less faith in the system that attempts to consolidate our knowledge.

People have blamed it on consumerism. People who paid for expensive colleges are perhaps under the impression that they are entitled to a certain something due to their extraordinary financial contribution. And this is true for adequate facilities, teaching staff, requesting classes, etc: I believe, but it doesn't imply a free ride, though the sense of entitlement seems to make people think it does. The customer is always right.

My college is totally free, so it's always the case that the student needs it more than it needs them. Failing people out means releasing funds, not losing income.

Remember, kids, the "pussification" of America begins in Canada

tcw159:
I just graduated from high school yesterday...

I feel as if the diploma is rather worthless...

...college, where I feel the bulk of real learning will be (at least I hope).

Unless you're taking classes that will enable you to get a job that will pay for the student loans you are taking out, that knowledge is useless too. Your local public library is free. You want to learn? Go there and borrow some books, and read them on your lunch hour at a job where you are making money. College is most often just as useless as high school, but it's always more expensive.

/but you win free TotalFark from me, cuz I like you kid.
//Talk about useless.
///Hope is the thing with feathers/that perches in the soul...

This is the one of the few reasons I changed my mind about teaching high school and am persuing graduate degrees so I can teach at the post-secondary level. Eventually it'll get bad...but hopefully by then I'm tenured and I can tell the cockstains to eat a bag of dicks ;).

Back in MY day (alright, it was 5 years ago) none of this shait flew. It might be a Midwest mentality or maybe solely an Iowa mentality, but the "differently abled" left the school and went to the alternative school. Kids were able to accel and were rewarded for good work and kicked in the ass for bad work. Not to get too political, but is it a "blue state," East-West coast thing (I know the story is from Canada)? Hell, my school still let kids out in September to help with the fall harvest and in the spring for planting.

/kids. lawn. off. etc.

fark it, since nobody mentioned cheating so far...
This paper is 6 years old, but the numbers in there are very alarming, even if the numbers now are not higher (though probably they would be).

Basically, most of the kids are cheating. Of course I'm reminded of all the proud parents on fark who gloat about how important and satisfying it is to bring children up into moral adults.

Just wait until these farkwads get into the real world and their boss assigns them a deadline that they don't meet. It's adios, amigo, or at the very least a reprimand. A couple of these and they are canned.

EmmaLou 2007-06-09 02:46:10 PM
D3_WR

I didn't realize that Ontario was now part of the US. Thanks for the heads up.

I though Canada was a part of America. North America to be precise. Am I wrong?

/I know what he meant and what you mean, just feel like being an ass

I have a what they call "special needs" child, while i love him to death, he is behind in everything, and is almost 8 but still mentally a 3yrs old, and school wont hold him back.

He is in class with "normal" children, and will be starting 3rd grade next year. We wanted him to be held back, but with every child succeeds, he won't be held back, and is just pushed along with the rest of the kids, not knowing or understanding much of anything. Ya he gets around well, he can get his own food, operate a tv/dvd/vcr/wii/xp and whatever electronic, but when it comes to real world life things, he can't talk more then 2-3yr old blabber, tie his shoes, put his cloths on without flipping out, add 2+2 without visual help, but the schools will be doing forcing algebra on him soon.. (well, actually they already have in 2nd grade!)

Oh why don't the schools care about the children anymore?!

More proof of the dumbing down of Canadia?

Wow. I cannot say that this surprises me, because the most insufferable, ignorant, and obnoxious creatures on this Earth are high-school and college-age kids. I don't think I have ever heard ONE of them form a coherent sentence. Their main concerns, at least what I can decipher from in between the "like OMGZ, no wai, no he didn't, *squeeeeeeal*" are what's on MTV, who likes them, and getting drunk/high/stoned/laid. I think if I heard a high-school kid say something intelligent, I might fall over dead from shock. And it's not just some of them, it's ALL of them! Yes, back in my day, there were a lot of idiotic high-school retards, but there were ones that were intelligent, motivated, determined, and goal-oriented. I just don't see that nowadays. Yeah, a lot of them are determined to get into college, but only for the biatchin keggers and cute frat guys or to get in the pants of the sorostitutes. I graduated in 2000, so it wasn't really that long ago, but things have changed a LOT in the past 7 years. I look at the high-school kids now and they just make me sick to my stomach. I wondered what was causing it, and now I've got the answer. Good thing I managed to escape before it all went to hell!

makes sense to me.

VARoyalty
DAMN, kids nowadays want to get high and stoned at the same time? Damn kids.

I know the article deals with Canada, but the same attitudes are rotting our education system here in the US.

Every time someone brings up abolishing the so-called DEPT. OF EDUCATION, people go ape-shiat ballistic... like you are proposing lining teachers up against a wall and executing them or something. The fact is, the D.O.E. is a large part of the problem. It is the bureacratic swamp that spawns all of this double-speak BS. The fact is, it is not an accident. The destruction of true education and the dumbing down of our children is a deliberate, planned and well-funded strategy.

As long as we are continuely bullied and bribed into sacrificing ever-more money into this EVIL system, it will only get worse. The masses have been brainwashed into believing that "More money for Da Chillens" means better education... It's an easy sell since it makes folks feel as though they do not have to do anything themselves to teach their own children.

It's a modern-day Indulgence... and it has worked as planned.

/lots of hyphens, man!

I'm a school teacher, so I'm really getting a kick out of .... blah blah blah...

While you can't do it for every lazy arse of a child that comes twaddling through, it is possible to flunk children (at least in California).

I have personally flunked four children in the last five years. Two of those students had already been held back before. I have 10 kids in one of my current classes who have already been held back at least once, if not twice.

The problem is that usually the following year they get designated as having a "specific learning disability" (a catch-all phrase for a variety of stupid), and once they're in special ed., they can never be held back again.

With many of the kids I have known to have been held back (by myself or other teachers), their parents get around it by moving them to other schools or districts so that by the time the records catch up, their already well into the next year.

I blame the parents --- most of these kids are damaged in some way not explained by simple poor genetics. But the level of denial involved in moving your entire family to another district because your extended family has noticed that the cousins who all started in the same grade aren't all still together in the same grade, and that your 14-year-old is just starting 7th grade while theirs is in high school already... it just boggles the mind.

I actually had one family so in denial they didn't realize that both of their daughters had been held back. They took one and enrolled her at the middle school, and told me that there must have been some mistake, the office just put the wrong name on my roll sheet. (This is the same family that puts seven kids in the back seat of a sedan, and says it's OK because they're only going a few blocks. Why aren't these kids just walking home, then?)

I apologize for rambling. I'm just avoiding grading the remarkably, disturbingly, poorly written science reports these little twits and their parents think are pure gold.

Hmmm...interesting...but I still give F's to the kids that earn them. I teach grades 9-12 and if a kid can't be bothered enough to do the work that I assign, then fark 'em. There are plenty that don't feel as though they should have to do the work I assign and live up to the standards I apply to my grading...they account for the roughly 14 F's per class each semester. Some are kids that show up one or two times each semester. Some sit there like furniture and do nothing. Some do the bare minimum and whine about not getting an "A". When you call their parents nothing changes in 90% of the cases.

But all you critics tell me what are the TEACHERS supposed to do other than what I ALREADY do?

Remember kids, if everyone is special than no one is special.

SchlingFo: This thread has too many words.

Can someone post some pictures to summarize.

Enjoy this misrepresenting, slightly trollish and wholly silly MS Paint, then.

PS - I'm also in California. The kids that get an F in either semester of the courses I teach have to repeat either with me, or with one of the other teachers in my department. Otherwise they do not graduate.

A perfect example of the system at work is sitting in the White House right now...or, more likely on vacation...

This keeps him outta the way while Dick & Karl run the show....

as a post-secondary student in ontario, i'm really getting a kick out of these responces...

/high school is teh easy
//lets see how this next generation of crotchdroppings handles post-secondary, though
/repeat after me: "would you like fries..."

I find even in University that the profs will do anything to pass the class. I have had profs state on the first day of class that if you attend at least 90% of the lectures you will not fail. even if you fail all the tests and assignments. Sad. There is no motivation for me to try hard when I know that I can easily float through the class and still attain a passing grade.

I did have one prof that took it to the other extreme though. As a class (all 10 of us) questioned the relavence of the course and the direction she was taking it. She was very passionate about the material she was teaching, but it was not what we were supposed to be learning. She was mad that we would question her teachings and failed 80% of the class! Well we took our argument to the dean and got her put on probation and the whole class got a 60% grade, even the one person who managed to get an 80% in the class.

I cant wait to get out of the school environment and get into a full job atmosphere where, hopefully, effort is rewarded appropriately.

The real tragedy is that my child will not have the kid that drives his camaro to junior high school and has a full mustache to make fun of any more.

SumoJeb I cant wait to get out of the school environment and get into a full job atmosphere where, hopefully, effort is rewarded appropriately.

You have a totally twisted view of what college is all about. You should spend less time studying and more time drinking with the sons and daughters of the rich alumni. These relationships are what will lead to monetary success. Without these connections you will just be another accountant, engineer or whatever that pulls a decent wage and never gets above middle management.

SumoJeb 2007-06-09 05:22:25 PM
I cant wait to get out of the school environment and get into a full job atmosphere where, hopefully, effort is rewarded appropriately.

Here's the secret: You are rewarded for your efforts when your efforts leads to more $$$ for your employer. It's that simple, man.

Actually, that is the way it works in small to mid-sized businesses. In large business and government work, you are rewarded for CYA and your bosses' ass. I'm not sure where the line falls exactly...

If the teachers won't fail my kids, I WILL.

/Personal and parental responsibility FTW

When the kids ask me, "Why did you fail me? Why did you give me an F?" I reply, "I didn't fail you...YOU failed you. And I don't GIVE F's...you EARNED one."

There is no comeback for that.

Interesting.

Down here in L.A. (that's Lower Alabama for you Yankees) we can fail a special ed kids. Not that it does any good, mind.

I am constantly surprised at the differences between states, school districts, and so on. After seven years of working in the schools, I find that the biggest factor in the success or failure of a student is, in order of importance: the teacher, (you have to have at least one good one, or you're not going to make it), the student (drive and determination will take you far), the parents (support and attitude) socio-economic level, the school, the school district.

The bottom line? Find a school with excellent teachers, buy a house there. (or go private if you can afford it)

DaSwankOne
You left out make sure to make a bunch of friends as they will help you get jobs. So far I have basically given jobs to 3 old college buddies. They were qualified so it is ok.

KramericaWallet: fark it, since nobody mentioned cheating so far...
This paper is 6 years old, but the numbers in there are very alarming, even if the numbers now are not higher (though probably they would be).

Basically, most of the kids are cheating. Of course I'm reminded of all the proud parents on fark who gloat about how important and satisfying it is to bring children up into moral adults.

What pisses me off more than anything is that I bust my ass to write my own work, fully researched by me, and correctly giving credit to my sources, then another dude in my classes blatantly plagiarizes works online and gets an A when I get a B missing an A by 1 point.

andrew
Well, keep at it. Apparently the prevalence of cheating is one of the main factors that lead people to cheat or cheat and not feel bad about it. So don't let it get to you.

andrew131
Then maybe you should have cheated. Cheating is taking a risk for a reward, if it is worth it you do it. In real life your boss will not care if you plagiarize half your TPS report so long as the data in it is true.

SumoJeb
She was mad that we would question her teachings and failed 80% of the class! Well we took our argument to the dean and got her put on probation and the whole class got a 60% grade, even the one person who managed to get an 80% in the class.

You do realize that behavior is exactly what this entire thread is complaining about, don't you?

1. Feels entitled to a good grade.
2. Complains and blames the teacher when you don't get one.

I cant wait to get out of the school environment and get into a full job atmosphere where, hopefully, effort is rewarded appropriately.

You try that shiat with your first boss. Complain to his boss when he gives you too strict a deadline, then tell us all how it worked out for you.

Uncle Karl 2007-06-09 05:42:16 PM
andrew131
Then maybe you should have cheated. Cheating is taking a risk for a reward, if it is worth it you do it. In real life your boss will not care if you plagiarize half your TPS report so long as the data in it is true.

That is, if you get a job that requires things like TPS reports.

If you have a job where it actually matters that you have the knowledge in your head or the ability at your fingertips, then PLEASE do what it takes to actually be proficient at your work.

P.S. One of the typical signs of psychopathy is not being able to understand the difference between "wrong" and "not allowed".

I graduated from a high school in 1980 that was substandard in that day & age. Just looked up the stats on a website for prospective homeowners to see how great the schools are in a district. Know what I found??? It hasn't improved & has gotten worse in the almost 30 years since I was there. Even the local schools in the area I live in are SEVERAL points higher than where I graduated.

My senior English class (while I was taking freshman college classes at night) was spent teaching the morons I went to school with basic grammar they should've learned in elementary school. Heaven forbid you had to read a whole novel that did not have pictures or write a paper. This did not come until I got to college.

Ended up getting 2 college degrees...with another coming in the future. Had to end up taking remedial classes in college to catch up & worked my tail to the bone to get my degrees.

Had to do it over again...I would've dropped out of school. Taken GED classes & taken the test. At least I would've gotten the education the taxpayers wasted their money on.

@Dilbert J. Galt

> Sorry, wrong. You've obviously never dealt with a job where these types are the majority (including management). If performance is respected by the top management, you'll eat them for lunch. If the top management cares more about getting their butts kissed, then you get to deal with mob behavior and you lose.

Bingo. Sucking cock gets the promotion. (Everywhere.)

Bad Spellir: (or go private if you can afford it)

private school does NOT mean excellent teachers.

weasil
I do all kinds of creative things at my job, including writing code, but every once in a while I have to write a report or go to a meeting to explain something I often lift text straight from RFC for this. Unless you have a job that does not include any other coworkers or is manual labor you will on occasion be asked to do similar things.

This thread reminds me about criminals who keep recommitting crimes. They never learn...are incapable of learning & will become a drag on society.

I know this is going to be tough for some people to read...but sometimes these kids & adults make rocks look like rocket scientists. If someone is too stupid to learn & refuses to stay out of trouble...why not get rid of them??? Not like they're going to contribute to society. Plus... with them not breeding...we get a win-win situation.

stiletto. I would have been more than happy with an F, if i had put in a failing effort. She marked us poorly because we did not like the course she designed and questioned her abilities. Our whole class put in a good effort, we are all 4th year students who actually desire to get something out of a course. It wasnt that the course was too hard, it was actually quite easy. the problem was her inability to take criticizm and adjust her teachings to better suit the needs of the students, and the curriculum.

Honestly? The Department of Education hates America.

But the leaders were raised in the same system go back and make decisions on how kids should be educated?

It's the Fibonacci Sequence of fail.

Need to get the damned unions out and hire some people that passed high school, maybe sell the jobs to people who actually want to do something with their life and not to people who had nothing better to do; these people are imprinting themselves on your children.

LocalCynic

Bull. The cult of personal responsibility preaches.../

Really? where is this doctrine preached? Certainly there are examples of this occurring, but from my experience and what i believe, you are simply wrong

rules...

I'm saying that the world is the way it is. If you stop eating you will starve. If you don't water plants, they die. If you don't come to work, you will most likely be fired. There is a difference between punishment and consequences. However we are training our children in a way that doesn't really work in this world. When they get to the real world, if they fail, they aren't going to be allowed to try and try until they get it right.

Now some people, having found out the hard way, want the government to take care of them and coddle them the same way that schools do. The sense of entitlement is just sickening. And sometimes it happens, but it brings down society as a whole by enabling lazy people. So please forgive me if i don't think that some baby factory who cant keep her fly zipped is entitled to the fruits of my labor.

thesilence: Mentioning kids breaking in. You know whats funny, in Florida public schools the by the book punishment and classification for trespassing (generally meaning being at school at night when your not supposed to) is actually worse than brining a weapon to school (not using the weapon mind you just bringing it, be it a gun or knife, though the gun faces a separate police issue as well). No one really knows why, but I assume its because the trespassing opens the school up to liability.

/Work with a FL DOE grant, do a lot of this crap for my job.

alienchickenpie: Enjoy this misrepresenting, slightly trollish and wholly silly MS Paint, then.

I love it!!

Even if at the time I thought various teachers were steaming piles of shiate and even though I know for certain that I was a royal pain in the ass, cocky, sarcastic, nightmare of a student. I can't remember one ever giving up on me - ever. There simply isn't enough gratitude.

Sooner or later helicopter parents, coddled students, and bureaucrat principals will run out of people to blame.

/working on a Ph.D
//loves teaching
///uses red ink
//// Dr. Slashy

What's sad and pathetic is today's adults worship and idolize their children to the point of absolute ridiculousness. In the old days, kids respected their elders, did what they were told, and grew up to be strong and wise. But now the elders are expected to respect their kids, kowtow to them, and now it is to the point that it will harm today's kids in the long run. They will be full of themselves, proud, having a sense of entitlement, no humility. They will grow up and be weak and dependent. Today's kids will be woefully unprepared for the real world, and it will have a devastating effect upon the country. I can assure you of that.

Also, if you reward those who fail or do nothing, you are going to de-motivate those who are actually motivated to succeed. It's a sure path to destruction.