SOUTH CAROLINA: ‘A kick in the pants’: SC bill banning minimum grades in schools advances in House
COLUMBIA — A bill that would prohibit school districts from giving students a minimum grade rather than the grade they earned advanced Tuesday in the House.
A unanimous vote sent the proposal to the full House education committee, with Rep. Terry Alexander, D-Florence, not voting. Along with banning so-called grading floors, the bill would ban schools from considering benchmark tests as part of a student’s grade and require students finish all their work before making up class credit.
“It’s going to make grades matter again,” said Rep. Fawn Pedalino, a Turbeville Republican who sponsored the bill.
Local school districts make their own grading policies, so not every district in the state has a grading floor.
The state education department doesn’t keep track of how many require an automatic minimum grade. At least 22 of the 74 traditional public school districts in the state do, according to the Palmetto Promise Institute, which looked at district websites and asked school boards in an attempt to discern differences in grading policies.
Some schools won’t let students receive a grade of less than 50 on assignments, while others set a minimum of 50 on quarterly report cards. Some district policies depend on a student’s grade level, with grading floors set for younger students but not high schoolers. Some set floors for the first two- to three quarters before making students earn their grades, said Ryan Dellinger, Palmetto Promise Institute’s director of education policy.
In South Carolina, a passing grade starts at 60, which is a D.
It’s “ludicrous,” said Rep. Jeff Bradley, a Hilton Head Island Republican who leads the subcommittee.
Regardless of how schools do it, setting a grading floor creates a lower expectation for students, said Patrick Kelly, lobbyist for the Palmetto State Teachers Association.
Many students will do the bare minimum amount of work they need to pass. When a school has a grade floor, that might mean a student does nothing at all, Kelly said.
Teachers tell Kelly, who also teaches advanced government classes, about students who pass after doing “literally nothing” all year, he said. No matter what those teachers do to try and engage with the students, a child who knows they’ll pass no matter what isn’t going to try, Kelly said.
“We are teaching bad habits with grade floors and diminishing the capacity of a grade to accurately report what the students know and can do,” Kelly said.
More students may graduate under the lower standards, but they’re less prepared for what comes next, Kelly said. State data reflected that trend this year, when more students graduated than in the past decade but a quarter remained unprepared for college or the workforce.
The bill, if passed, would come with growing pains for the first few years, Kelly said. Grades would drop. Schools would have to hold back more students. Fewer would graduate.
But the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term costs, Kelly said.
When Tonya Shellnutt’s son, now a student at The Citadel, was in fifth grade, he told her he didn’t need to study because his teacher would let him retake his test five times, she said. The Rock Hill mother of five saw her usually studious child sink to the expectations set for him, just as she anticipated students would sink to the grade floors set for them, she said.
“Real life does not give you endless do-overs without consequences,” Shellnutt said. “Your boss doesn’t. The military doesn’t.”
Under the bill, if a student wanted to repeat a class they failed to make up the credit, they would have to turn in all their assignments on time, showing they actually tried instead of blowing off class in hopes of an easier makeup course. That would not apply to makeup work given to students who have to miss class for an extended period of time because of illness or a death in the family, Pedalino said.
Sometimes, students struggle in school because they’re going through difficult times at home, said Rep. James Teeple. That can be a reason for schools to work with students, but it shouldn’t be an excuse for a student to not try at all, he said.
And for students who just don’t want to do the work, getting a zero on an assignment might spur them into putting in some effort, he said.
“A lot of the time, it’s a kick in the pants these kids need, and this bill is a kick in the pants,” Teeple said.
The bill would also prohibit schools from using benchmark tests meant to gauge where students are at in their learning for the year as part of a student’s grade.
Some schools will use those tests instead of regular midterms, but based on how far students are into the year, they may not have even learned all the information, Pedalino said.
“It’s killing kids’ GPAs,” Pedalino said.
–www.scdailygazette.com
