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Seattle Students Could Graduate With a D Average
09/17/2009
Soon, public school students in Seattle could graduate high school with a D average. The Seattle School Board considered the change last night (Wednesday).
Parents who spoke about it at the school board meeting were not impressed. Especially with this part: a D average would also let kids participate in extracurricular activities, like sports.
Right now, students have to get a C average to graduate and to play sports. And Juanita Galloway told the board that requirement is the reason her son is doing well now.
Galloway: "If it hadn't been that we told him that he wouldn't play unless he got his grades, he wouldn't have gone on to Whitman College and played basketball, gone on to the University of Cincinnati, and he's now an emergency physician. But he wouldn't be now if he was allowed to just slide through."
But another member of the public said if a D counts as passing, it should count for graduation. The school board is also considering changes that would make graduation harder in a way.
Right now, when a student fails a class, it doesn't drag down their grade point average, or GPA. The school board is considering a change that would average those zeroes into the GPA.
Honors students would get a bonus: their honors classes would get a bump worth half a grade point. The citizen who approved of the D–standard pointed out that this change would create two classes of students — those who have the potential earn GPAs above 4.0, and those who don't.
The school board plans to vote on the changes next month.
I'm Phyllis Fletcher, KUOW News.
© Copyright 2009, KUOW
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Seattle Students Could Graduate With a D Average
This is beyond absurd to me. And here I thought a C average was already too easy, especially given the current state of education in this country for primary education. When I was in high school, all you had to do to get an A' was do your home work and turn in your notes. I saw so many people getting good grades with this simple solution. From talking to them, I doubt they learned any thing, but at least they did the work to get the grades and graduate. I was one of those kids who barely did anything in high school and even then I still graduated with a B- average. I'm not proud of it so this is not bragging but rather pointing out how easy it all was. I can't see anything positive out of this. It's a permission to be even more lazy if this pass. Low expectation will produce poor results.
Are kids nowadays really that dumb that we have to resort to this?
What was your graduation requirement? Did you fail, meet, or exceed it?