“Education, Equity, and the 21st Century”
“Fair isn’t everybody getting the same thing. Fair is everybody getting what they need in order to be successful.” – Rick Riordan
The implementation of the K-12 curriculum in the country has introduced new and different factors and processes to compute grades: the statistical proof of the academic performance of students. The Department of Education (DepEd) has described this new system as “standards-based and competency-based”. Even though these changes have been a huge development from past programs decades ago, it does not imply that it is a balanced one to all students. With this, the current grading system should be improved or modified; it inaccurately represents a student’s intellectual capacity when it
…show more content…
8 s.2015 entitled “Policy Guidelines on Classroom Assessment for the K to 12 Basic Education Program”, the curriculum has separate standards to compute the mark of students from grades 1 to 10 from grades 11 to 12. The components of which are: written work (WW), performance tasks (PTs), and quarterly assessment (QA). The weight of these components varies from subject to subject. Only having three components and two of them being knowledge-based, it can be assumed that any other skill that does not involve memorizing and reading are not focused on. Outcomes are now more acknowledged, but are only based on the lesson at hand. This shows the limitation the current system has because of their incapability of catering to students who excel in different fields and favors those who are academically inclined and not into other focuses. An artist cannot compete with a scientist because each excel in their own fields. Virtues can be gained alongside with the recognition a student deserves for his/her talents. Having higher grades also means having more opportunities and offering seminars and proposals for future hiring, leaving those who have other talents and skill only performances and
In recent discussions of unemployment, a controversial issue has been whether a college education is worth the oppressive debt that colleges thrust upon their students. From this perspective, obtaining a preeminent education is not valued above the threat of student loans that constantly loom over the possessor. On the other hand, however, others argue that a college education constructs the building blocks for undergraduates to pursue more than just a job or career. In the words of one of this view’s main proponents, “Post secondary education should help students to discover what they love to do, to get better at it, and to develop that ability to continue learning so that they become agents of change- not victims of it,” (Roth). According to this view, secondary education develops a student’s ability to rise above change and are not lost to its enormous list of victims.
Mike Rose details the faults of the education system in a piece concerning his own personal experiences. His high school education was radically changed when his school swapped his test scores with the scores of a student with the same last name. The system depended upon test scores to determine the path of classes that individual students must take, and due to the weak performance reflected in Mike Rose’s alleged scores, he was placed on the vocational path. Unfortunately, the vocational path was implied to be the lowest tier of classes in the school - so despite Rose’s natural intelligence, he was placed within remedial classes due to the IQ within his file.
This is a key part in schools today because it’s enforcing a higher bar of achievement for teachers and students (Catapano, 2018). Implementing standards into a school system that are internationally benchmarked means all states and countries have a way of measuring their academic performance. They can use this also as a tool to compile scores and understand the weaknesses to improve students’ knowledge. This provides teachers with various ways to assess their students more frequently through observations and informal assessments to understand the student’s comprehension level of the lesson material. It will help the teachers to strive to improve her test scores by adapting lesson materials to the needs of each
Grade inflation is a reality throughout the United States. This means that students are being awarded with higher grades than they deserve or worked for. This phenomenon is affecting the quality of education throughout the country. Students insist on getting ‘’their money's worth’’ when it comes to receiving grades. Teachers don’t want to be nagged by students and administration for low grades.
Grinberg also points out the varying opinions given by parents of the new systems; consequently, a couple of parents are seeing the benefits to the detailed insight and a couple of other parents claim they rather keep the letter grades. In the end of the article, Grinberg acknowledges the common goal schools that use the new grading system have with the schools that rely on traditional report cards, the common goal schools share is to use a system that communicates to the parents on student learning on an ongoing basis and see academic progress among the students. As a student who went through years in the education system using a grading system that integrated both the traditional based system like report cards and standard based system with teacher commentaries, it would be ideal if there was a system that balances the traditional grading system and the standard based system. A combined system would provide parents the convenience that the standard based system provides with the use of technology and detailed feedback with communication between parents and teacher while maintaining the letter
This new assessment tool had two major impacts. First, the expectations for individual students were raised by increasing the difficulty of the material on the assessment—no longer were the tests considered minimal skills tests. Passing each of the reading, writing and mathematics components of the grade 10 test, also known as the exit-level exam, was a requirement for receiving a high school diploma in the state. Second, schools were also held to higher standards with the expectation that not only the campus as whole but the specific subpopulations (African-American, Caucasian, Hispanic, and Economically Disadvantaged) had to achieve minimal standards. Passing rates on these standardized exams, along with attendance and drop-out data were used to assign schools accountability ratings with severe repercussions mandated for schools that were placed at the low end of the accountability scale (Texas Education Agency et al.,
In “From Degrading to De-Grading,” Alfie Kohn criticizes current grading systems and their alleged harm to students. Kohn first lists three main problems with grading and then adds seven more. In summary, grading results in students showing little interest in learning, students choosing easier assignments, and less creative students (p. 254-255). The next seven points expose grading as unreliable, distracting, and tedious. Grading also incites cheating and ruins relationships between students and teachers (p. 255-257).
Levine claims that schools are starting to expand the quality of the student body by the rate of the students standardized test (22). Colleges are not looking to get students who do not apply themselves, but also, colleges are making it harder for the poor students that are trying to better their education. Along the same lines, Graff reminds us of the competition of comparing test scores in school (249). Graff explains, in school scores are made up by one’s reading ability, instead of, like in sports, the actual competition itself or arguing (249). Overall schools are using test scores as a way to compete with education instead of looking out for the best interests of the
Although the common belief is that certain aspects of school are important for an ideal education for all students, the main problems that need to be rectified as soon as possible include the lettered grading system and test scores as the main measure of achievement as well as a lack of disciplined and motivated in teachers who do their jobs correctly in order for their students to reach their full potential and excel in life. Out of all the issues with American education today, one of the most overvalued yet problematic for students is the grades and scores that represent their classroom proficiency and content knowledge. It is true that today, in the United States, the easiest and seemingly most reliable way to track student performance and rank schools by quality of education is by simply marking students based on their scores on assignments and assessments done in school or on standardized exams designed to measure mastery of content, and by comparing and analyzing the
Have you ever wondered how grades actually do help students throughout their career in school? Yes, many do believe grades do not help, can cause stress to students overall making them perform at a lesser level and sometimes some believe that school isn’t even needed at all in a child’s life. Grades can affect a student’s learning and constant low grades can bring them down and their mindset of just being a below average student. However, grades do help students by showing the student’s progress in school whether they are doing good or bad and grades give a goal to get a better grade by trying harder to get that grade a student wants. First, grades show progress to everyone besides just the student.
They lack the indication of students’ knowledge as they are only a depiction of their effort. Absences, laziness, and disengagements are just a few of the factors of why grades are a poor representation of students’ intellectual capacity. While others may argue that grades motivate them, it is not genuinely correct since grades encourage
There is a third reason which is the Most important reason, is to get a great picture of the cultural diversity of the United States of America. Knowledge of others, their cultures, their sciences and way of life, is useful for learning about a new culture. Some cultures have good qualities and bad recipes, or perhaps do not fit the nature of our lives. For example, my presence in America has made me learn a lot of American cultures that if I find them in my country and may be useful to me or in raising my children such as opening the door to the person walks behind me, honestly I like this behavior which I miss this in my country. In general, the idea of quoting the culture that suits our societies may help us to develop from the reality of our lives.
To what extent is Education responsible for poverty and misery? Education is one of the few things a person is willing to pay for and not get. William Lowe Bryan (1860–1955) 10th president of Indiana University (1902 to 1937). Education is one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought. Bertrand A. Russell (1872-1970)
Change is occurring in society at a rapid speed. Change may be described as the adoption of an innovation (Carlopio 1998), where the ultimate goal is to improve outcomes through an alteration of practices. The above saying can truly be applied on the modern education system. The society in the twenty first century is increasingly diverse, globalized, and complex and media-saturated. In today’s world of technology, the olden education system with its teacher-centered approach, passive learning, time based, textbook driven, fragmented curriculum, low expectations from the learner does not seem to cater to the learning needs of twenty first century students.
As we can notice traditional classroom cannot longer satisfy the needs of education in the 21st- century. So we have to make radical changes in order to create the classroom that will motivate students to learn. Teachers today teach using different pedagogical approaches and various instructional methods. According to fact that our educational system is changed with the help of technology the 21st -century classroom should be a productive environment where students can develop the skills they will need in workplace. The modern 21st-century classrooms should encourage students to develop their high order thinking skills.