LA School Districts lowers standards to let failing students graduate

a reply to: Vasa Croe

No, they are reverting the standards back to where they were. Students across the country graduate with D averages all the time.

Like I said earlier, the standards as they were, were punishing students for doing the bare minimum. Naturally someone shouldn't strive to achieve the bare minimum, but that shouldn't mean you punish them for hitting it. The C average requirement for those specific classes was ONLY so they could qualify for those colleges. This isn't fair to students who won't be going to college.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: Vasa Croe

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: Vasa Croe

All it is doing is delaying the inevitable of them failing again.

Maybe, maybe not.

Not everyone is great in school, doesn't mean they will fail in life.
Wonder how many of these graduates are going to go into the military, or get construction jobs.

Or who will go into a community college for a couple years and be able to mature and do school right.

Do we want to close the doors on them or keep some open?

Oh..meant to add that construction and military do not require a high school degree.

As ex-military, I can tell you that you are 100% wrong on that. You need at least a GED to join the military.

Correct....a high school diploma is not required....a GED will suffice.

You also need a waiver if you have GED btw. With a diploma you can just walk into a recruitment office and sign your life away (provided you can get a 30 or better on the ASVAB of course). With a GED, there is a risk you won't be able to sign up if you can't get the waiver.

When I was in school, nobody got F's..... We got E's instead lol true story.....

We're missing the important part of these CA students education though.

They know how to use gender neutral bathrooms.

That is what is really important in Obama's America.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the common core requirements for graduation these days. When I was in High school in the late 80's general math sufficed for a diploma, there were two tracks... college track and graduation track. In the college track in the mid 80's the highest math was Algebra 2 taught at my high school, if you surpassed Algebra 2 then it was Trig but you had to go off campus to a local college class for that... fast forward 20 years, no tracks and Algebra 2 is being taught in middle school, Trig and Calculus in junior and senior high... for ALL kids and this is required to graduate. Now if you have no plans on college for whatever reason? Why are kids being expected to learn Calculus as a common core to earn a diploma?

Bear in mind my degree field is in engineering... before retiring when I worked in engineering, wanna know how much Trig and Calculus I used? Which is a field heavy in it's use? ZERO. All the math I learned? I needed none of it to do my job... why? Because the computer calculated all of that as I designed things... never need to know Trig because you could snap a line from a given length of X and Y hit another button and poof everything you could possibly ever need to know about the angle, area right there in an instant... then forces acting on objects? Same thing plug in the materials planned for construction... and poof it would highlight the weak spots give failure rates etc.

The only thing that makes sense to me, as to why children are being expected to learn such high level maths they will never ever use in the work place... sounds more like an insurance policy. If calculators and computers were to suffer some sort of future non-existence where they couldn't be used? Then such mathematical requirement makes a little sense. Barring such an event though? Learning high level math in high school, is absolutely pointless for the average student that is being subjected to it in order to earn a degree... I didn't even have to touch but one Trig problem in college because my professor deemed it pointless in the digital age and he re-vamped the whole college degree program around technological advancement, I only had to step into the math department to test out of the required math that(in a booming voice) "Rounds out an individual."

So there's that.

a reply to: maddy21

I think we should do what some European countries do. Send students to either college or to trade schools based on early aptitude tests.
Not everybody can be a doctor or scientist. We do need electricians, mechanics...so on.

originally posted by: MoreBeer
We're missing the important part of these CA students education though.

They know how to use gender neutral bathrooms.

That is what is really important in Obama's America.

There are advantages to having a socially conscious population. Sometimes those advantages outweigh a more academically rigorous curriculum. We have to interact with each other much more often than we have to look at the world from the perspective of Plato or Voltaire.

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
Bear in mind my degree field is in engineering... before retiring when I worked in engineering, wanna know how much Trig and Calculus I used? Which is a field heavy in it's use? ZERO. All the math I learned? I needed none of it to do my job... why? Because the computer calculated all of that as I designed things... never need to know Trig because you could snap a line from a given length of X and Y hit another button and poof everything you could possibly ever need to know about the angle, area right there in an instant... then forces acting on objects? Same thing plug in the materials planned for construction... and poof it would highlight the weak spots give failure rates etc.

Respectfully I completely disagree. My college background is a little diverse but what it's all building up towards is building computer games. I interact with computers on a daily basis, from things like Maya (which you may be familiar with) and AutoCAD (which I'm certain you're familiar with) to writing algorithms that determine the location of one object to another. I actually use Trig on a near daily basis and can see it's applications in real life.

While it's true that computers can often times give us the answer (if we can correctly identify the problem) a failing of the general population is that they treat technology as magic. Remote controls, smart phones, calculators, and all the rest. There are real physical properties behind each of these objects, and using them in the optimal fashion requires knowing these facts.

Time permitting I like to play video games, not only are they fun but they are great research for what I hope to be my eventual job. One of the games I've played recently is Divinity Original Sin. Divinity is a perfect example of what happens when you have poorly educated people build a product. As a programmer there are a lot of little nuances I notice in the mechanics of the game that were not written well where the designers clearly were not well versed in mathematics.

A more practical example would be setting up spreadsheets. Trig and calculus can play an important part in building your formulas. Spreadsheets are probably the most powerful software on the planet yet many people lack the math skills to truly utilize their potential.

The bottom line in my mind is this, digital devices operate on the language of math, in order to truly use them it becomes important to speak that language.

a reply to: Aazadan

AutoCad, Inventor, Solidworks to be more specific. I drew everything from scratch or converted old drawings into electronic ones. I was taught how to bypass trig and calc when drawing if they were needed... can't recall exactly what my professor termed it as, but it was a lot like transferring objects via "ghost" lines. You can make a specific framework using transferred lines to solve whatever problem you need too. I know not every curriculum teaches this as practice... and I'm not arguing it's practical application.

However, go find a McDonalds manager and ask him/her to solve a trig or calc problem... they will tell you they either can't or don't need it to do their job. That's the point I was making... that's not to say a McDonalds manager couldn't use math to solve a problem that could benefit the restaurant... they simply, don't need to know it to do their job. When I worked in construction before college; if I sat down and started to calculate how big of a hole I needed to dig for a tree that was going in it... I'd have been chided to drop the paper, grab a shovel and start digging.

Much work in these sorts of fields are estimations when a size or amount is unknown, a standard or already pre-measured... the reality is people just don't sit down and try to find X because they don't need too... so why make it a standard they need to know how in order to graduate HS... it's HS, where it should be every day practical math, unless the student makes an elective choice for higher math? It's not only impractical it's a realistic absurdity.