Current Events > Florida Bill Allows Students to Graduate Without Passing Algebra or English Exam

(+) Yeah! (+)

Zoks posted...

I'm shocked people find this controversial, as if the average person from Florida has a working knowledge of Algebra.

I'd be more shocked to find someone from that failure of a state, who did know algebra!

My opinion is that teaching, seriously teaching, English and Algebra to every student matters. It would be nice if the students learned it as well but they must be given the opportunity.

I think they should be allowed to graduate.

man we were pushed to study pre-calc and statistics when were in highschool to get ready for college, what in the god damn hell is going on with our education system

Zoks posted...

I'm shocked people find this controversial, as if the average person from Florida has a working knowledge of Algebra.

I had an amazing public school education in Florida in the 90s. Then Jeb Bush happened, followed by three decades and counting of shit.

Eramir posted...

man we were pushed to study pre-calc and statistics when were in highschool to get ready for college, what in the god damn hell is going on with our education system

Parental entitlement and politicians that feed into it. I have taught students who do not deserve high school diplomas. They cannot read, they cannot write a basic sentence, they cannot solve a 6th grade level equation, and they possess absolutely no critical thinking or logical reasoning skills.

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We have some kids who try so desperately to fail, yet we force them to graduate. It's sad.

Back in high school was annoying, for English & Maths we kept getting substitute teachers.

When I took my exams I ended up getting a 3 for English which is the middle grade called General, for Maths I failed and got a 7 which is a Fail, but it was appealed and I got a 6 which is Foundation.

Basically our system was

Intermediate 1 & 2 - Top Level

1 & 2 - Credit (Highest Grade)
3 & 4 - General (Middle)
5 & 6 - Foundation (Lowest Grade)
7 - Fail

I wish I had been smarter but being born with a disability really affected my development

Third-graders who score a 1 out of 5 on their third and final reading progress monitoring tests could advance to fourth grade if they scored a 2 on the first two progress-monitoring tests. A score of 3 is considered on grade level.

This is the more concerning part than passing high schoolers erroneously.

The foundation must be solid or the entire structure is at risk of collapse

wackyteen posted...

This is the more concerning part than passing high schoolers erroneously.

The foundation must be solid or the entire structure is at risk of collapse

That's pretty much the issue. Virtually every single kid in elementary school is told that they're an above-average student, when in reality, many of them are not. CNN termed this "B-flation" but it's really just grade inflation that teachers do in order to keep parents off their backs.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/15/us/child-progress-beyond-grades/index.html

Most parents would claim that they really want their kids to be held accountable for learning, but this isn't actually true - it's just what they say. The moment their kid gets a C on a report card, that attitude changes completely. For this to change, educational administrators and politicians really have to support teachers to give students what they *earn* and grade based on whether the child can achieve a certain standard, but you know that will never happen.

I can just imagine the cries of "But it's not fair to judge my kid based on a single test!! He actually understands it, he just doesn't test well!!"

To which my response is: "So your son can read...just not when we give him a test...to see whether he can read? Wow..."

Most jobs that don't require a degree, don't require algebra. Every one should know how to read and write, but those English exams derive most of their difficulty from grammar and punctuation knowledge. At least that's what always gave me the most trouble.

I think the aim of this bill is to increase graduation rates and to help students obtain employment after high school when they don't want to go to college. As long as they have the essential and basic skills they need for employment I think the bill could be a good thing depending on how it's implemented.

Sounds about right...

https://youtube.com/shorts/pTLUhW1pgd8?si=TMNVErFmnQ9mcB52

They'll be working manual labor instead.
https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/26696-florida-bill-would-let-14-year-olds-work-the-night-shift

SSj4Wingzero posted...

To which my response is: "So your son can read...just not when we give him a test...to see whether he can read? Wow..."

To be fair on this specific issue, I've seen plenty of kids do the exact same work as on the test just fine when it's not The Test. There's a performance anxiety aspect.

Yeah I could believe testing anxiety might get over-reported as an excuse for lacking aptitude, but it's definitely a real thing >_>

Evening_Dragon posted...

To be fair on this specific issue, I've seen plenty of kids do the exact same work as on the test just fine when it's not The Test. There's a performance anxiety aspect.

That can explain why a student who does everything right in class gets a 95% or a 90% or even an 85%, but there is no way that a student who really "knows everything" can score in the 40s or 50s just because of testing anxiety. It's also possible that a kid who knows it *in class* is getting prompts and hints, and likely has just learned a lesson on that very task. It's easy to solve a quadratic equation when you've just been taught how to solve a quadratic equation, but for all you know, said kid who does it well in class goes home, does absolutely no review or preparation, and then forgets what he learned by the date of the test. That means he hasn't really *mastered* the material, and his poor test score reflects that.

Kim_Seong-a posted...

Yeah I could believe testing anxiety might get over-reported as an excuse for lacking aptitude, but it's definitely a real thing >_>

Oh, it's definitely a real thing. But students who understand the material and have mastered the requisite skills do not *FAIL* tests because of test anxiety. They may score lower, and they may underperform their capabilities, but they won't FAIL, especially since the passing thresholds for many of these tests are quite low. In NY State, for example, our Algebra 1 Regents Exam (essentially a state-given 3-hour final exam) has 82 possible points on it, but you only need to get 29 of those points to pass the test. That's a literal 35%. A student who is capable and understands Algebra 1 is not going to literally get a 35% just because of test anxiety - that's not a thing. An 85% or a 90%? Sure, that's possible, and that's why we grade on more than just the final exam.

But at the end of the day, we don't do this in real life with anything else. You want a driver's license? Pass the road test. Get anxious during the test? Too fucking bad. Practice until you're not. Can't figure that out? Don't drive. That's life. I always find it to be really hilarious when the same kids who use "test anxiety" as an excuse always seem to have no issues with performance anxiety when they play a sport, or drive their cars to school.