They say it’s the journey, not the destination
What could possibly go wrong?:
[NYC] Chancellor Richard Carranza’s new grading policy bars failing grades. Students will be marked “in progress” or “incomplete,” even if they’ve done no work at all, writes Sanzi.
One of the many reasons for despising the brainless and worthless de Blasio (not to mention his equally corrupt wife), currently in the process of destroying our republic’s greatest city, is that he actually chose to hire the thoroughly incompetent and grotesquely unqualified Carranza for such an important post. It is yet further proof, as though any were needed, that “progressives” invariably destroy every single institution or organization over which they manage to attain control.
Have a gander at Richard Carranza’s education and professional history. His tertiary education is bereft of liberal learning bar some distribution credits. There’s no indication he has any trade education at all. Since American schools believe in credentials and not education, he was deemed suitable to teach music and ‘social studies’. All of his degrees have been from teacher-training programs. He hasn’t been a working teacher in 20 years or more and he hasn’t stayed more than about 4 years in any of the succession of administrative jobs he’s had. This man was never a pedagogue. He’s a resume and an interview subject.
NB, this trashy apparatchik is what the worthless Mayor diBlasio wants in charge of the schools. New York City’s feckless electorate is getting it good and hard.
incompetent and grotesquely unqualified Carranza for such an important post.
You realize in the bubble world of school apparats and teacher-training programs, he’s deemed supremely well qualified.
Terrible idea – meritocracy depends on measurement.
Possible long term, maybe mid term (but NOT short term) answer – better on-line AI based competency testing. So people who want to hire you can test you, somewhat reliably and accurately, without depending on your grades.
Of course SAT / ACT did that for colleges. Many of these woke indoctrination centers are getting rid of such tests.
Republicans failed, disastrously, to fight for better education with their own bodies becoming teachers and professors and especially ed administrators.
“Excelsior” is the motto of NY State, I believe, not NYC.
In any event, it no longer applies to either.
I take some schadenfreude in NYC’s progressive decline. It was self-induced, and it will be permanent. Social workers instead of cops! So much for the so-very-successful “broken windows” policing, never to be seen again. You will note that “non-Hispanic whites” are a minority in the City. POC gave DeBlasio his primary victory, and I cannot help but think they deserve the consequences.
The days of cops and firefighters running up 86 flights of WTC stairs on 9/11 will not return. Let her burn!
As I understand it, and COVID rationales to the contrary, these new grading policies and the rejection of SAT/ACT tests are about “equity.”
As long as grades and test scores are important in college admissions, those of the wrong racial backgrounds — whites and asians — will be represented in higher proportional numbers than blacks and hispanics in college.
You realize Carranza is paid $345,000 a year plus bennies. He’s a rent-seeker unacquainted with the productive economy.
And recall Thos. Sowell’s remark about schoolteachers and administrators: many of them identify with mediocre students because they themselves were mediocre students.
You need grades and test scores to tolerably tell students how well they’re mastering the material and to indicate to them what might be the optimal use of their time and effort. Carranza does not believe in personal accomplishment, nor does he believe that the function of schools is to impart knowledge and skills. He believes the function of schools is to provide employment for people who wish to work as teachers and school administrators. The rest is just a hook.
Steve Jobs motivated his team developing the original Macintosh computer by saying, “The Journey is the Reward.”
I don’t know that it made a difference to the Mac team, who were like the Beatles to me. They were all bright, talented, competitive and on fire to change the world with a new computer. They were past needing grades beyond seeing their impact and, not to be overlooked, taking down a nice chunk of stock options.
Art Deco wrote, “You need grades and test scores to tolerably tell students how well they’re mastering the material and to indicate to them what might be the optimal use of their time and effort.”
This!
I really like learning and talking about history. But, I’m glad that a C- told me that I won’t get a job as a historian.
Will all those prestige schools like Harvard etc accept that you are “in progress” or “incomplete,?”
I see you’ve done some good work here but can you explain the 2 in progress and 2 incompletes!
huxley,
The “as long as” days are over. Now it is about systemic racism, as Biden himself says, not merit in any form. Blacks are pouring out of the nation’s medical schools (please do not tell me they have suddenly zoomed up in IQ and merit!), and systemic racism is the great battle, though 90% of leftist “warrior” administrators fighting for black “rights” are white.
Regarding citation of Sowell in this regard: I am reminded of his fundamental dictum that prices convey information – and I think he would say that this is the essential function of prices from an economic point of view – to communicate relative values at any given moment. Extrapolating from his line of argument concerning what happens when prices are restricted, manipulated, etc., I think he would say that grades in school play a similar role. It is interesting to work out the consequences of this line of thought for education policy.
Examples: restriction/manipulation of grades – what effects will/would/does this have on the school as an information ecosystem? I mean that one could consider the whole range of grades as indications of information about students and their relationship to the material being taught, although it strikes me that the fact that there are supposed to be, at least in STEM classes, objective right-wrong answers implies that, in those types of ‘sub-environments’ (academic microclimates?!), the economist’s position that there is basically no such thing as a “correct” price for anything in any absolute sense can’t be extended to apply to this part of the analogy.
But to get back to my example… what is the economic consequence of price manipulation? I think it must be misallocation of resources, at least immediately. Higher-order effects being… what? Sowell uses numerous illustrative examples, such as rent control. I’d have to review his chapter on that from Basic Economics, which I’m disinclined to do because I’m just brainstorming right now, but let’s just posit that there will be higher-order effects as a consequence of the immediate misallocation (which might not remain merely immediate, of course).
What is the equivalent in the educational world? I suppose it could go in different directions. Inaccurate feedback on the relative values of students’ investment of time and effort, which is basically what Art Deco and AppleBetty said above… but there is also an effect on the teacher’s time and energy, because maybe a teacher or guidance counselor sees this incorrect grade and draws a false conclusion from it as far as how to counsel or further work with the student. (I assume the teacher who gave that grade is not going to be thus deceived – it seems to me that this scenario is applicable to the student’s other teachers in different classes, or maybe to future teachers of that student in later grades or institutions further down the line.)
Thus, in school grades, there is feedback (true or otherwise) on the student’s performance, but implicitly maybe also on the expectations for the teacher or maybe guidance counselor, etc. – in short, on further parts of the educational system. I am not sure that the economic/monetary analogy operates in quite the same way, with this bi-directional feedback of sorts. I’d have to think about it more.
Progressives… marching firmly into a future idiocracy.
Not that the children of our elitist oligarchy will suffer.
Venezuela is the model, 85% poor, 10% thugs and 5% ruling.
The first thing Chavez did upon being voted into real power was confiscate Venezuelan’s guns.
They’ll try it here and that’s when the SHTF.
Looks like the college will do anything to continue taking money from students for worthless degrees.
Journey before destination.
Don’t worry children of mankind, I got this.
Richard Carranza ; another example of the incredibly ignorant and stupid products of the schools of “education.” He is originally from Arizona so I will speculate – without any evidence whatsoever – that he has a strong affinity for the policies of La Raza.
This policy will ENCOURAGE students to make zero efforts, producing many more illiterate, ignorant and totally unskilled “graduates.”
Frankly, these students will never graduate- when they will turn 18 and all their grades are “incomplete” they will simply drop out of school .
Job openings for them will be limited due to their lack of any skills and their ignorance.
Nothing wrong with “blue collar” type jobs, but what this policy does is make it much more difficult to attain jobs outside of this job sector.
100 years ago, there were many many laborer-type jobs that immigrants could find. After all the USA was a growing nation and there was no such thing as automation.
This no-fail policy is intended to produce – in the long run – a disaffected class of citizens who will be susceptible to the propaganda of groups like ANTIFA, BLM, CPUSA, etc.
It’s all intentional.
The other result will be that teachers will pay even more attention to the good students and basically write-off the bad ones. Teachers only need grade incomplete and he/she is off the hook. Very convenient and the school ‘administrators” will not ask any questions.
It is amazing that the liberal progressive policies directed at black and hispanic groups serve to promote and encourage the social pathologies endemic to these groups. We now have seen the results of 50 years of programs of this sort; all having a 1000% perfect record of failure.
One can only conclude that the goal of these programs is to maintain those in the lowest socio-economic classes.
I await Senor Carranza, upon retirement, to move into a nice big home on Martha’s Vineyard, so he can attend the same cocktail parties attended by the Obamas. They can then all commiserate together about the racist USA – along with Ofra and Beyonce .
There are two sides to the supporters of this:
The ideologically idealistic; Paving the road to hell with good intentions.
The puppet masters; The dumbing down of youth is not a bug but a feature.
The ignorant and emotion driven are easily controlled.