At what point did learning in school become just about making the grade?

I teach in the First Grade. One of my kids' parens is German. She tells me that they had to declare a double major in HIGH SCHOOL and pass final exams which were essay-style not multiple choice.

 

We actually have 4.5 or some such now
Just like I think the SAT is 2400

Making them a bigger number makes them seem SOOOO MUCH MORE IMPRESSIVE

Rocket River

 

Actually America is getting a lot more competitive despite what you hear. Admission rates are going down. A bachelors is now as good as a high school degree.

Before 4.0 was ok, now you better be in all ap classes so you can get a 6.0.

 

4.0 . . .6.0 . . .why not 1000.0
Those numbers really don't mean much

Rocket River

 

Gotta start dropping some links and stats, man; right now you're just grousing about young people.

 

The 5.0's and 6.0's just distinguish (and incentivize) the Honors and AP classes and keep star athletes from looking like morons in local news articles. The schools still rank the class by GPA, so we can probably get off the rage train.

 

SAT added a third section, hence the 2400.

 

I went to a pretty competitive highschool and took bio as my first college major.

Those AP and honors classes weren't easy, and my only regret was not taking calculus in high school since I would've aced that ****er in college.

So if the school ain't great and you know it, you can rectify that for your children from facing the same thing with a little research and pre-planning

 

For all the lip service given to education in this country, it's only really important to people to the extent that it gets people jobs.

The vast majority of people really aren't all that interested in learning.

 

Bingo!

Rocket River

 

Speaking only about college and universities I think that it all became about the grades as there has become less social mobility for the 99%.

Having the unbelievable luck to have started college during the 1960's, the peak of American prosperity (sorry anti-government types of whatever persuasion) things were different.

1) Fewer went to college and jobs were more plentiful so you did not have to worry about getting a job so much.

2) No need to worry if your grade point was not the highest.

3) Tuition in real terms was only about 20% of what it is now. You could afford to take your time or take extra hours if something interested you.
Because of this you could easily work your way through or drop out or graduate without crushing loans. If you took loans, they were deferred longer, interest did not accumulate till you graduated and interest was lower.


4) Minimum wage was quite a bit higher in terms of purchasing power, so if you dropped out without a degree for awhile you could survive without going back to mom and dad.

5) It was easier to get PhD's and the professors were more open to experimenting as they, too, had it easier especially to get tenure. They did not have to run so scared, be so political and careful and too busy often times to relax with students.

Some of this has been due to deliberate decisions by corporate types who try to control education to make its main function be to produce good obedient boys and girls that need minimal technical training or socialization to fit into their profit making goals. Some is just the result of America becoming a third world nation in general with hoards of highly educated waiters and cab drivers who failed to make the highest grades in engineering or business or medicine.

In this type of society, who can afford to make education about anything but making the grades in certain approved majors.

 

Those numbers means a lot.
In my D's district, a max score in Honors/ Pre-AP/ AP classes earns you a 6.0.
A max score in regular classes earns you a 5.0.

In other word, a 100 in regular classes is equivalent to a 90 in the more advanced classes.

 

Totally disagree with Glynchs post, no time our care to go in to why. It ain't like what it used to be for many other reasons.

Have an expensive lib arts degree thadeus?

 

My thing is .. .those kids making the 5.0s
in the AP Classes etc
would have been the 4.0s and top of their classes anyway

So basically they made the 'regular' classes a bit dumber
then created a 'next tier' class

it's moving the pepperoni around the pizza
still the same but only looks different

Rocket River

 

I'm not sure how making a 'next tier' class dumbs down the existing class

 

We were on the 4.0 scale still. They gave us 5 points to our final grade for AP and 3 points for honors.

Why don't we all just live on 100% scale?

 

all that matters is getting a degree nowadays.