Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

The "snitching is bad" mentality is toxic, the "we have to stick together with people like us" mentality is beyond reprehensible, the "our freedoms are more important than your rights" idea is so wrong it's making actual liberal philosophers spin in their graves, etc etc.
There’s the possibility that our society has once again reached late prophase, and has started lining up on either side of the metaphase aisle in preparation for the ideological anaphase to begin.

And @Dei as far as the “what boy doesn’t harass women” argument is concerned...


—Patrick
 
I love living in a state with ballot measures. :facepalm:

There is a very disingenuous campaign that's been started, #YESforEd, encouraging people to vote for Proposition 305 on the November ballot.

Among other things, Prop 305 is essentially creating something called an "empowerment scholarship account" for students. Guess what the money would be for? Paying for homeschooling or sending kids to charter or private schools.

In other words, take the funding they're already fighting not to give to Public Schools in Arizona and give it to private and for-profit schools.
 
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Teacher fired for giving zeros for work not turned in. (School wanted 50% to be the minimum grade for any assignment, even if nothing is turned in)
Geez, when I was in 8th grade our math teacher gave zeroes for homework that had any mistake, even if the rest of it was right.

I also had a case last week where a parent mentioned his kid with trouble in classes kept getting pushed ahead, so he wasn't getting any help. No Child Left Behind is like when a kid is struggling in the pool, but dump water on them instead of teaching them to swim.
 
Ok, someone needs to explain how you weird, non 1-10 scale grading system works...
It went something like this:

Back in the latter half of the 20th century, somebody said "hey, those with High School degrees do better in life than those without. Let's make sure everybody can get one of those!" For a while, that was good, as they pushed resources into seeing why some were failing via causes like malnutrition, bad home lives, etc, and they worked to improve the learning capabilities of people so that more actually gained the knowledge to graduate High School.

Then the "But everyone should have a High School diploma any way possible! Look how good people do with one!" squad started up. They forgot that it had value for TWO reasons. The first is that it represented that you could actually gain a certain amount of knowledge, and some of that was quite useful in life (math, reading, communication skills, etc) to a relatively set standard. Secondly, it had value because not everybody had it! In order to achieve the goal of "everybody" having it, they had to lower standards to the point that some people graduating High School could barely read. And then because the goal of "everybody" having it was achieved, it then was also worthless, regardless of the curriculum changes that caused everybody to be able to get it, because you can't distinguish between people on an easy universal standard like that, and thus NOT having it is basically a disability, rather than having it a mark of pride and/or accomplishment.

And this is how we get to today, where even Undergraduate Degrees are losing value, because so many have them. When it was unique to have one, even a degree in Art History could get you a decent office job, since it "proved" you could do paper/desk work to get such a degree. But with so many graduates of university/college, those are also somewhat de-valued. Now the only "guarantee" of a job (with only an undergrad) is with a vocational degree, like Engineering, Nursing, or (sometimes) Teaching (often that's a Masters, and so doesn't apply the same way). And even in those, not always.

I'll give an example of that last point: I have an engineering degree, and there were stories from apparently 10-15 years before I started how the traditional "introduction" to the Engineering faculty was "Look to your left, and look to your right. If you survive, those two people will be gone." It was meant to represent the ~50% flunk (transfer out, or whatever) rate of Engineering Students after the 1st year. But the university administrators didn't like that high rate, as it made them and/or the Engineering department look bad. But they still had to hit accreditation standards (thankfully), so what did they do? They moved the "weeder" course (a course designed to "weed out" those who aren't going to make it) into SECOND year. This is REALLY BAD because if you change majors in 1st year, you still can "probably" graduate in 4 years (some summer school maybe), 5 at most. But after 1.5 or 2? If you can't cut it, you may just flunk out entirely, rather than change, or (even worse) "stick it out" just barely. The further you are down a road, the harder it is to switch, and they made it harder to switch, and so people just failed. Second-year dropout rates skyrocketed, and many didn't transfer, I mean just straight drop out. To my knowledge they haven't switched back to 1st-year-weeder yet, but I hope they have. But there's still a number of "marginal" engineers, who probably would have been better off switching out in 1st year, but were "stuck" later, and squeaked by. And that's not good.

TL; DR; Lowering standards bad.

(No hate intended on Art History grads. It's just a stereotypical target)
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I think he meant a more basic explanation.

American schools generally grade each test or assignment on a scale of 0 to 100, directly representative of the percentage of answers that are answered correctly.

90-100 is generally an A (with 95+ often being called "A+")
80-89 is a "B"
70-79 is a "C" (and is the minimum passing grade for some advanced courses)
60-69 is a "D" (and is the minimum passing grade for most basic courses)
anything below 59 is an "F," or failing grade.

The student's passing of the course is usually whether their weighted average of their assignments, tests, and the final exam (usually with increasing weight as listed) is expressed on the same scale.

Previously, it was common for any assignment that was not turned in at all to be awarded a 0, the lowest possible score.

However, as schools' graduation rate started being linked to their funding, many administrators are pressuring teachers into fudging grades so that students who would otherwise fail - instead pass and graduate.

So, they institute informal verbal policies meant to pad the grades.. IE, an assigment not turned in is now a 50 instead of a 0. That means a student who habitually does not turn in assignments can much more easily get their final grade back up to passing with less effort.

Thus, an increasing number of college professors are complaining that they are getting freshmen in their classes sometimes who lack even the most basic literacy. They. Can. Not. Read.
 

Dave

Staff member
And colleges don't help themselves by also padding grades. Especially sports team members. Never forget:

"We ain't come to play SCHOOL!"
 
And colleges don't help themselves by also padding grades. Especially sports team members. Never forget:

"We ain't come to play SCHOOL!"
/unlurk

To be fair, Cardale Jones actually went back to college and finished his degree, after he'd made bank in the NFL, when he had no need to do so. As I understand it, he originally tweeted that because he was having a bit of a tantrum after getting a B- on an exam that he thought he had aced.

Now someone come forward and prove me wrong (no, really, I mean it - if I'm wrong, tell me).

/relurk
 
I think he meant a more basic explanation.

American schools generally grade each test or assignment on a scale of 0 to 100, directly representative of the percentage of answers that are answered correctly.

90-100 is generally an A (with 95+ often being called "A+")
80-89 is a "B"
70-79 is a "C" (and is the minimum passing grade for some advanced courses)
60-69 is a "D" (and is the minimum passing grade for most basic courses)
anything below 59 is an "F," or failing grade.
Ah, so you're basically using a 0-100 system, but hiding it with letters for some reason... and you can actually get a 0. Yeah, i'll stick with 1-10, thank you very much...
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I think he also meant grade as in placement.

1st grade is 6 years old usually, so 12th grade is usually 18.
Nah, that one's pretty universal.... although you guys do really love over-categorising things in smaller and smaller chunks until you name each year of high-school...
 
Nah, that one's pretty universal.... although you guys do really love over-categorising things in smaller and smaller chunks until you name each year of high-school...
That's nothing! We give each student a different title based on their level in each class.


. . . wait. No. We did that in earlier editions of school.
 
Are Republicans all just monsters? Like, this is not me being mocking or anything, this is a serious question.
I've said it multiple times and I'll say it again: it is impossible to be a republican and a good person. If you think you're an exception, you're not.
 
Are Republicans all just monsters? Like, this is not me being mocking or anything, this is a serious question.



Also, it may be time to revisit the idea that most of the accounts that were signing on to ban the 19th amendment were really bots. If women (individual women) are stupid enough to tell their daughters that being sexually abused is no big deal, they're dumb enough to give up their right to vote.
 

Dave

Staff member
/unlurk

To be fair, Cardale Jones actually went back to college and finished his degree, after he'd made bank in the NFL, when he had no need to do so. As I understand it, he originally tweeted that because he was having a bit of a tantrum after getting a B- on an exam that he thought he had aced.

Now someone come forward and prove me wrong (no, really, I mean it - if I'm wrong, tell me).

/relurk
You are completely correct. I just love the quote and it really does encompass the attitudes of a lot of athletes.

edit: He even put the quote on his mortarboard when he graduated. :)
 
Ah, so you're basically using a 0-100 system, but hiding it with letters for some reason... and you can actually get a 0. Yeah, i'll stick with 1-10, thank you very much...
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Nah, that one's pretty universal.... although you guys do really love over-categorising things in smaller and smaller chunks until you name each year of high-school...
It really isn't, and confused me for years. The numbering in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy is all based on starting earlier and restarts somewhere partway through.
 
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