Patrick Seitz

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June 30, 2003

Homework? Maybe next week...

Apparently, it's more important to pad grades, shuffle underachievers along and have everybody feel good than it is to expect middle-schoolers to turn in their homework on time. Four local middle schools have adopted a "no-zero" policy, in which students are given carte blanche to just turn in their assignments whenever with no loss of points for being late.

"Oh, Patrick," you chuckle. "You're quite the kidder."

I only wish I were. Here's the Press-Enterprise article about it.

And here's what I rattled off to the Letters to the Editor section. I could have gone on for much longer, mind you, but I figured my chances of publication fell with every extra sentence. We'll see if it makes the cut.

Under a new “no-zero” policy (The Press-Enterprise, June 29), students at Chemawa, Gage, Central, and Earhart Middle Schools are apparently given chances ad infinitum to made up their missed homework.

In a quote about the “no-zero” policy—vaguely attributed to either Gage Principal David Hansen or Chemawa Principal Susan Baltagi—somebody said, “We expect kids at Chemawa to go to college. If they don’t get their work done, they’re not going to have the opportunity to get the grade point average to go to college. They’re not bad kids. They just have bad habits.”

Not turning in homework is a bad habit, indeed—one that will not be catered to by high school teachers or college professors. If administrators at these middle schools really want to ensure their students’ future academic success, they’ll stop teaching them that deadlines and due dates are things to be blithely ignored. They might as well hold their students to some standard of personal responsibility. After all, the rest of the world will.

My girlfriend ribbed me a bit about getting all steamed over this, what with my no longer being a teacher and such. Still, she admitted that the idea of these schools embracing this policy set her teeth on edge, too. As I told her a few days ago, when it comes to education, I feel like the cop who quits the force to pursue the doling out of justice as a lone vigilante--out of the game officially, but still very much interested and involved. Of course, many of the comic-book lone heroes had A) the sporadic sidekick, B) a disposable fortune to dedicate towards gadget R&D, C) a magical artifact, or D) a unique reaction to Earth's yellow sun. Only the last one applies to me, and my particular reaction to Earth's yellow sun is anything but heroic.

Posted by patrick at June 30, 2003 02:07 AM

Comments

So, let me get this straight -- the policy is designed to help these lazy little wankers get into college, when their poor performance at turning in assignments on time belies their unworthiness for college?

Yeah, I'd love it if the real world worked like this. "Gosh, boss. I know that those tax forms were due to the IRS fifteen days after the end of the last quarter, but I forgot to do them. What the hell, let's just turn 'em in next month."

"Heh heh. Well, Miss Winston, I could have done that hysterectomy while we had you all cut open, but I got distracted and forgot. Let's say we just reschedule another surgery. Say... oh... whenever."

"We have the proof that Sadam has weapons of mass desctruction. And we'll show it to you. One of these days. Uh... when we find it. If, uh... the dog didn't eat it or something..."

'Tis a sad world indeed when people's weaknesses and failings become protected entities, hence no one is ever required to better themself. End result? We get exactly what we deserve -- a society of lazy, willfully stupid people who expect everything to be handed to them in exchange for nothing.

Gack...

Posted by: Jon Bastian at June 30, 2003 09:26 AM

When, oh, when will the country's school start being run by people who have half a shread of knowledge about what REALLY happens inside our classrooms? Kids will only give you as much as you expect of them and if you don't expect that they do their work on time, guess what? Nobody will. And of course grades will go up when kids are led by the hand through completing their homework. Part of the reason homework is graded at all is to encourge people to do it. I propose that is every kid gets all the chances they want to do homework, fine. But let's not make the homework worht any points. Instead, let's base the grade only one the tests and project grades that are going to be *SO* much better now that kids are being walked through their homework. Watch those grades and test scores crash! And while you're doing that, why don't you put some more baby bottles on the stove for all those middle schoolers who can't do anything for themselves...

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